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My Family and Other Seedlings: A Year on a Dorset Allotment
By Lalage Snow. 2024
A few years ago Lally Snow moved to a Dorset village with her husband and three small children, having spent…
over a decade as a war photographer, foreign correspondent and film maker living in Kabul. She covered the conflict there as well as other wars from Gaza to Eastern Ukraine, and Iraq.In the late winter of 2021-22, Lally decided to rent an allotment, despite having only a rudimentary knowledge of gardening. She was starting from scratch and setting herself the dual challenge of growing an allotment at the same time as growing a family.This is a heart-warming, wry and at times tearful account of Lally's travails as a mother and novice allotment holder, counterpointing horticultural progress with the perils of parenting. Along the way she reflects on the drudgery of English rural domesticity after a professional life chasing war and adventure, the history of the allotment since Saxon times, and the wonderful moment when gardening becomes fun rather than just feeding a family.My Family and Other Seedlings: A Year on a Dorset Allotment
By Lalage Snow. 2024
A few years ago Lally Snow moved to a Dorset village with her husband and three small children, having spent…
over a decade as a war photographer, foreign correspondent and film maker living in Kabul. She covered the conflict there as well as other wars from Gaza to Eastern Ukraine, and Iraq.In the late winter of 2021-22, Lally decided to rent an allotment, despite having only a rudimentary knowledge of gardening. She was starting from scratch and setting herself the dual challenge of growing an allotment at the same time as growing a family.This is a heart-warming, wry and at times tearful account of Lally's travails as a mother and novice allotment holder, counterpointing horticultural progress with the perils of parenting. Along the way she reflects on the drudgery of English rural domesticity after a professional life chasing war and adventure, the history of the allotment since Saxon times, and the wonderful moment when gardening becomes fun rather than just feeding a family.My Family and Other Seedlings: A Year on a Dorset Allotment
By Lalage Snow. 2024
A few years ago Lally Snow moved to a Dorset village with her husband and three small children, having spent…
over a decade as a war photographer, foreign correspondent and film maker living in Kabul. She covered the conflict there as well as other wars from Gaza to Eastern Ukraine, and Iraq.In the late winter of 2021-22, Lally decided to rent an allotment, despite having only a rudimentary knowledge of gardening. She was starting from scratch and setting herself the dual challenge of growing an allotment at the same time as growing a family.This is a heart-warming, wry and at times tearful account of Lally's travails as a mother and novice allotment holder, counterpointing horticultural progress with the perils of parenting. Along the way she reflects on the drudgery of English rural domesticity after a professional life chasing war and adventure, the history of the allotment since Saxon times, and the wonderful moment when gardening becomes fun rather than just feeding a family.Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds
By Sophie A. Osborn. 2024
The story of one woman’s remarkable work with a trio of charismatic, endangered bird species—and her discoveries about the devastating…
threats that imperil them. In Feather Trails, wildlife biologist and birder Sophie A. H. Osborn reveals how the harmful environmental choices we’ve made—including pesticide use, the introduction of invasive species, lead poisoning, and habitat destruction—have decimated Peregrine Falcons, Hawaiian Crows, and California Condors. In the Rocky Mountains, the cloud forests of Hawai’i, and the Grand Canyon, Sophie and her colleagues work day-to-day to try to reintroduce these birds to the wild, even when it seems that the odds are steeply stacked against their survival. With humor and suspense, Feather Trails introduces us to the fascinating behaviors and unique personalities of Sophie’s avian charges and shows that what endangers them ultimately threatens all life on our planet. More than a deeply researched environmental investigation, Feather Trails is also a personal journey and human story, in which Sophie overcomes her own obstacles—among them heat exhaustion, poachers, rattlesnakes, and chauvinism. Ultimately, Feather Trails is an inspiring, poignant narrative about endangered birds and how our choices can help to ensure a future not only for the rarest species, but for us too. "An intimate look at the wonder and effort needed for working with endangered species in the wild. [Osborn's] matter-of-fact writing style and wry humor make the reader part of the action."—Booklist (starred review)Conquering the Impossible: My 12,000-Mile Journey Around the Arctic Circle
By Mike Horn. 2005
In August 2002, Mike Horn set out on a mission that bordered on the impossible: to travel 12,000 miles around…
the globe at the Arctic Circle - alone, against all prevailing winds and currents, and without motorized transportation.Conquering the Impossible is the gripping account of Horn's grueling 27-month expedition by sail and by foot through extreme Arctic conditions that nearly cost him his life on numerous occasions. Enduring temperatures that ranged to as low as -95 degrees Fahrenheit, Horn battled hazards including shifting and unstable ice that gave way and plunged him into frigid waters, encounters with polar bears so close that he felt their breath on his face, severe frostbite in his fingers, and a fire that destroyed all of his equipment and nearly burned him alive.Complementing the sheer adrenaline of Horn's narrative are the isolated but touching human encounters the adventurer has with the hardy individuals who inhabit one of the remotest corners of the earth. From an Inuit who teaches him how to build an igloo to an elderly Russian left behind when the Soviets evacuated his remote Arctic town, Horn finds camaraderie, kindness, and assistance to help him survive the most unforgiving conditions.This awe-inspiring account is a page-turner and an Arctic survival tale in one. Most of all, it's a testament to one man's unrelenting desire to push the boundaries of human endurance.The Minotaur at Calle Lanza
By Zito Madu. 2024
In the fall of 2020, as the pandemic raged around the globe, Zito Madu traveled to Venice for a writing…
fellowship. There, he found a deserted, silent, but still beautiful city, “one of those extraordinarily strange places in the world.” As he details his walks through a haunted landscape, we learn about his family’s immigration from Nigeria to Detroit, his troubled relationship with his father, his meditations on race and otherness, the small joys of daily life and solitude, and his own rage and regret. With nods to Calvino and Borges, and reminiscent of Teju Cole, The Minotaur at Calle Lanza is an unforgettable travel memoir about the mysterious transformations that may lurk inside us all.Finding North: How Navigation Makes Us Human
By George Michelsen Foy. 2016
Navigation is the key human skill. It's something we do everywhere, whether feeling our way through a bedroom in the…
dark, or charting a ship's course. But how does navigation affect our brains, our memory, ourselves? Blending scientific research and memoir, and written in beautiful prose, Finding North starts with a quest by the author to understand this most basic of human skills---and why it's in mortal peril.In 1844, Foy's great-great grandfather, captain of a Norwegian cargo ship, perished at sea after getting lost in a snowstorm. Foy decides to unravel the mystery surrounding Halvor Michelsen's death---and the roots of his own obsession with navigation---by re-creating his ancestor's trip using only period instruments. Beforehand, he meets a colorful cast of characters to learn whether men really have better directional skills than women, how cells, eels, and spaceships navigate; and how tragedy results from GPS glitches. He interviews a cabby who has memorized every street in London, sails on a Haitian cargo sloop, and visits the site of a secret navigational cult in Greece.At the heart of Foy's story is this fact: navigation and the brain's memory centers are inextricably linked. As Foy unravels the secret behind Halvor's death, he also discovers why forsaking our navigation skills in favor of GPS may lead not only to Alzheimers and other diseases of memory, but to losing a key part of what makes us human.The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves
By Siri Hustvedt. 2009
In this unique neurological memoir Siri Hustvedt attempts to solve her own mysterious conditionWhile speaking at a memorial event for…
her father in 2006, Siri Hustvedt suffered a violent seizure from the neck down. Despite her flapping arms and shaking legs, she continued to speak clearly and was able to finish her speech. It was as if she had suddenly become two people: a calm orator and a shuddering wreck. Then the seizures happened again and again. The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves tracks Hustvedt's search for a diagnosis, one that takes her inside the thought processes of several scientific disciplines, each one of which offers a distinct perspective on her paroxysms but no ready solution. In the process, she finds herself entangled in fundamental questions: What is the relationship between brain and mind? How do we remember? What is the self? During her investigations, Hustvedt joins a discussion group in which neurologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and brain scientists trade ideas to develop a new field: neuropsychoanalysis. She volunteers as a writing teacher for psychiatric in-patients at the Payne Whitney clinic in New York City and unearths precedents in medical history that illuminate the origins of and shifts in our theories about the mind-body problem. In The Shaking Woman, Hustvedt synthesizes her experience and research into a compelling mystery: Who is the shaking woman? In the end, the story she tells becomes, in the words of George Makari, author of Revolution in Mind, "a brilliant illumination for us all."Dive!: The Story of Breathing Underwater
By Chris Gall. 2024
DIVE! is a fascinating introduction to the comprehensive world history of diving by award-winning artist Chris Gall.How do you breathe…
underwater? What tools can we use to go deeper and deeper into the oceans? And...what's down there?Two-thirds of our Earth is covered in ocean, yet only 5% of it has been explored. DIVE deep into our long history of sea exploration to learn why, how, and when humans have dived, and uncover our biggest questions about what hides in the Earth's deepest waters.Perfect for STEM-oriented minds and young and old readers fascinated by the sea, Dive! is a must-have to add to any nonfiction shelf.In the Watershed: A Journey Down the Maumee River
By Ryan Schnurr. 2017
For several years, Ryan Schnurr watched media coverage of Lake Erie algae blooms with a growing sense of unease. An…
Indiana native, he wanted to learn more about role of the Maumee River in the lake's environmental woes: the Maumee is Lake Erie's largest tributary and the center of the largest watershed in the region, spanning more than 6,600 square miles of land. So in the summer of 2016, Schnurr walked and canoed the length of the river from its headwaters in Fort Wayne, Indiana to its mouth in Toledo, Ohio. In The Watershed: A Journey Down the Maumee River is the story of that voyage. As he walks the banks, Schnurr tells us the history of the river, from its formation by glaciers, function in Native American and American history, uses by industry, and role in current economic and environmental issues. Part cultural history, part nature writing, and part narrative, In the Watershed is a lyrical work of non-fiction in the vein of John McPhee and Ian Frazier with a timely and important warning at the core. "What is happening in Lake Erie," Schnurr tells us, "is a disaster by nearly any measure‚Äïecologically, economically, socially, culturally."Robert Roper's Fatal Mountaineer is a gripping look at Willi Unsoeld and the epic climbs that defined him--a classic narrative…
blending action with ethics, fame with tragedy, a man's ambition with a father's anguish.In 1963, Willi Unsoeld became an international hero for his conquest of the West Ridge of Everest. A charismatic professor of philosophy, Unsoeld was one of the greatest climbers of the twentieth century, a man whose raw physical power and casual fearlessness inspired a generation of adventurers. In 1976, during an expedition to Nanda Devi, the tallest peak in India, Unsoeld's philosophy of spiritual growth through mortal risk was tragically tested. The outcome of that expedition continues to fuel one of the most fascinating debates in mountaineering history.Cradle of Gold: The Story of Hiram Bingham, a Real-Life Indiana Jones, and the Search for Machu Picchu
By Christopher Heaney. 2011
In 1911, a young Peruvian boy led an American explorer and Yale historian named Hiram Bingham into the ancient Incan…
citadel of Machu Picchu. Hidden amidst the breathtaking heights of the Andes, this settlement of temples, tombs and palaces was the Incas' greatest achievement. Tall, handsome, and sure of his destiny, Bingham believed that Machu Picchu was the Incas' final refuge, where they fled the Spanish Conquistadors. Bingham made Machu Picchu famous, and his dispatches from the jungle cast him as the swashbuckling hero romanticized today as a true Indiana Jones-like character. But his excavation of the site raised old specters of conquest and plunder, and met with an indigenous nationalism that changed the course of Peruvian history. Though Bingham successfully realized his dream of bringing Machu Picchu's treasure of skulls, bones and artifacts back to the United States, conflict between Yale and Peru persists through the present day over a simple question: Who owns Inca history?In this grand, sweeping narrative, Christopher Heaney takes the reader into the heart of Peru's past to relive the dramatic story of the final years of the Incan empire, the exhilarating recovery of their final cities and the thought-provoking fight over their future. Drawing on original research in untapped archives, Heaney vividly portrays both a stunning landscape and the complex history of a fascinating region that continues to inspire awe and controversy today.Around the World in 50 Years: My Adventure to Every Country on Earth
By Albert Podell. 2015
This is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were…
impossible. First, he set a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world, during the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a breakdown atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan, and lost three of the five men who started with him, two to disease, one to the Vietcong.After that-although it took him forty-seven more years-Albert Podell set another record by going to every country on Earth. He achieved this by surviving riots, revolutions, civil wars, trigger-happy child soldiers, voodoo priests, robbers, pickpockets, corrupt cops, and Cape buffalo. He went around, under, or through every kind of earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcanic eruption, snowstorm, and sandstorm that nature threw at him. He ate everything from old camel meat and rats to dung beetles and the brain of a live monkey. And he overcame attacks by crocodiles, hippos, anacondas, giant leeches, flying crabs-and several beautiful girlfriends who insisted that he stop this nonsense and marry them.Albert Podell's Around the World in 50 Years is a remarkable and meaningful tale of quiet courage, dogged persistence, undying determination, and an uncanny ability to extricate himself from one perilous situation after another-and return with some of the most memorable, frightening, and hilarious adventure stories you have ever read.They Came but Could Not Conquer: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Alaska Native Communities
By Diane J. Purvis. 2024
As the environmental justice movement slowly builds momentum, Diane J. Purvis highlights the work of Indigenous peoples in Alaska&’s small…
rural villages, who have faced incredible odds throughout history yet have built political clout fueled by vigorous common cause in defense of their homes and livelihood. Starting with the transition from Russian to American occupation of Alaska, Alaska Natives have battled with oil and gas corporations; fought against U.S. plans to explode thermonuclear bombs on the edge of Native villages; litigated against political plans to flood Native homes; sought recompense for the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster; and struggled against the federal government&’s fishing restrictions that altered Native paths for subsistence. In They Came but Could Not Conquer Purvis presents twelve environmental crises that occurred when isolated villages were threatened by a governmental monolith or big business. In each, Native peoples rallied together to protect their land, waters, resources, and a way of life against the bulldozer of unwanted, often dangerous alterations labeled as progress. In this gripping narrative Purvis shares the inspiring stories of those who possessed little influence over big business and regulations yet were able to protect their traditional lands and waterways anyway.A Life Impossible: Living with ALS: Finding Peace and Wisdom Within a Fragile Existence
By Steve Gleason, Jeff Duncan. 2024
From NFL player Steve Gleason, a powerful, inspiring memoir of love, heartbreak, resilience, family, and remarkable triumph in the face…
of ALSIn 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that takes away the ability to move, talk, and breathe. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-three years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date.His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced. Writing using eye-tracking technology, Gleason covers his pre-ALS life through the highs and lows of his NFL career with the New Orleans Saints, where he made one of the most memorable plays in Saints history, leading to a victory in the first post-Katrina home game, uplifting the city, making him a hero, and reflected in a nine-foot bronze statue outside the Superdome. Then came his heartbreaking diagnosis. Gleason lost all muscle function, he now uses Stephen Hawking-like technology to communicate, and breathes with the help of a ventilator. This book captures Gleason and his wife Michel&’s unmatched resilience as they reinvent their lives, refuse to succumb to despair, and face his disease realistically and existentially.This unsparing portrait argues that a person's true strength does not reside solely in one&’s body but also in the ability to face unfathomable adversity and still be able to love and treasure life.Heidi Across America: One Woman's Journey on a Bicycle Through the Heartland
By Heidi Beierle. 2024
A memoir of homecoming – Heidi Across America is a gritty story of how opening our hearts to others enables…
us to open our hearts to ourselves and love what we find there.In the summer of 2010, Heidi Beierle had just finished her first year of graduate studies in community and regional planning and decided to pedal her bicycle solo from her home on the west coast across rural America to the Preserving the Historic Road conference in Washington, D.C. What started as a research trip turned into an intimately physical and psychological encounter with self and nationhood. Heidi was 35 at the time and didn&’t love much about herself except her ability to endure grueling physical undertakings. She viewed her journey as an opportunity to fix her failures and insufficiencies. There were also some research questions she wanted to explore: Why do people live in small towns and what do they like about it? Did a bicyclist like herself bring economic benefit to the small towns she visited? What could communities do to support or invite cyclists to stay in their towns? What could cyclists do to support the communities? Along the way, she was surprised by the kindness of strangers and the emotional pinch of traveling through Wyoming where she grew up. Her journey led her through the Plains and into the Ozarks where the heat climbed to agonizing temperatures and every pedal stroke in the heat felt one closer to death. By the time she completed the trip, Heidi discovered a newfound compassion for herself and a growing love for her country. Strangers opened their hearts to her and in turn, she opened her heart to herself. And her questions began to change and mirror things many Americans are asking themselves today: How can I be okay in my own skin? What does it mean to be enough? How do I satisfy my desire to travel without harming the planet? What does it mean to love America? For many young people, it is a rite of passage to light out on an adventure to see the world and expose themselves to new experiences, but we don&’t often talk about how Americans seeing America can open us to the diversity, awe, and wonder available right here in our nation. Heidi Across America offers a journey to self-love, empathy, consideration for others, and respect for the spirit of place as pathways to find connection and home.Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire
By Edited by Alice Wong. 2024
The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility: another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and…
challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms.What is intimacy? More than sex, more than romantic love, the pieces in this stunning and illuminating new anthology offer broader and more inclusive definitions of what it can mean to be intimate with another person. Explorations of caregiving, community, access, and friendship offer us alternative ways of thinking about the connections we form with others—a vital reimagining in an era when forced physical distance is at times a necessary norm. But don't worry: there's still sex to consider—and the numerous ways sexual liberation intersects with disability justice. Plunge between these pages and you'll also find disabled sexual discovery, disabled love stories, and disabled joy. These twenty-five stunning original pieces—plus other modern classics on the subject, all carefully curated by acclaimed activist Alice Wong—include essays, photo essays, poetry, drama, and erotica: a full spectrum of the dreams, fantasies, and deeply personal realities of a wide range of beautiful bodies and minds. Disability Intimacy will free your thinking, invigorate your spirit, and delight your desires.Birds through Indigenous Eyes: Native Perspectives on Birds of the Eastern Woodlands
By Dennis Gaffin. 2024
An intimate and personal account of the profound roles birds play in the lives of some Indigenous peopleFor many hours…
over a period of years, white anthropologist Dennis Gaffin and two Indigenous friends, Michael Bastine and John Volpe, recorded their conversations about a shared passion: the birds of upstate New York and southern Ontario. In these lively, informal talks, Bastine (a healer and naturalist of Algonquin descent) and Volpe (a naturalist and animal rehabilitator of Ojibwe and Métis descent) shared their experiences of, and beliefs about, birds, describing the profound spiritual, psychological, and social roles of birds in the lives of some Indigenous people. Birds through Indigenous Eyes presents highlights of these conversations, placing them in context and showing how Native understandings of birds contrast with conventional Western views.Bastine and Volpe bring to life Algonquin, Ojibwe, and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) beliefs about birds. They reveal how specific birds and bird species are seamlessly integrated into spirituality and everyday thought and action, how birds bring important messages to individual people, how a bird species can become associated with a person, and how birds provide warnings about our endangered environment. Over the course of the book, birds such as the house sparrow, Eastern phoebe, Northern flicker, belted kingfisher, gray catbird, cedar waxwing, and black-capped chickadee are shown in a new light—as spiritual and practical helpers that can teach humans how to live well.An original work of ethno-ornithology that offers a rare close-up look at some Native views on birds, Birds through Indigenous Eyes opens rich new perspectives on the deep connections between birds and humans.In this personal journey, ultra-light backpacker and sought-after speaker Glen Van Peski shares the life lessons he has learned through…
years of lightening his pack and helping others.Adventures provide the richness and texture to a life well lived. So remain open. Keep saying yes to life's opportunities. Glen Van Peski helped revolutionize backpacking by creating ultralight equipment, which allows people to take less so they can do more in the wilderness. During decades of championing ultralight backpacking, Glen became aware that &“take less, do more&” is more than just a hiking slogan. As he reduced his pack weight, he realized that the lessons learned applied to all areas of life. Now he wants to share the lessons he learned to help others live full and vibrant lives—lives characterized by purpose, meaning, and joy. In this book, you will discover transformative life lessons, which may go against the grain of popular thought but have been proven to change lives for the better. You'll learn that: Often the best strategy for achieving goals comes from subtracting rather than adding. When your first instinct is generosity, the long-term dividends will be greater than if you strive to gain your own advantage. Revising the stories you tell yourself about situations will reframe your life and increase gratitude. By investing creatively in relationships, you will generate more joy in your life. Making friends with failure will cause you to grow and improve. take less. do more. It's a revolutionary idea that will transform your life and free your soul to find your purpose—and maybe a little bit of adventure too.A Green Day: Embracing Climate Action
By Jeevesh Gupta, Chittranjan Dubey, Anandajit Goswami. 2024
An Engaging Compilation of Perspectives on Climate Activism The impassioned essays, noteworthy profiles and first-person narratives in this anthology champion…
grassroots and global environmental movements that have persuaded policymakers and mobilized communities to take note of the worsening state of the natural order. From the Global South to the Global North, change advocates and those experiencing the thick of the emergency revisit the tipping points in their activism journey, lay out harsh truths about the extent of damage caused and offer scalable solutions to combat the mounting crisis. Outlining their rage, despair, fears and hope for the future, the campaigners underscore that there may be reasons to be optimistic despite the dreary reality we find ourselves in. While calling for collective action, these wide-ranging, inspiring and urgent stories reflect a diverse landscape of climate activism and are enough evidence that a sea change is possible.