Nature Biography

Artists have learnt to pay attention. The rest of us spend most of our time on auto-pilot, rushing from place to place, our overfamiliarity blinding us to the marvellous, life-affirming phenomena of our world. But that doesn't have to be the case. In his typical engaging style, Will Gompertz takes us into the minds of artists - from contemporary stars to old masters, the well-known to the lesser-so, and from around the world - to show us how to look and experience the world with their heightened awareness.

Nina Mingya Powles first learned to swim in Borneo - where her mother was born and her grandfather studied freshwater fish. There, the local swimming pool became her first body of water. Through her life there have been others that have meant different things, but have still been, in their own way, home: from the wild coastline of New Zealand to a pond in northwest London. This collection of essays explores the bodies of water that separate and connect us, as well as everything from migration, food, family, earthquakes and the ancient lunisolar calendar to butterflies.

Once a killing ground for whalers hunting a leviathan they called the "devilfish," the San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja, Mexico, is now an environmental and spiritual sanctuary—the only place in the world where animals in their natural aquatic environment routinely seek out human contact. A nursery for the gray whale since before recorded history, the lagoon and its stories, told here by James Michael Dorsey, illuminate the magic of human connection to animals, and what those bonds teach us about ourselves and our purpose on this shared planet.

Ein Mann – eine Legende. Reinhold Messner hat in seinem Leben zahlreiche "Grenzgänge" gewagt. Nicht selten begegneten ihm Wunder der Natur, oft verfolgte ihn der Tod. Ob auf den höchsten Gipfeln, in trockenen Steinwüsten oder im antarktischen Eis, überall suchte Messner seine Grenzen. In drei Vorträgen berichtet er u. a. vom Everest und Nanga Parbat, der Wüste Gobi und seinen Reisen in die Polarregionen. Diese Hörbuch-Sammlung weiß zu unterhalten und zu informieren, eine gelungene Mischung.

Fue una de las principales figuras de la arquitectura española de finales del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX. Autor de obras de inigualable belleza como la Casa Milá o el Park Güell, Gaudí siempre será recordado por la obra cumbre de su carrera: el Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia, una construcción colosal e inacabada en la que están condensados todos los principios que guiaron su interesante proceso creativo.

Wild animals are beautiful creatures, but they can turn dangerous in a heartbeat. Follow along as survivors use their wit, strength, and sheer will to battle these deadly beasts.

Here's how a few pioneers forged their own unique paths in the conservation movement.

Before Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had shut himself off from other people. His lectures were mechanical; his relationships were little more than ways to fill the evenings. But as his journey veered dangerously off course, everything began to change. A gripping adventure of the body and mind, To the Last Breath depicts the quest that leads Slakey around the globe, almost takes his life, and opens his heart.

This amazing memoir follows the story of Reggie Williams - ex-NFL linebacker, former Disney executive, renaissance man, and the epitome of determination in the face of extreme challenges.

Dr Rosa is no stranger to the Amazon. Growing up with the rainforest as her back garden, she learnt the lessons of the rainforest from her grandmother, a native healer in natural medicine. In this debut, you'll learn about Dr Rosa's journeys in the Amazon: her treacherous encounters with a boiling river, her conservation work with stingless bees, her experience of taking ayahuasca as a natural psychedelic—and all the amazing biodiversity of the rainforest.

With a baby and a toddler, mounting debt, work demands and stress trampling over their desire to spend time together as a family in nature, Jen and Sim Benson move out of their rented accommodation, sell up their possessions and decide to live in a tent for a year as nomads around rural Britain. This is the story of that year–the highs and the lows–the doubts, epiphanies and the weather.

I Chose to Climb, first published in 1966, was Chris Bonington's first book. He was recognised then, as now, as one of the outstanding members of a brilliant generation of mountaineers. Here he describes his climbing beginnings as a teenager as well as successful ascents all over the world: the first ascent of the Central Pillar of Freney, the first British ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in 1962, Annapurna II in 1960 and in an unhappy expedition in 1961, Nuptse, the third peak of Everest.

Each year, more than 1,000 rhinoceroses are killed - in South Africa alone. There are fewer than 18,000 white rhinos and only 5,000 black rhinos left alive in the wild. The situation with regard to this corrupt, illegal war on wildlife is clearly critical. And what are rhinos killed for? Their horns - sold in shavings as a snake-oil 'cure' for colds or impotence. The going price is $16,000 a kilogram, but a rhino's horn is simply keratin, the same material as our fingernails, with no magical, medicinal properties.

'I love puzzles, and finding answers is the only truly enjoyable part of what I do.' This is because Professor Patricia Wiltshire is a forensic ecologist, her days spent at crime scenes collecting samples, standing over dead bodies in a mortuary, or looking down her microscope for evidence. Nature has given us a messy, imperfect world, but her job is to help make sense of it when we need it to most. A pioneer of forensic ecology - using the natural world to help solve crimes - Patricia has been involved in some of the most high-profile murder cases.

Without a map, navigate by the stars. Susan Tweit began learning this lesson as a young woman diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that was predicted to take her life in two to five years. Offered no clear direction for getting well through conventional medicine, Tweit turned to the natural world that was both her solace and her field of study as a plant ecologist.

Each entry in this series is a biography of a significant historical figure, told in a simple, conversational, vivacious way, and always focusing on a character trait that makes the person a role model for kids. The heroes tell their life stories in first-person present tense, which keeps the books playful and accessible to young children. This 10th audiobook in the series features Jane Goodall, the scientist and conservationist who is famous for her work with chimpanzees.

Beyond the garden wall lies a wealth of cultivated plants, each with a unique tale to tell. In The Grove, award-winning writer and head gardener Ben Dark reveals the remarkable secrets of 20 commonly found species—including the rose, wisteria, buddleja, box and the tulip—encountered in the front gardens of one London street over the course of year.

After years of unexplained health problems, Polly Atkin's perception of her body was rendered fluid and disjointed. When she was finally diagnosed with two chronic conditions in her thirties, she began to piece together what had been happening to her - all the misdiagnoses, the fractures, the dislocations, the bone-crushing exhaustion, the not being believed. Some of Us Just Fall combines memoir, pathography and nature writing to trace a fascinating journey through illness, a journey which led Polly to her current home in the Lake District.

This captivating book brings together two birds of a feather: Jean and Johnny, boys from very different worlds growing up in a small village in France. Jean is the genteel pharmacist’s son, dressed in his Sunday best; Johnny’s father is a rough, working-class sheep herder, always with the odor of animals clinging to him. Each year, over three hundred bird species visit their village, which intersects a major migratory flyway. The two boys’ stories converge when Jean enters a bird-calling contest.

Dieses Hörbuch vereint folgende drei phantastische wie auch abenteuerliche Erzählungen von Reinhold Messner...