Nature Biography

In this memoir of a lost America, Hal Borland tells the story of his family's migration to eastern Colorado as homesteaders at the turn of the twentieth century. On an unsettled and unwelcoming prairie landscape, the Borlands build a house, plant crops, and eke out a meager existence. While life is difficult—and self-reliance is necessary with no neighbors for miles—the experience brings the family close and binds them closer to the terrible and beautiful natural patterns that govern their lives.

Crimson Arrows: A Bowhunting Odyssey is narrated from the heart and soul of a bowhunter. Spanning three decades of his adventures, Eyad Yehyawi takes you through the emotions, heartbreaks, and successes from his earliest years in Iowa, to physically and psychologically challenging backcountry hunts in Alaska and Canada, to a breathtaking African safari. Every setback and missed opportunity is revealed, along with the rewards earned through hard work and perseverance.

This audiobook is the personal memoir of an urban couple's journey to farming rather than a how-to guide and is sure to delight those interested in moving to the country or simply learning more about the struggles of sustainable farming. When Tim and Liz Young decided to leave their comfortable suburban life and become first-time farmers in rural Georgia, they embarked on a journey that would change their lives.

In the summer of 2012, a team of six climbers set out to attempt the first ascent of one of the great unclimbed lines of the Himalaya - the giant Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth highest mountain. At 10 kilometers in length, the Mazeno is the longest route to the summit of an 8,000-meter peak. Ten expeditions had tried and failed to climb this enormous ridge.

Erik Weihenmayer was born with retinoscheses, a degenerative eye disorder that would leave him blind by the age of 13. But Erik was determined to rise above this devastating disability and lead a fulfilling and exciting life. In this poignant and inspiring memoir, he shares his struggle to push past the limits imposed on him by his visual impairment - and by a seeing world.

For 18 years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.

On 30 January, 1981 Joe Tasker and Ade Burgess stood at 24,000 feet on the west ridge of Mount Everest. Below them were their companions, some exhausted, some crippled by illness, all virtually incapacitated. Further progress seemed impossible. Everest the Cruel Way is Joe Tasker's story of an attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth - an attempt which pushed a group of Britain's finest mountaineers to their limits. The goal had been to climb Mount Everest at its hardest: via the infamous west ridge, without supplementary oxygen and in winter.

In The Plant Hunter, Dr. Quave weaves together science, botany, and memoir to tell us the extraordinary story of her own journey. Traveling by canoe, ATV, mule, airboat, and on foot, she has conducted field research in the flooded forests of the remote Amazon, the murky swamps of southern Florida, the rolling hills of central Italy, isolated mountaintops in Albania and Kosovo, and volcanic isles arising out of the Mediterranean - all in search of natural compounds, long-known to traditional healers, that could help save us all from the looming crisis of untreatable superbugs.

Hans Florine is a big-wall climbing legend in his own time. He holds the speed record on the Nose route of El Capitan, a 3,000-foot granite cliff in Yosemite Valley that's considered the Everest of the rock-climbing world. But Florine's story is not one of super-human athletic prowess; it's one of persistence and dogged determination. In 30 years of climbing, he's ascended the Nose a mind-blowing, death-defying 100 times, more than anyone else ever has, and most likely ever will. In On the Nose, Florine describes the most dangerous, pivotal, and inspirational of those climbs.

Conraad de Rosner is a pioneering game ranger, working with dogs to protect wildlife against poachers – both ‘bushmeat’ poachers, who use cruel snares to trap animals, and criminal syndicates killing for rhinoceros horn and capturing critically endangered pangolins, the most trafficked animal in the world. Con’s life – constantly at risk from poachers, wildlife and even his own fellow rangers – has been saved on numerous occasions by his devoted canine companions.

On the afternoon of July 13, 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse.

In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred.

Prior to his untimely death, in 2010, Captain Phil Harris was a star of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, the hit show that follows the exhilarating lives of Alaskan crab fishermen as they brave the vicious Bering Sea. He led his crew through hurricane-force winds and four-story-high waves, hauling in millions of pounds of crab and raking in millions of dollars. Phil worked hard, but he played even harder....

The globetrotting naturalists of the 18th century were the geeks of their day: innovators and explorers who lived at the intersection of science and commerce. Foremost among them was Carl Linnaeus, a radical thinker who revolutionized biology. In What Linnaeus Saw, Karen Magnuson Beil chronicles Linnaeus's life and career in readable, relatable prose.

Emmy Award - winning filmmaker, writer, and naturalist Joe Hutto has done it again. Touching the Wild is the enchanting story about one man who has lived with a herd of mule deer in the Wind River mountains of Wyoming for almost seven years. Why, you may ask, would a person choose to do such a thing? His response: how could you not? For Joe Hutto, close proximity to wild things is irresistible. In Illumination in the Flatwoods he unveiled the secret lives of the wild turkey to great critical acclaim.

"I never set out to hike 10,000 miles. It just sort of happened over the course of a decade." And so goes Lawton Grinter's compelling collection of short stories that have been over ten years and 10,000 trail miles in the making. I Hike brings the reader trailside with blissful moments on the highest mountain ridges to the mental lows of mosquito hell and into some peculiar situations that even seasoned hikers may find unbelievable.

Mountain search-and-rescue volunteer Bree Loewen's to-do list isn't quite the same as most people's. A former Mount Rainier climbing ranger and trained leader in mountain search-and-rescue, Bree shares the drama and the camaraderie of this work, as well as the challenges of trying to fit her other roles as wife and mother into what is still largely a masculine environment. In a fearless voice - disarming yet laced with dark humor - Bree guides us through intense recoveries, vivid wilderness landscapes, and the warmth she discovers in motherhood, community, and purpose.

Entropy is a law of nature, the one predicting that "things fall apart." Spend enough time outdoors and it will eventually happen to you. When it does, who will pick up the pieces? Who will glue them back together? Professional search and rescue volunteers leave work, home, and their cozy beds to rescue people on the worst day of their lives. They buy their own gear, pay their own gas, and ask nothing more than to make a contribution to the lives of strangers who they'll probably never meet again.

What compels mountain climbers to take the risks that they do? Is it the thrill in the physical accomplishment, in managing to defy the odds, or both - and why do they continue to do what they do in the face of such great danger? In On the Ridge Between Life and Death, David Roberts confronts these questions head-on as he recounts the exhilarating highs and desperate lows of his climbing career.

Into the Unknown -- Treasures of Nature Great individuals dared to explore and investigate to extend our understanding of the natural world. They have given us a rich knowledge of the treasures of nature. Their valuable discoveries are making a difference today. Into The Unknown -- Treasures of Nature traces the exciting events in the lives of gifted scientists. They made breakthroughs in understand the natural world. Some explored dense and dangerous rain forests, or climbed mountains to their dizzy peaks carrying scientific measuring instruments with them. One found adventure in viewing ...