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What does a jar of preserved leopard frogs or the articulated skeleton of a beached sperm whale say about the way we understand nature in North Carolina? Margaret Martin explores this question in the story of the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sci
A TIMES AND TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Beautifully written, movingly told and meticulously researched ... a convincing plea for a wilder, richer world' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding 'By the time I'd read the first chapter, I'd resolved to take my son into the woods every afternoon over winter. By the time I'd read the sixth, I was wanting to break prisoners out of cells and onto the mossy moors. Losing Eden rigorously and convincingly tells of the value of the natural universe to our human hearts' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun Today many of us live indoor lives, disconnected from the natural world as never before. And yet nature remains deeply ingrained in our language, culture and consciousness. For centuries, we have acted on an intuitive sense that we need communion with the wild to feel well. Now, in the moment of our great migration away from the rest of nature, more and more scientific evidence is emerging to confirm its place at the heart of our psychological wellbeing. So what happens, asks acclaimed journalist Lucy Jones, as we lose our bond with the natural world-might we also be losing part of ourselves? Delicately observed and rigorously researched, Losing Eden is an enthralling journey through this new research, exploring how and why connecting with the living world can so drastically affect our health. Travelling from forest schools in East London to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault via primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists' couches, Jones takes us to the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience and psychology, and discovers new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth. Urgent and uplifting, Losing Eden is a rallying cry for a wilder way of life - for finding asylum in the soil and joy in the trees - which might just help us to save the living planet, as well as ourselves.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity’s transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? RECOMMENDED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND BILL GATES • SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Esquire, Smithsonian Magazine, Vulture, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “Beautifully and insistently, Kolbert shows us that it is time to think radically about the ways we manage the environment.”—Helen Macdonald, The New York Times That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it’s said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a “super coral” that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth. One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.
This book is divided into three parts: Brittany, Paris, and the South of France. A separate section is devoted to some delicious recipes because how can you talk or write about France without fully appreciating its food? The book is partly auto biographical, based on my years growing up in Paris and those wonderful summers at our Brittany home. They are collections of experiences and stories as an adult looking back on those years in France. There are also stories based in part on my research, knowledge, and richness of one particular region or another, as well as the overlay of family history and anecdotes that I recalled hearing from my parents as a child. It is undeniably a wonderful and sentimental journey in France. If you ae a “foodie” at heart, you’ll love some of my stories. Join me in a wonderful six-part “foodie” trip along France’s Atlantic Coast, where we start with a visit to the Opal Coast and the well-known resort of Le Touquet, where my father spent his youthful summers in the late 1920s. Then join me for a most unforgettable dinner in Dinard, a popular holiday destination on my beautiful and deeply familiar Côte d' Émeraude in Brittany. Finally, we will end up in the quite unique and picturesque seaport town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, nestled in the Basque country. The six-part trip is filled with delicious and memorable local dishes. The food alone will have you packing your bags and leaving for France. Trust me! Part one includes several stories about Brittany, many of which will surely appeal to “foodies.” Brittany has played a major part in my life, both as a child when we bought the house, I was seven years old. Rough floors, a malfunctioning fireplace, dampness abounded, a small gas-powered stove, no refrigerator and an outhouse. We would go to bed with multiple blankets and a hot water bottle to ward off the incredibly damp sheets. Those days at the house in the country provided me with rich content for many of my stories. Importantly, in my stories, I have tried to convey what our Brittany was like as we lived in the French countryside that had not significantly changed since the 1940’s. Part two, I recount my childhood having grown up in Paris, the leafy suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine a stone’s throw from the city limits and the 16e arrondissement where we attended school. We lived in a newly built, spacious apartment. We had all the room to make trouble. Paris in the late 1950’s and early 1960s had the Algerian conflict as a backdrop and the OAS planted bombs in theaters and cafes. The trials and tribulations of a young American, particularly my challenges in surviving the French school system. I never got really “got it” despite their best efforts to drive it home, whatever the cost or the pain. I was more than glad to leave school and I retained, for many years, a deep sense of discomfort well into my adult life. Many years later, I happened to have a most incredible dinner at the Café Bergamote, a cozy little resto’ nestled on the Left Bank at 8, rue Montfaucon in the 6th arrondissement. Join me for dinner, please. In part three, I take a slow, leisurely journey towards the coast eventually reaching the Mediterranean. I recount a most memorable dinner in a little restaurant tucked away in the 12th Century fortified village of Rivesaltes in the Languedoc Roussillon region, truly spectacular and wonderfully enjoyable is all I can say and all with a charming host and hostess. Moving generally southward, join me at a table “Chez M'man” a tasty Bouchon Lyonnais, if ever there was one, and located very near the charming Place Bellecour on the rue des Maronniers. Typical foods on the menu include andouille (grilled chitterlings sausage), tripe (pig or cow’s stomach), or boudin noir (blood sausage). Other more recognizable dishes include chicken liver salad, Cerverlas (raw pork sausages), and Quenelles (flour, egg, and cream dumplings.) May I suggest one or two wonderful Beaujolais for your dining pleasure?
Nature’s Mountain Mansion is the first anthology on Yosemite that focuses exclusively on the nineteenth century, the critical period in which Yosemite was “discovered” by an expanding nation and transformed into one of the country’s most visited national parks. While there are volumes that provide readings about Yosemite in the nineteenth century, few provide critical—sometimes even disparaging—eyewitness reflections on the Yosemite experience, and none include excerpts from the government documents that defined the future of the park, such as the Yosemite Valley Grant Act of 1864. This anthology collects selections from fiction, nonfiction, and government documents that demonstrate the glory, the brutality, and the controversies surrounding this extraordinary and much-loved landscape. Some selections have not appeared in print since their original publication, while others have not been republished or excerpted for decades.
Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.
Unlocking the secrets of positive aging. Few prejudices in Western society are more powerful than those concerning aging. Until recently, we have assumed that the story of aging is one of loss and decline. But there’s an entirely different truth. Yes, you can teach an old dog—or even a sort-of-old dog—new tricks. Is there a secret to staying young? It turns out that there are many, and they all begin with nurturing our existing relationships to foster brain health, keeping us happier and healthier. As readers of this book will learn, wisdom, enhanced social relationships, greater adaptation and flexibility (mental, if not physical!)—all these things can be attained as we grow older. Filled with both practical and thought-provoking suggestions, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to age in style.
Naturalists in every age have been intrigued by frogs, toads, and salamanders. They have seen these amphibians in a variety of guises -- as beings with magical powers or implicit moral lessons, as the products of spontaneous generation, as heralds of the seasons, as evidence of evolution or material for biological experiments, or, most recently, as ecological barometers for the biosphere.Nature's Fading Chorus presents an anthology of writings on amphibians drawn from the entire Western natural history tradition, beginning with Aristotle's Inquiry Concerning Animals written in the fourth century B.C.E., and continuing through recent scientific accounts of the relatively sudden -- and alarming -- global declines and deformities in amphibian species. The offerings not only reveal much about amphibian life, but also provide fascinating insight into the worldviews of the many writers, scientists, and naturalists who have delved into the subject.The book is divided into five sections. The first three offer selections from the most influential contributors to the Western canon of natural history writing, and contain classic texts that illustrate central themes in the changing understanding of amphibians and of the natural world. The fourth section offers engaging essays by leading twentieth-century nature writers that portray a variety of amphibians in diverse terrains. Part five covers the various aspects of, and research on, the problem of amphibian declines and deformities. Featured are more than thirty-five pieces, including works from Pliny the Elder, Gilbert White, William Bartram, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Loren Eiseley, Stephen Jay Gould, George Orwell, Annie Dillard, Terry Tempest Williams, and many others.Arranged chronologically, the writings provide an intriguing look at the ways in which humankind's understanding of its place in nature has changed through the course of Western history, and of the niche amphibians have occupied in that evolution.