Download or read book The Seabird s Cry written by Adam Nicolson and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life itself could never have been sustainable without seabirds. As Adam Nicolson writes: "They are bringers of fertility, the deliverers of life from ocean to land." A global tragedy is unfolding. Even as we are coming to understand them, the number of seabirds on our planet is in freefall, dropping by nearly 70% in the last sixty years, a billion fewer now than there were in 1950. Of the ten birds in this book, seven are in decline, at least in part of their range. Extinction stalks the ocean and there is a danger that the grand cry of the seabird colony, rolling around the bays and headlands of high latitudes, will this century become little but a memory. Seabirds have always entranced the human imagination and NYT best-selling author Adam Nicolson has been in love with them all his life: for their mastery of wind and ocean, their aerial beauty and the unmatched wildness of the coasts and islands where every summer they return to breed. The seabird’s cry comes from an elemental layer in the story of the world. Over the last couple of decades, modern science has begun to understand their epic voyages, their astonishing abilities to navigate for tens of thousands of miles on featureless seas, their ability to smell their way towards fish and home. Only the poets in the past would have thought of seabirds as creatures riding the ripples and currents of the entire planet, but that is what the scientists are seeing now today.

Download or read book The Seabird s Cry written by Adam Nicolson and published by Henry Holt. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in The U.K. in 2017 by HarperCollins.

Download or read book Sea Room written by Adam Nicolson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2007-08-14 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1937, Adam Nicolson's father answered a newspaper ad—"Uninhabited islands for sale. Outer Hebrides, 600 acres. . . . Puffins and seals. Apply."—and thus found the Shiants. With a name meaning "holy or enchanted islands," the Shiants for millennia were a haven for those seeking solitude, but their rich, sometimes violent history of human habitation includes much more. When he was twenty-one, Nicolson inherited this almost indescribably beautiful property: a landscape, soaked in centuries-old tales of restless ghosts and Bronze Age gold, that cradles the heritage of a once-vibrant world of farmers and fishermen. In Sea Room, Nicolson describes and relives his love affair with the three tiny islands and their strange and colorful history in passionate, keenly precise prose—sharing with us the greatest gift an island bestows on its inhabitants: a deep engagement with the natural world.

Download or read book Oceanic Birds of the World written by Steve N. G. Howell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A state-of-the-art photographic field guide to the world's oceanic birds Oceanic birds are among the most remarkable but least known of all birds, living at sea, far from the sight of most people. They offer unusual identification challenges—many species look similar and it can be difficult to get good views of fast-flying birds from a moving boat. The first field guide to the world's oceanic birds in more than two decades, this exciting and authoritative book draws on decades of firsthand experience on the open seas. It features clear text filled with original insights and new information and more than 2,200 carefully chosen color images that bring the ocean and its remarkable winged inhabitants to life. Never before have oceanic birds been presented in such an accessible and comprehensive way. The introduction discusses the many recent developments in seabird taxonomy, which are incorporated into the species accounts, and these accounts are arranged into groups that aid field identification. Each group and species complex has an introductory overview of its identification challenges, illustrated with clear comparative photos. The text describes flight manner, plumage variation related to age and molt, seasonal occurrence patterns, migration routes, and many other features. The result is an indispensable guide for exploring birding's last great frontier. A comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible guide to oceanic birds Covers more than 270 species Includes more than 2,200 color photos with concise captions noting key features Features careful species comparisons, overviews of the latest taxonomy, tips on how to observe and ID birds at sea, and much more

Download or read book Life Between the Tides written by Adam Nicolson and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adam Nicolson explores the marine life inhabiting seashore rockpools with a scientist’s curiosity and a poet’s wonder in this beautifully illustrated book. The sea is not made of water. Creatures are its genes. Look down as you crouch over the shallows and you will find a periwinkle or a prawn, a claw-displaying crab or a cluster of anemones ready to meet you. No need for binoculars or special stalking skills: go to the rocks and the living will say hello. Inside each rock pool tucked into one of the infinite crevices of the tidal coastline lies a rippling, silent, unknowable universe. Below the stillness of the surface course different currents of endless motion—the ebb and flow of the tide, the steady forward propulsion of the passage of time, and the tiny lifetimes of the rock pool’s creatures, all of which coalesce into the grand narrative of evolution. In Life Between the Tides, Adam Nicolson investigates one of the most revelatory habitats on earth. Under his microscope, we see a prawn’s head become a medieval helmet and a group of “winkles” transform into a Dickensian social scene, with mollusks munching on Stilton and glancing at their pocket watches. Or, rather, is a winkle more like Achilles, an ancient hero, throwing himself toward death for the sake of glory? For Nicolson, who writes “with scientific rigor and a poet’s sense of wonder” (The American Scholar), the world of the rock pools is infinite and as intricate as our own. As Nicolson journeys between the tides, both in the pools he builds along the coast of Scotland and through the timeline of scientific discovery, he is accompanied by great thinkers—no one can escape the pull of the sea. We meet Virginia Woolf and her Waves; a young T. S. Eliot peering into his own rock pool in Massachusetts; even Nicolson’s father-in-law, a classical scholar who would hunt for amethysts along the shoreline, his mind on Heraclitus and the other philosophers of ancient Greece. And, of course, scientists populate the pages; not only their discoveries, but also their doubts and errors, their moments of quiet observation and their thrilling realizations. Everything is within the rock pools, where you can look beyond your own reflection and find the miraculous an inch beneath your nose. “The soul wants to be wet,” Heraclitus said in Ephesus twenty-five hundred years ago. This marvelous book demonstrates why it is so. Includes Color and Black-and-White Photographs

Download or read book The Papers of Woodrow Wilson Volume 22 written by Adam Nicolson and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The full story of seabirds from one of the greatest nature writers. The book looks at the pattern of their lives, their habitats, the threats they face and the passions they inspire - beautifully illustrated by Kate Boxer. WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE JEFFERIES AWARD FOR NATURE WRITING 2017 Seabirds are master navigators, thriving in the most demanding environment on earth. In this masterly book, drawing on all the most recent research, Adam Nicolson follows them to the coasts and islands of Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and the Americas. Beautifully illustrated by Kate Boxer, The Seabird's Cry is a celebration of the wonders of the only creatures at home in the air, on land and on the sea. It also carries a warning: the number of seabirds has dropped by two-thirds since 1950. Extinction stalks the ocean and there is a danger that the grand cry of a seabird colony will this century become little but a memory.

Download or read book The Home Place written by J. Drew Lanham and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A groundbreaking work about race and the American landscape, and a deep meditation on nature…wise and beautiful.”—Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk A Foreword Reviews Best Book of the Year and Nautilus Silver Award Winner In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored. Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina—a place “easy to pass by on the way somewhere else”—has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be “the rare bird, the oddity.” By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a meditation on nature and belonging by an ornithologist and professor of ecology, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South—and in America today. “When you’re done with The Home Place, it won’t be done with you. Its wonders will linger like everything luminous.”—Star Tribune “A lyrical story about the power of the wild…synthesizes his own family history, geography, nature, and race into a compelling argument for conservation and resilience.”—National Geographic

Download or read book The Sea Is Not Made of Water written by Adam Nicolson and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2022-06-23 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Far from Land written by Michael Brooke and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seabirds evoke the spirit of the earth's wildest places. They spend large portions of their lives at sea, often far from land, and nest on remote islands that humans rarely visit. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated and miniaturized devices that can track their every movement and behavior, it is now possible to observe the mysterious lives of these remarkable creatures as never before. This book takes you on a breathtaking journey around the globe to provide an extraordinary up-close look at the activities of seabirds. Featuring stunning illustrations by renowned artist Bruce Pearson, Far from Land reveals that seabirds are not the aimless wind-tossed wanderers they may appear to be, and explains the observational innovations that are driving this exciting area of research.

Download or read book Birds of the Salton Sea written by Michael Patten and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-08-19 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Salton Sea, California’s largest inland lake, supports a spectacular bird population that is among the most concentrated and most diverse in the world. Sadly, this crucial stopover along the Pacific Flyway for migratory and wintering shorebirds, landbirds, and waterfowl is dangerously close to collapse from several environmental threats. This book is the first thoroughly detailed book to describe the birds of Salton Sea, more than 450 species and subspecies in all. A major contribution to our knowledge about the birds of western North America, it will also be an important tool in the struggle to save this highly endangered area. Synthesizing data from many sources, including observations from their long-term work in the area, the authors’ species accounts discuss each bird’s abundance, seasonal status, movement patterns, biogeographic affinities, habitat associations, and more. This valuable reference also includes general information on the region’s fascinating history and biogeography, making it an unparalleled resource for the birding community, for wildlife managers, and for conservation biologists concerned with one of the most threatened ecosystems in western North America.

Download or read book Bird Songs written by Les Beletsky and published by becker&mayer! Books. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Bird Songs, ornithologist Les Beletsky profiles 250 birds alongside colorful illustrations, and includes a digital audio player that provides the corresponding song for each of the 250 birds. Drawing from the collection of the world-renowned Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Bird Songs presents the most notable North American birds—including the rediscovered ivory-billed woodpecker—in a stunning format. Renowned ornithologist Les Beletsky provides a succinct description of each of the 250 birds profiled, with an emphasis on their distinctive songs. Lavish full-color illustrations accompany each account, while a sleek, built-in digital audio player holds 250 corresponding songs and calls. In his foreword, North American bird expert and distinguished natural historian Jon L. Dunn shares insights gained from a lifetime of passionate study. Complete with the most up-to-date and scientifically accurate information, Bird Songs is the first book to capture the enchantment of these beautiful birds in words, pictures, and song.

Download or read book Maggie s Door written by Patricia Reilly Giff and published by Wendy Lamb Books. This book was released on 2003-09-09 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We will dance on the cliffs of Brooklyn. Maggie’s Door is the story of the journey from Ireland to America told by both Nory and her neighbor and friend Sean Red Mallon, two different stories with the same destination—the home of Nory’s sister Maggie, at 416 Smith Street, Brooklyn, America. Patricia Reilly Giff calls upon her long research into Irish history and her great powers as a storyteller in this deeply involving, riveting stand-alone companion novel to Nory Ryan’s Song.

Download or read book Tar Baby written by Toni Morrison and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-07-24 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary reinvention of the love story by the legendary Nobel Prize winner Jadine Childs is a Black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a Black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between Blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.

Download or read book An Introduction to Marine Mammal Biology and Conswervation written by Simmonds, M.P and published by Jones & Bartlett Publishers. This book was released on 2013 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The charismatic mammals that live in the ocean are a constant source of interest, both for scientists and our society at large. Their biology, behavior, and conservation are of utmost importance, as a vast number of species are currently threatened. Intended for the upper-level undergraduate or graduate student within biology, marine biology, or conservation/environmental science, An Introduction to Marine Mammal Biology and Conservation provides a broad introduction to marine mammal biology using cutting edge information and student-friendly learning tools. The text begins with chapters on the evolution and classification of marine mammals and their general biology. It moves on to discuss the behavior and ecology of different groups of marine mammals, such as polar bears, otters, and cetaceans. Part 3 dives into many different conservation issues facing marine mammals, as well as discussions on how they can be addressed. Closing chapters provide information on how scientists study marine mammals, how society can enjoy observing the animals while making sure they are preserved, and a word to students looking to pursue a career with marine mammals.

Download or read book God s Secretaries written by Adam Nicolson and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2005-08-02 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A network of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was the England of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Bacon; the era of the Gunpowder Plot and the worst outbreak of the plague. Jacobean England was both more godly and less godly than the country had ever been, and the entire culture was drawn taut between these polarities. This was the world that created the King James Bible. It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment "Englishness," specifically the English language itself, had come into its first passionate maturity. The English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own scope than any form of the language before or since. It drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Download or read book Island Home written by Tim Winton and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The writer explores his beloved Australia in a memoir that is “a delight to read [and] a call to arms . . . It beseeches us to revere the land that sustains us” (Guardian). From boyhood, Tim Winton’s relationship with the world around him?rock pools, sea caves, scrub, and swamp?has been as vital as any other connection. Camping in hidden inlets, walking in high rocky desert, diving in reefs, bobbing in the sea between surfing sets, Winton has felt the place seep into him, and learned to see landscape as a living process. In Island Home, Winton brings this landscape?and its influence on the island nation’s identity and art?vividly to life through personal accounts and environmental history. Wise, rhapsodic, exalted?in language as unexpected and wild as the landscape it describes?Island Home is a brilliant, moving portrait of Australia from one of its finest writers, the prize-winning author of Breath, Eyrie, and The Shepherd’s Hut, among other acclaimed titles.

Download or read book The Closer I Get written by Paul Burston and published by Orenda Books. This book was released on 2019-05-11 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological, social-media thriller ... NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'Brilliantly twisty. I loved it' Lisa Jewell 'Another dark banger from the Orenda Books stable... A brilliant, twisty cat-and-mouse book about fandom and obsession' Erin Kelly 'Effortlessly readable, intensely chilling. That ending floored me' Chris Whitaker ***LONGLISTED for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize*** ___________________ Tom is a successful author, but he's struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won't leave him alone. Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has. When she's hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing. But things aren't really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he's letting on. A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological thriller, The Closer I Get is also a searing commentary on the fragility and insincerity of online relationships, and the danger that can lurk just one like' away... ___________________ 'This book will make you rethink your social media obsession. Dangerous from page one, lit by bursts of black humour, ultimately honest about the frailty of ego and the masks we all wear. Terrifically readable' Sarah Hilary So good. Such brilliant characters. Great premise and a thrilling read' Nina Pottell, Prima 'A sucker-punch of a twist that took my breath away! Absurdly gripping, and enough to unnerve anyone who has ever spent any time online' Angela Clarke 'As perfect a thriller as you'll read all year' Caz Frear 'A gripping ride through the heartlands of need and hurt. Even at his most thrilling, Paul Burston never loses his sense of real pain and suffering' Philip Hensher 'Chillingly recognisable. A delicious tour de force' Alex Marwood 'Compelling, creepy and completely believable' Mel McGrath 'Dark, devious and with a growing sense of dread' Neil Broadfoot 'Brilliantly written, tense and compelling' Amanda Jennings 'Dark twisty fiction at its very best' SJI Holliday 'One of the best books you'll read this year' Ed James 'Unsettling. Taut. Menacing. Burston puts the killer into killer twist' Jonathan Harvey 'Witty and insightful' Susie Boyt 'Brilliant, chilling, totally awesome writing' Miranda Dickinson 'An absolute stunner... with a deliciously twisted ending' Lisa Hall 'The book is a masterpiece in sustained suspense and smart literate contemporary horror. Bravo Mr Burston' Derek Farrell 'Very easy to read, certainly keeps you hooked in with plenty of twists. I suspect it will be a big read this summer' Fiona Sharp 'It's about a gay novelist who becomes the target of an online stalker and is dark, thought-provoking, and totally riveting. As comebacks go, it's on a par with Madonna bursting out of a giant disco ball in a pink leotard!’ Matt Cain ‘Gripped and terrified by Paul Burston’s new novel, bloody hell!!!’ Rowan Coleman