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Following the Good River: The Life and Times of Wa'xaid
By Briony Penn. 2020
Based on recorded interviews and journal entries this major biography of Cecil Paul (Wa’xaid) is a resounding and timely saga…
featuring the trials, tribulations, endurance, forgiveness, and survival of one of North America’s more prominent Indigenous leaders. Born in 1931 in the Kitlope, Cecil Paul, also known by his Xenaksiala name, Wa’xaid, is one of the last fluent speakers of his people’s language. At age ten he was placed in a residential school run by the United Church of Canada at Port Alberni where he was abused. After three decades of prolonged alcohol abuse, he returned to the Kitlope where his healing journey began. He has worked tirelessly to protect the Kitlope, described as the largest intact temperate rainforest watershed in the world. Now in his late 80s, he resides on his ancestors’ traditional territory.Following upon the success of Wa'xaid's own book of personal essays, Stories from the Magic Canoe, Briony Penn's major biography of this remarkable individual will serve as a timely reminder of the state of British Columbia's Indigenous community, the environmental and political strife still facing many Indigenous communities, and the philosophical and personal journey of a remarkable man.Wa'xaid passed away at the age of 90 on December 3, 2020.Prozac Diary
By Lauren Slater. 1998
The author of the acclaimed Welcome to My Country describes in this provocative and funny memoir the ups and downs…
of living on Prozac for ten years, and the strange adjustments she had to make to living "normal life." Today millions of people take Prozac, but Lauren Slater was one of the first. In this rich and beautifully written memoir, she describes what it's like to spend most of your life feeling crazy--and then to wake up one day and find yourself in the strange state of feeling well. And then to face the challenge of creating a whole new life. Once inhibited, Slater becomes spontaneous. Once terrified of maintaining a job, she accepts a teaching position and ultimately earns several degrees in psychology. Once lonely, she finds love with a man who adores her. Slater is wonderfully thoughtful and articulate about all of these changes, and also about the downside of taking Prozac: such matters as dependency, sexual dysfunction, and Prozac "poop-out." "The beauty of Lauren Slater's prose is shocking," said Newsday about Welcome to My Country, and Slater's remarkable gifts as a writer are present here in sentences that are like elegant darts, hitting at the center of the deepest human feelings. Prozac Diary is a wonderfully written report from inside a decade on Prozac, and an original writer's acute observations on the challenges of living modern life.Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg: The Extraordinary Story of the Arctic 30
By Ben Stewart. 2015
The true story of Greenpeace activists imprisoned in Russia—and the fight to free them: &“A gripping story of tremendous courage…
that reads like a thriller&” (Naomi Klein). &“The most important prison motto is hope for the better, but every moment, literally every moment, be prepared for the worst. Don&’t hope, don&’t fear, don&’t beg.&” —Roman Dolgov, one of the Arctic 30 With rising temperatures, a military arms race, and a multi-national rush to exploit resources at any cost, the Arctic is now the stage on which our future will be decided. As the ice melts, Vladimir Putin orders Russia&’s oil rigs to move further north. But one early September morning in 2013, thirty men and women from eighteen countries—the crew of Greenpeace&’s Arctic Sunrise—decided to draw a line in the ice and protest Arctic drilling. Thrown together by a common cause, they are determined to stop Putin and the oligarchs. But their protest is met with brutal force as Russian commandos seize the Arctic Sunrise. Held under armed guard by masked men, they are charged with piracy and face fifteen years in Russia&’s nightmarish prison system. Journalist and activist Ben Stewart spearheaded the campaign to release the Arctic 30. Now he tells their astonishing story—a tale of passion, courage, brutality, and survival. With wit, verve, and candor, Stewart chronicles the extraordinary friendships the activists made with their often murderous cellmates, their battle to outwit the prison guards, and the struggle to stay true to the cause that brought them there. &“With its colorful dialogue, moral dilemmas, and scenes of physical danger, Stewart&’s book would make a great movie . . . the prison life the book reveals is eye-opening, and Stewart describes it with great verve.&” —Foreign AffairsMiracle Baby: A Fertility Doctor's Fight for Motherhood
By Dorette Noorhasan. 2019
An OG/GYN and fertility specialist details her personal struggles with getting pregnant, sharing a doctor’s perspective on a journey faced…
by many.After years of dedicating her career to bringing new lives into the world, ob/gyn and fertility specialist Dr. Dorete Noorhasan wanted to have a child of her own. But her journey to motherhood was not an easy one.This is her story. The story of a girl who grew up amid hardship, natural disaster, and the harsh reality of life and death. The story of a young woman who dedicated herself to her education and pursued a career in medicine so she could help patients become parents. The story of a mother who was determined, despite all the struggles, setbacks, and heartbreak, to bring her child into this world.Today, one woman in eight is battling infertility. As a physician, Dr. Noorhasan understands the medical aspects of this condition. But as a patient, she has also experienced the emotional turmoil firsthand. Through this unique perspective, Miracle Baby sheds much-needed light on infertility while also offering hope and comfort to those struggling on the road to parenthood, showing how even the most difficult journeys can end in a miracle.Praise for Miracle Baby“Poignant, transparent, inspiring, Dr. Noorhasan’s perspective will resonate with anyone facing a challenging journey to parenthood. Having found her own path to motherhood through surrogacy, she brings a physician’s insight to a deeply personal struggle, and her books are much-need tools to de-mystify infertility and help families find the hope and understanding to persevere.” —Kavitha Blewitt, MD, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Women’s Health Specialists of DallasThe Great Ormond Street Hospital Nurse: My Life As A Student Nurse In The 1960s
By Vanessa Martin. 2022
“You must learn to hold in your feelings,” Matron said, firmly but not unkindly. “One day it will be your…
duty to support the family and other staff through this tragedy. You need to be strong.” From the first time Vanessa Martin sets foot inside the world’s most renowned children’s hospital, she knows that she will never have another dull moment. From her first confrontation with the legendary matron, to consoling hordes of worried parents and caring for the wonderful bundles of joy themselves, Vanessa enters a world full of laughter, heartache and, most importantly, hard work. In this heartwarming memoir of a passionate, determined young woman trying to help as many children as she can, Vanessa pulls back the curtain on the bustling world of 60s London, and tells the remarkable story of finding her place within it. Nostalgic, charming and full of heart, The Great Ormond Street Nurse is the heroic tale of a woman who has dedicated over 40 years to the NHS.The Vaccine: Inside the Race to Conquer the COVID-19 Pandemic
By Joe Miller, Ugur Sahin. 2021
When the world stopped, all hopes rested on finding a vaccine. An unlikely team answered the call. Before Covid-19 was…
even given its name, a select group of scientists in Germany, assembled by married couple and decades-long research partners Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, began building 20 potential vaccines.As the deadly disease spread from country to country, what followed was a desperate race against time to conduct rigorous tests and clinical trials, whilst navigating political interference and seeking the support of the pharmaceutical industry.Shedding a light on the science behind the breakthrough, The Vaccine tells the story of the trailblazers who led the fightback against Covid-19, whose discoveries could now help the world tackle cancer, along with many other pervasive diseases. It draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical achievements of our age, containing contributions from the fascinating couple themselves, as well as more than 60 scientists, politicians, public health officials, and BioNTech staff.More suspenseful than a novel, this is a real-life story of an extraordinary race against time to save the world.The Great Ormond Street Hospital Nurse: My Life As A Student Nurse In The 1960s
By Vanessa Martin. 2022
“You must learn to hold in your feelings,” Matron said, firmly but not unkindly. “One day it will be your…
duty to support the family and other staff through this tragedy. You need to be strong.” From the first time Vanessa Martin sets foot inside the world’s most renowned children’s hospital, she knows that she will never have another dull moment. From her first confrontation with the legendary matron, to consoling hordes of worried parents and caring for the wonderful bundles of joy themselves, Vanessa enters a world full of laughter, heartache and, most importantly, hard work. In this heartwarming memoir of a passionate, determined young woman trying to help as many children as she can, Vanessa pulls back the curtain on the bustling world of 60s London, and tells the remarkable story of finding her place within it. Nostalgic, charming and full of heart, The Great Ormond Street Nurse is the heroic tale of a woman who has dedicated over 40 years to the NHS.Great Ormond Street Hospital Nurse: The life of a trainee nurse at GOSH in the 1960s
By Vanessa Martin. 2022
"You must learn to hold in your feelings," Matron said, firmly but not unkindly. "One day it will be your…
duty to support the family and other staff through this tragedy. You need to be strong." From the first time Vanessa Martin sets foot inside the world's most renowned children's hospital, she knows that she will never have another dull moment. From her first confrontation with the legendary matron, to consoling hordes of worried parents and caring for the wonderful bundles of joy themselves, Vanessa enters a world full of laughter, heartache and, most importantly, hard work.In this heartwarming memoir of a passionate, determined young woman trying to help as many children as she can, Vanessa pulls back the curtain on the bustling world of 60s London, and tells the remarkable story of finding her place within it.Nostalgic, charming and full of heart, The Great Ormond Street Nurse is the heroic tale of a woman who has dedicated over 40 years to the NHS.Shining Star: Vera Rubin Discovers Dark Matter
By Suzanne Slade. 2023
Pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin discovers dark matter—the mysterious substance that makes up most of the universe—while confronting sexism, and paves…
the way for future women scientists in this engaging STEM/STEAM picture book biography.From the moment she first looked out her window at the night sky, future astronomer Vera Rubin was star-struck. Her cosmic questions about stars, galaxies, and the universe gave Vera the drive to build her own telescope and earn multiple degrees in astronomy, despite an army of naysayers who thought women shouldn&’t reach for the stars.But Vera did reach for the stars. Studying spiral galaxies, she searched the skies all through the night, using telescopes in unheated observatories, some of which barred women until Vera insisted they let her in. And her studies revealed something stellar: evidence for the existence of dark matter, the most mysterious substance in the universe.Today, scientists continue to build off of Vera&’s groundbreaking work as they strive to better understand dark matter. A trailblazing scientist, Vera Rubin changed people&’s understanding of both the universe and what a woman can do.Scientific breakthroughs that changed the way we understand the world—and the fascinating stories of the scientists behind them Some of…
the most significant breakthroughs in science don&’t receive widespread recognition until decades later, sometimes after their author&’s death. Nobel Prize–winner Max Planck, whose black-body radiation law established the discipline of quantum mechanics, stated this as what has become known as Planck&’s principle, commonly summarized as &“Science progresses one funeral at a time.&” In other words, for some truly groundbreaking discoveries, a new consensus builds only when proponents of the old consensus die off. Breakthrough discoveries require a paradigm shift, and it takes time and new minds for the new paradigm to be adopted. In Innovators, Donald Kirsch tells the stories of sixteen visionary scientists who suffered this fate, some now famous like Max Planck himself, Galileo, and Gregor Mendel, and some less well known. Among them are Barbara McClintock who, working with Indian corn, discovered transposons, also known as jumping genes, which provide a major mechanism driving biological evolution; Rachel Carson, catalyst for the environmental movement; and Roger Revelle, the climatologist whose findings were the first to be described by the term &“global warming.&” The breakthroughs cover fields from biology to medicine to physics and earth sciences and include the discovery of prions, life-changing treatments such as drugs for high blood pressure, ulcers, and organ transplantation; the process of continental drift; and our understanding of how molecules form matter.A Matter of Appearance: A Memoir
By Emily Wells. 2023
A dazzling memoir of chronic illness that explores the fraught intersection between pain, language, and gender, by a debut author.Emily…
Wells spent her childhood dancing through intense pain she assumed was normal for a ballerina pushing her body to its limits. For years, no doctor could tell Wells what was wrong with her, or they told her it was all in her head.In A Matter of Appearance, Wells traces her journey as she tries to understand and define the chronic pain she has lived with all her life. She draws on the critical works of Freud, Sontag, and others to explore the intersection between gender, pain, and language, and she traces a direct line from the &“hysteria patients&” at the Salpêtrière Hospital in nineteenth-century Paris to the contemporary New Age healers in Los Angeles, her stomping ground. At the crux of Wells&’ literary project is the dilemma of how to diagnose an experience that is both private and public, subjective and quantifiable, and how to express all this in words.&“Gorgeously written and brilliantly argued, A Matter of Appearance uses chronic illness as a lever to investigate the life of a body. It&’s complex, inconclusive, and incredibly clear-eyed. Moving fluidly between histories of psychoanalysis, desire, ambition, pathology, Wells reminds us of the liminal state we all live in between sickness and health.&”—Chris Kraus, author of Aliens & Anorexia and Summer of HateChasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark
By Greg Skomal, Ret Talbot. 2023
“At last: the story of tracking the ocean’s most charismatic and controversial predator, compellingly told by the man who has…
learned more about the Atlantic great white shark than any other person alive. You must not miss this fantastic book!” —Sy Montgomery, New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of an OctopusDr. Greg Skomal, one of the leading great white shark experts in the country, reveals the true nature of these mysterious apex predators, as well as the fascinating story behind their history and startling resurgence With its quaint villages, local restaurants serving up lobster rolls, and miles and miles of warm, sandy beaches, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is famous for being America’s carefree seaside getaway. But in August 2012, the first confirmed white shark attack in almost eighty years occurred in the region. As shark sightings quickly began to increase on Cape Cod and elsewhere, and large beachside billboards warning about the growing shark population became a common sight, a boogie boarder died after being attacked by a great white shark in Cape Cod’s shallow waters.What had changed to cause news of human-shark interactions to go from being a rarity to being the new normal? As some citizens called for shark culls, nets, drone surveillance, and other extreme solutions, interactions between local residents and scientists, politicians, and those responsible for public safety became tense and frantic.Dr. Greg Skomal, a shark biologist whose lifelong passion has been to gain a more refined understanding of great white sharks, was at the center of it all. This is the story of the great white shark’s return to the eastern seaboard, told through the life of the scientist who found himself in the oftentimes thankless position of having to balance conservation efforts and the drive to do important science with panic and fear in the court of public opinion. Greg has spent decades on a quest to tag, track, and demystify this animal, using every high- and low-tech method at his disposal, including those he invented, and he frequently comes face-to-face with these shadows of the deep. He leaves no stone unturned in his pursuit of the secrets behind the largely unknown lives of these charismatic creatures and in his duty to solve the intricate puzzle of how humans can coexist alongside them.Chasing Shadows is a too-rare conservation success story about restoring an apex predator to an ecosystem that provides a profound, new understanding of a beast so notoriously fierce that it’s nearly impossible to imagine how vulnerable it truly is.Einstein in Time and Space: A Life in 99 Particles
By Samuel Graydon. 1995
Walter Isaacson&’s Einstein meets Craig Brown&’s 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret, in this innovative biography of the famous physicist told…
in ninety-nine dazzling vignettes.Most of us would agree that Albert Einstein&’s name is synonymous with &“genius&” and that his likeness is often used as a shorthand for all scientists, appearing everywhere from cartoons to textbooks. He has become more myth than man. That being the case, how best to capture his essence? In Einstein in Time and Space, talented young science journalist Samuel Graydon answers that question with an illuminating mosaic—99 intriguingly different particles that cumulatively reveal Einstein&’s contradictory and multitudinous nature. Glimpsed among these shards: a slacker who failed every subject but math, a job seeker who couldn&’t get hired, a lothario who courted many women, and a charmer who was the life of the party. As brilliant as he was inconsistent, Einstein was simultaneously an avid supporter of the NAACP and the fight for civil rights and someone capable of great prejudice. He was loved by many, known by few, and inspirational to a generation of young physicists. Graydon reveals every corner of Einstein&’s world: the false reporting that rocketed Einstein to fame nearly overnight, his effect on people he met merely in passing, even the remarkable posthumous journey of the famed physicist&’s brain. Entertaining, comforting, bolstering, and shocking, Einstein in Time and Space is the unique story of a man who redefined how we view our universe and our place within it.Diabetes and Me: Living a Healthy and Empowered Life in the Face of Diabetes
By David Novak, Wendy Louise Novak. 2023
"Children with diabetes can live full, happy, productive lives. I hope my story can stand as proof of that fact."Diagnosed…
with type 1 diabetes at age seven, Wendy Louise Novak had to create her own path in a world defined by stigma, struggle, and hope.With little public awareness of her condition, Wendy's only role model was her fiercely independent father, who grew up in an era when diabetes meant a difficult, and often short, life. He taught her to "follow the rules" and stay self-reliant. That sense of independence carried Wendy through college to a successful career, globetrotting excitement, and a whirlwind romance with her husband, David.Wendy built a loving family as she navigated the highs and lows of a condition that was still widely misunderstood. Despite tough times, she learned to balance following the rules with following her passions, saying, "I never wanted to be the kind of person who stayed home and worried about whether or not I could take it, and so I didn't."Today, Wendy is the face of the Wendy Novak Diabetes Institute, which supports groundbreaking clinical services, education, and research to ensure young people with diabetes can thrive. In this honest but uplifting account of a life well lived, Wendy shares what she has learned, including practical tips for managing diabetes.With a foreword by the author's husband, businessman and philanthropist David Novak, Diabetes and Me shows patients and families that a diagnosis doesn't define your life."There are always ways to experience the joys in life, no matter what it throws at you."Turning: A Year in the Water
By Jessica J. Lee. 2017
Longlisted for the 2018 Frank Hegyi Award for Emerging Authors&“Jessica J. Lee is a writer of rare and exhilarating grace. In…
Turning, she sounds the depths of lakes and her own life, never flinching from darkness, surfacing to fresh understandings of her place in the welter of natural and human history. A beautiful, moody, bracing debut.&” —Kate Harris, award-winning author of Lands of Lost BordersThrough the heat of summer to the frozen depths of winter, Lee traces her journey swimming through 52 lakes in a single year, swimming through fear and heartbreak to find her place in the worldJessica J. Lee swims through all four seasons and especially loves the winter. "I long for the ice. The sharp cut of freezing water on my feet. The immeasurable black of the lake at its coldest. Swimming then means cold, and pain, and elation." At the age of twenty-eight, Jessica, who grew up in Canada and lived in England, finds herself in Berlin. Alone. Lonely, with lowered spirits thanks to some family history and a broken heart, she is there, ostensibly, to write a thesis. And though that is what she does daily, what increasingly occupies her is swimming. So she makes a decision that she believes will win her back her confidence and independence: she will swim fifty-two of the lakes around Berlin, no matter what the weather or season. She is aware that this particular landscape is not without its own ghosts and history. This is the story of a beautiful obsession: of the thrill of a still, turquoise lake, of cracking the ice before submerging, of floating under blue skies, of tangled weeds and murkiness, of cool, fresh, spring swimming—of facing past fears of near-drowning and of breaking free. When she completes her year of swimming, Jessica finds she has new strength, and she has also found friends and has gained some understanding of how the landscape both haunts and holds us. This book is for everyone who loves swimming, who wishes they could push themselves beyond caution, who understands the deep pleasure of using the body's strength, who knows what it is to abandon all thought and float home to the surface.Very Bad People: The Inside Story of the Fight Against the World’s Network of Corruption
By Patrick Alley. 2022
*****'Reads like a John le Carré novel but is, in fact, very real.' - The Big Issue'Very Bad People would…
be a hugely enjoyable thriller if it wasn't all true.' - Isabella Tree, author of Wilding'Global Witness are fearless.' - Gordon Roddick, Campaigner and Co-Founder of the Body Shop'Part true crime tale, part investigative procedural, this is the account of the brilliant and necessary superheroes of Global Witness, whose superpower is the truth.' - Edward Zwick, Director of Blood Diamond 'Very Bad People reads like a non-stop high-speed chase as our fighters against corruption hunt down a litany of criminals and con-men, some on the fringes of our society, some embedded high up within it. It's a great story and an important one.' - David Farr, Screenwriter, The Night Manager'The story told in this book of three youthful idealists who go from eating cold baked beans in a drafty London flat to the Thai-Cambodian border where they posed as traders in illegally felled timber is simply riveting. Don't miss it.' - Misha Glenny, author of McMafia'Alley has produced a clear-eyed account of a world poisoned by dark money, and a welcome reminder that resistance is possible. As it turns out, his book is even more timely than he could have hoped.' - Irish Times'This book is inspirational. It shows how young people with sufficient passion and intelligence have the capacity to go after some of the most powerful governments and corporations and shame, humiliate and just push governments to support important reforms that can make this a more decent world.' - Frank Vogl, Co-Founder of Transparency InternationalArms trafficking, offshore accounts and luxury property deals. Super-yachts, private jets and super-car collections. Blood diamonds, suspect oil deals, deforestation and murder. This is the world of Global Witness, the award-winning organisation dedicated to rooting out worldwide corruption. And this is co-founder Patrick Alley's revealing inside track on a breath-taking catalogue of modern super-crimes - and the 'shadow network' that enables them. VERY BAD PEOPLE is about following the money, going undercover in the world's most dangerous places, and bringing down the people behind the crimes. Case by case we see maverick investigators pitched against warlords, grifters and super-villains who bear every resemblance to The Night Manager's Richard Roper. One dictator's son spent $700 million in just four years on his luxury lifestyle.As they unravel crooked deals of labyrinthine complexity, the team encounter well-known corporations whose operations are no less criminal than the Mafia. This network of lawyers, bankers and real estate agents help park dirty money in London, New York, or in offshore accounts, safe from prying eyes.Patrick Alley's book is a brilliant, authoritative and fearless investigation into the darkest workings of our world - and an inspiration to all of us who want to fight back.Concorde, A Designer's Life: The Journey to Mach 2
By Ted Talbot. 2013
Do you remember the time we used to do New York in three hours?Even twenty years after its final flight,…
Concorde remains the pinnacle of aviation design. The aircraft is still unmatched, which has led to a vast swathe of material being written about the aeroplane itself. However, relatively little has been said about the people who designed it.Concorde, A Designer’s Life is an autobiography peppered with anecdotes from the team, humorous life stories and several ‘technibits’, all covering the design period of Concorde. Ted Talbot, who began his career at BAC as an aerodynamicist and later became chief design engineer, has combined the technical narrative with personal and family reminiscences to remind the reader that engineers have lives too.The path to Mach 2 was bumpy, with threats of cancellation and opposition from the Americans and the Russians, but this generally indicated to the Concorde team that they were on the right path! This informative, witty and thoroughly enjoyable peek into an unusual life is a valuable addition to any bookshelf.Very Bad People: The Inside Story of the Fight Against the World’s Network of Corruption
By Patrick Alley. 2022
*****'Reads like a John le Carré novel but is, in fact, very real.' - The Big Issue'Very Bad People would…
be a hugely enjoyable thriller if it wasn't all true.' - Isabella Tree, author of Wilding'Global Witness are fearless.' - Gordon Roddick, Campaigner and Co-Founder of the Body Shop'Part true crime tale, part investigative procedural, this is the account of the brilliant and necessary superheroes of Global Witness, whose superpower is the truth.' - Edward Zwick, Director of Blood Diamond 'Very Bad People reads like a non-stop high-speed chase as our fighters against corruption hunt down a litany of criminals and con-men, some on the fringes of our society, some embedded high up within it. It's a great story and an important one.' - David Farr, Screenwriter, The Night Manager'The story told in this book of three youthful idealists who go from eating cold baked beans in a drafty London flat to the Thai-Cambodian border where they posed as traders in illegally felled timber is simply riveting. Don't miss it.' - Misha Glenny, author of McMafia'Alley has produced a clear-eyed account of a world poisoned by dark money, and a welcome reminder that resistance is possible. As it turns out, his book is even more timely than he could have hoped.' - Irish Times'This book is inspirational. It shows how young people with sufficient passion and intelligence have the capacity to go after some of the most powerful governments and corporations and shame, humiliate and just push governments to support important reforms that can make this a more decent world.' - Frank Vogl, Co-Founder of Transparency InternationalArms trafficking, offshore accounts and luxury property deals. Super-yachts, private jets and super-car collections. Blood diamonds, suspect oil deals, deforestation and murder. This is the world of Global Witness, the award-winning organisation dedicated to rooting out worldwide corruption. And this is co-founder Patrick Alley's revealing inside track on a breath-taking catalogue of modern super-crimes - and the 'shadow network' that enables them. VERY BAD PEOPLE is about following the money, going undercover in the world's most dangerous places, and bringing down the people behind the crimes. Case by case we see maverick investigators pitched against warlords, grifters and super-villains who bear every resemblance to The Night Manager's Richard Roper. One dictator's son spent $700 million in just four years on his luxury lifestyle.As they unravel crooked deals of labyrinthine complexity, the team encounter well-known corporations whose operations are no less criminal than the Mafia. This network of lawyers, bankers and real estate agents help park dirty money in London, New York, or in offshore accounts, safe from prying eyes.Patrick Alley's book is a brilliant, authoritative and fearless investigation into the darkest workings of our world - and an inspiration to all of us who want to fight back.The Homing Instinct: Meaning & Mystery in Animal Migration
By Bernd Heinrich. 2014
&“A noted naturalist explores the centrality of home in the lives of humans and other animals . . . A special treat for…
readers of natural history&” (Kirkus Reviews). Every year, many species make the journey from one place to another, following the same paths and ending up in the same places. Every year since boyhood, the acclaimed scientist and author Bernd Heinrich has done the same, returning to a beloved patch of western Maine woods. Which led him to wonder: What is the biology in humans of this primal pull toward a particular place, and how is it related to animal homing? In The Homing Instinct, Heinrich explores the fascinating mysteries of animal migration: how geese imprint true visual landscape memory; how scent trails are used by many creatures to locate their homes with pinpoint accuracy; and how even the tiniest of songbirds are equipped for solar and magnetic orienteering over vast distances. And he reminds us that to discount our human emotions toward home is to ignore biology itself. &“A graceful blend of science and memoir . . . [Heinrich&’s] ability to linger and simply be there for the moment when, for instance, an elderly spider descends from a silken strand to take the insect he offers her is the heart of his appeal.&” —Julie Zickefoose, The Wall Street Journal &“Deep and insightful writing.&” —David Gessner, The Washington PostJane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man
By Dale Peterson. 2007
A biography of the primatologist that “vividly and significantly enriches our understanding of Goodall”—includes photographs (Booklist, starred review).This essential biography…
of one of the most influential women of the past century shows how truly remarkable Jane Goodall’s accomplishments have been. Goodall was a secretarial school graduate when Louis Leakey, unable to find someone with more fitting credentials, first sent her to Gombe to study chimpanzees. In this acclaimed work, Dale Peterson details how this young woman of uncommon resourcefulness and pluck would go on to set radically new standards in the study of animal behavior. He vividly captures the triumphs and setbacks of her dramatic life, including the private quest that led to her now-famous activism.Peterson, a longtime Goodall collaborator, has a unique knowledge of his subject. Candid and illuminating, this work will be a revelation even to readers who are familiar with the public Goodall as presented in her own writing.“Peterson provides colorful descriptions of day-to-day life at Gombe and Goodall’s interaction with the chimps, and ably portrays her relationship with Leakey, the National Geographic Society (which sponsored much of her work), her two marriages, her reaction to her celebrity and her ventures as an activist for the well-being of chimpanzees.” —Publishers Weekly“Captures the spirit of a remarkable woman in science.” —Library Journal (starred review)