Nature Biography

Girl in the Woods is Aspen Matis' exhilarating true-life adventure of hiking from Mexico to Canada - a coming of age story, a survival story, and a triumphant story of overcoming emotional devastation. On her second night of college, Aspen was raped by a fellow student. Overprotected by her parents who discouraged her from telling of the attack, Aspen was confused and ashamed.

When Chick Ferguson made plans to go to the Yukon, he wasn’t planning on taking his newlywed Mary. He definitely was not planning on spending much of the next 18 years in the wilderness. For he was just a photographer with a little studio in a little town in Montana. His business was failing and having heard of the riches of the fur trade he was hoping to spend a year or two trapping, making a stake and returning to his routine life. But he didn’t figure on love....

In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, Krakauer explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has himself battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, Eiger.

Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have been friends for 30 years, but when life intervened, what was once a joyous and spontaneous friendship dwindled to the odd phone call or occasional catch up. Then, Glory Be! They were both diagnosed with heart disease and realised that time is short. They'd better spend it fishing.... So they dusted off their kits, chucked on their waders and ventured into the achingly beautiful British countryside to fish, rediscover the joys of their friendship and ruminate on some of life's most profound questions, such as: How did we get so old?

From the team that created the ALA Notable Book The Cod's Tale comes the fascinating history of salt, which has been the object of wars and revolutions and is vital for life. Based on Mark Kurlansky's critically acclaimed best seller Salt: A World History, this handsome picture book explores every aspect of salt: The many ways it's gathered from the Earth and sea; how ancient emperors in China, Egypt, and Rome used it to keep their subjects happy; why salt was key to the Age of Exploration; what salt meant to the American Revolution; and even how the search for salt eventually led to oil.

In 1811, while exploring the cliffs near Lyme Regis, England, 12-year-old Mary Anning made the find of a lifetime. There in the rocks was the skeleton of a strange creature. Mary's find was later named Ichthyosaurus, a reptile that lived more than 250 million years ago. Anning went on to have a long career finding and identifying dinosaur fossils. However, her work often went unrecognized by male scientists of the time, and she received little credit until long after her death. Learn about Mary Anning's perseverance and her important discoveries in paleontology.

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.

In this “striking, brave[,] and often lyrical” (The Guardian) blend of nature writing, whale science, and memoir, Doreen Cunningham interweaves two stories: tracking the extraordinary northward migration of the grey whales with a mischievous toddler in tow and living with an Iñupiaq family in Alaska seven years earlier. A story of courage and resilience, Soundings is about the migrating whales and all we can learn from them as they mother, adapt, and endure, their lives interrupted and threatened by global warming.

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....

On June 21, 1992, two best friends summited Mount Rainier. Within hours, their exquisite accomplishment would be overshadowed by tragedy. On their descent, Jim Davidson fell through an ice bridge on Rainier's northeast flank, plunging eighty feet into a narrow crevasse inside the Emmons Glacier and dragging Mike Price in after him. Mike fell to his death; Jim, badly injured and armed with minimal gear, faced an almost impossible climb back out of the crevasse, up a nearly vertical ice wall.

Five works in one collection. This audiobook of his treasured poetry collection walks you through a time when the American Experiment came to a new maturity; when the Transcendentalist Movement forever changed life and poetry.

Millions follow Dr. Evan Antin and his wildlife adventures through social media and on his popular Animal Planet television show Evan Goes Wild. Now in his first audiobook, World Wild Vet, Evan takes us to the deep blue seas, swimming with giant whale sharks with “puppy dog eyes," to jungles filled with venomous snakes (who are more afraid of you than you are of them), to a race across the savannah and against the clock to save rhinos from the clutches of poachers—all in the name of adventure and a deep love for the wild around us.

Taking risks and exploring the unknown are as vital to human beings as our need for air, for growth, for affirmation, for something. These 19 stories reach deep into humanity's compulsion for the rush of new experiences.

Picked by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the unknown wilds of the Louisiana Territory, Meriwether Lewis assembles a rugged team of adventurers, including co-captain William Clark - and a Newfoundland dog named Seaman. As hunter, retriever, and guard, Seaman becomes a trusted member of the Corps of Discovery. While the team tackles raging rivers and muddy shallows, Seaman is there - sharing their hunger and fatigue. Whether Indians threaten or grizzlies roar, he stands his ground. And through mountain peak or valley deep, Seaman remains a watchful friend and determined foe.

Hangdog Days vividly chronicles the era when rock climbing exploded in popularity, attracting a new generation of talented climbers eager to reach new heights via harder routes and faster ascents. This contentious, often entertaining period gave rise to sport climbing, climbing gyms, and competitive climbing-indelibly transforming the sport. Jeff Smoot was one of those brash young climbers, and here he traces the development of traditional climbing "rules," enforced first through peer pressure, then later through intimidation and sabotage.

Mysterious, graceful, and ever-clever, otters have captivated our imaginations, despite the fact that few people have encountered one in the wild. In Otter Country, celebrated nature writer Miriam Darlington captures the fascination she's had for these playful animals since childhood, and chronicles her immersive journey into their watery world. Over the course of a single year, Darlington takes listeners on a winding expedition in pursuit of these elusive creatures—from her home in Devon, England, and through the wilds of Scotland, Wales, the Lake District, and the countryside of Cornwal

Told in luminous, perceptive prose, The Last Fire Season is a deeply incisive inquiry into what it really means—now—to live in relationship to the elements of the natural world. When Manjula Martin moved from the city to the woods of Northern California, she wanted to be closer to the wilderness that she had loved as a child. She was also seeking refuge from a health crisis that left her with chronic pain, and found a sense of healing through tending her garden beneath the redwoods of Sonoma County.

Ben Mezrich takes us on an exhilarating true adventure story from the icy terrain of Siberia to the cutting-edge genetic labs of Harvard University. A group of young scientists, under the guidance of Dr. George Church, the most brilliant geneticist of our time, works to make fantasy reality by sequencing the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth harvested from above the Arctic Circle and splicing elements of that sequence into the DNA of a modern elephant.

In When Everything Beyond the Walls Is Wild, Lilace Mellin Guignard draws from emblematic moments and relationships in her own life to explore issues of gender, recreation, and environmental conservation. Born into a suburban family, Guignard wanted to get up close and personal with iconic American landscapes, but social pressures and cautionary tales told her that these spaces were not meant for her as a woman. Refusing to stay indoors and “safe", Guignard drove cross-country with her dog, worked as a river guide, and set out to climb Mount Whitney.

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. Working at the interface of where the criminal and natural world interact, Patricia has been involved in some of the most high-profile murder cases. Now, through a study of her most infamous, and fascinating cases—including the murder of Sarah Payne, and the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman—Patricia will show us how she finds the answers to some of the worst crimes imaginable.