Download or read book A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching written by Rosemary Mosco and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part field guide, part history, part ornithology primer, and altogether fun. Fact: Pigeons are amazing, and until recently, humans adored them. We’ve kept them as pets, held pigeon beauty contests, raced them, used them to carry messages over battlefields, harvested their poop to fertilize our crops—and cooked them in gourmet dishes. Now, with The Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, readers can rediscover the wonder. Equal parts illustrated field guide and quirky history, it covers behavior: Why they coo; how they flock; how they preen, kiss, and mate (monogamously); and how they raise their young (on chunky pigeon milk). Anatomy and identification, from Birmingham Roller to the American Giant Runt to the Scandaroon. Birder issues, like what to do if you find a baby pigeon stranded in the park. And our lively shared story together, including all the things we’ve taught them—Ping-Pong, for example. “Rats with wings?” Think again. Pigeons coo, peck and nest all over the world, yet most of us treat them with indifference or disdain. So Rosemary Mosco, a bird-lover, science communicator, writer, and cartoonist (and co-author of The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid) is here to give the pigeon's image a makeover, and to help every town- and city-dweller get closer to nature by discovering the joys of birding through pigeon-watching.
Download or read book Festival Days written by Jo Ann Beard and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A searing and exhilarating new collection from the award-winning author of The Boys of My Youth and In Zanesville,who “honors the beautiful, the sacred, and the comic in life” (Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award winner for The Friend). A New York Times Notable Book A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A Boston Globe and LitHub Best Book of the Year When “The Fourth State of Matter,” her now famous piece about a workplace massacre at the University of Iowa was published in The New Yorker, Jo Ann Beard immediately became one of the most influential writers in America, forging a path for a new generation of young authors willing to combine the dexterity of fiction with the rigors of memory and reportage, and in the process extending the range of possibility for the essay form. Now, with Festival Days, Beard brings us the culmination of her groundbreaking work. In these nine pieces, she captures both the small, luminous moments of daily existence and those instants when life and death hang in the balance, ranging from the death of a beloved dog to a relentlessly readable account of a New York artist trapped inside a burning building, as well as two triumphant, celebrated pieces of short fiction. Here is an unforgettable collection destined to be embraced and debated by readers and writers, teachers and students. Anchored by the title piece––a searing journey through India that brings into focus questions of mortality and love—Festival Days presents Beard at the height of her powers, using her flawless prose to reveal all that is tender and timeless beneath the way we live now.
Download or read book Jack s Secret World written by Jack Ryder and published by Hodder Children's Books. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join Jack and the gang on another unforgettable adventure, full of magic and mayhem - for fans of The Famous Five and Roald Dahl. Everything changed the day Jack and his neighbours Bruno and Rocco went to explore the old empty house. There they discovered a strange girl called Blossom, who introduced them to a world of magic - talking to animals, flying like birds, and even... a doorway to another world, hidden within the ivy-covered walls of the old house. Now the gang have gone through the doorway, looking for Blossom's missing dad, the man who made the magic. But finding him will be just the start of the adventure, as Blossom's dad has a mission for the gang, and they're going to need all the magical powers they can get.
Download or read book Team Human written by Douglas Rushkoff and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Porchlight’s Management and Workplace Culture Book of The Year “[A] thoroughly fascinating exploration of the long interplay between power and the technologies of communication.” —Adam Frank, NPR Team Human is a manifesto—a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In one hundred lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together—not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups. Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity—together—we can make the world a better place to be human.
Download or read book The Bird Way written by Jennifer Ackerman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds, a radical investigation into the bird way of being, and the recent scientific research that is dramatically shifting our understanding of birds -- how they live and how they think. “There is the mammal way and there is the bird way.” But the bird way is much more than a unique pattern of brain wiring, and lately, scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviors they have, for years, dismissed as anomalies or mysteries –– What they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, survive. They are also revealing the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, abilities we once considered uniquely our own: deception, manipulation, cheating, kidnapping, infanticide, but also ingenious communication between species, cooperation, collaboration, altruism, culture, and play. Some of these extraordinary behaviors are biological conundrums that seem to push the edges of, well, birdness: a mother bird that kills her own infant sons, and another that selflessly tends to the young of other birds as if they were her own; a bird that collaborates in an extraordinary way with one species—ours—but parasitizes another in gruesome fashion; birds that give gifts and birds that steal; birds that dance or drum, that paint their creations or paint themselves; birds that build walls of sound to keep out intruders and birds that summon playmates with a special call—and may hold the secret to our own penchant for playfulness and the evolution of laughter. Drawing on personal observations, the latest science, and her bird-related travel around the world, from the tropical rainforests of eastern Australia and the remote woodlands of northern Japan, to the rolling hills of lower Austria and the islands of Alaska’s Kachemak Bay, Jennifer Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect, in plumage, form, song, flight, lifestyle, niche, and behavior, birds vary. It is what we love about them. As E.O Wilson once said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen them all.
Download or read book Flights of Passage written by Mike Unwin and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Magnificent. . . . David Tipling's lush photographs stun and delight with every page. . . . Mr. Tipling's skill in telling the birds' stories is broad and unrivaled. Flights of Passage is a privileged look at birds as we've never seen them before."--Julie Zickefoose, Wall Street Journal A visually stunning, photographically driven celebration of bird migration--one of the great marvels of the natural world The vast transcontinental journeys made every year by millions of feathered migrants were not known to naturalists before the late nineteenth century. Even today, while cutting-edge technology such as geolocators and isotope analysis helps us map these journeys in detail, much of the science remains poorly understood. In this luxuriously illustrated volume, celebrated nature writer Mike Unwin and award-winning photographer David Tipling highlight sixty-seven different species of birds from around the world and explore how each has adapted to its migratory cycle. As they bring to life the drama of the Bar-headed Goose's journey over the Himalayas and the amazing sixty-thousand-mile annual round trip taken by the Arctic Tern between the United Kingdom and Antarctica, Unwin and Tipling offer deep insights into the science, mysteries, and wonders of migration.
Download or read book The Passenger Pigeon written by Errol Fuller and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunting, beautifully illustrated memorial to this iconic extinct bird At the start of the nineteenth century, Passenger Pigeons were perhaps the most abundant birds on the planet, numbering literally in the billions. The flocks were so large and so dense that they blackened the skies, even blotting out the sun for days at a stretch. Yet by the end of the century, the most common bird in North America had vanished from the wild. In 1914, the last known representative of her species, Martha, died in a cage at the Cincinnati Zoo. This stunningly illustrated book tells the astonishing story of North America's Passenger Pigeon, a bird species that—like the Tyrannosaur, the Mammoth, and the Dodo—has become one of the great icons of extinction. Errol Fuller describes how these fast, agile, and handsomely plumaged birds were immortalized by the ornithologist and painter John James Audubon, and captured the imagination of writers such as James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. He shows how widespread deforestation, the demand for cheap and plentiful pigeon meat, and the indiscriminate killing of Passenger Pigeons for sport led to their catastrophic decline. Fuller provides an evocative memorial to a bird species that was once so important to the ecology of North America, and reminds us of just how fragile the natural world can be. Published in the centennial year of Martha’s death, The Passenger Pigeon features rare archival images as well as haunting photos of live birds.
Download or read book Celebrating Birds written by Natalia Rojas and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gorgeously illustrated and interactive full-color guide to more than 181 birds of North America, based on the bestselling board game, Wingspan. Praised for its gorgeous illustrations, accurate portrayal of bird habitats, and its gameplay, the bird-focused board game Wingspan has become an international sensation, available in a dozen languages and selling more than 200,000 copies its first year. Celebrating Birds is the ultimate companion to the game for fans, as well as a beautiful and in-depth field guide for avian and nature enthusiasts. In addition to large-size representations of each bird and the most up-to-date bird descriptions provided by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Celebrating Birds includes a step-by-step guide that can be used to take the game into the real world. Players can collect points based on the birds, nests, and various habitat and feeding clues they find outside. Artists and best friends Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez collaborated to create the beautiful depictions featured in the original Wingspan board game. Celebrating Birds features larger illustrations of the 170 North American birds from the game, plus eleven exciting new birds. With Celebrating Birds, players and amateur naturalists can discover details about many of the birds currently at risk for extinction. As the number of birds in the United States and Canada has declined precipitously, Celebrating Birds is a fun way to raise awareness, educate, encourage activism, and provide resources on some of the most important ecological issues facing us today.
Download or read book Jack s Secret Summer written by Jack Ryder and published by Hodder Children's Books. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join the Secret Summer gang on an unforgettable magical adventure, full of humour and heart - for fans of The Famous Five and Roald Dahl. Jack has been dreading the summer holidays - his dad works long hours, and so all he has to look forward to is an empty house. But when his boisterous neighbours, Bruno and Rocco, make it their mission to pull him into an adventure, his life will never be the same again. Together they decide to explore the strange old house at the top of the hill, long abandoned and overgrown with ivy. But they soon discover the ivy hides more than just walls... the house is full of magical secrets, including a strange girl with no memory, who may hold the key to it all, if only she can remember... Imaginative and fun-filled, Jack Ryder's first story is inspired by the summer holidays of his childhood and brought to life with glorious black-and-white illustrations by Alice McKinley. Young readers will be spellbound by this heartfelt adventure.
Download or read book The Sons of Wonderland The Complete Series written by Kendra Moreno and published by Kendra Moreno. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 1007 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Descend into Madness with the Sons of Wonderland series collection one, books 1 and 2! Dive into this twisted Wonderland and start your newest adventure with the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and the Cheshire Cat, and the women who bring them to their knees. This collection includes a never before seen short titled, "Alice's Jabberwocky". **This is a Horror Romance retelling of Wonderland filled with all the creatures and characters you thought you knew. It contains gore and adult themes.** SERIES COLLECTION INCLUDES: Mad as a Hatter (book 1) Late as a Rabbit (book 2) Feral as a Cat (book 3) Cruel as a Queen (book 4) Exclusive Short: "Alice's Jabberwocky" If you like Sarah J Maas, Gena Showalter, J.R. Ward, Laura Thalassa, or Jennifer L. Armentrout, you won’t be able to put down this highly addictive twisted fairy tale. What Amazon reviewers are saying about Kendra’s other books: ★★★★★ ’I don't even know where to start because I am missing words to describe how much I loved this book. I've read a lot of gripping books, but this was by far one of the most addictive! For several hours, I could not focus on anything, the world disappeared and I was in Wonderland.’ ★★★★★ ‘Unlike anything you've ever read’ ★★★★★ ‘The story kept me hooked and I couldn't stop reading.’ ★★★★★ ‘ This is one of the best series I have ever read and I hope for more. The author's imagination and talent are a thing of beauty. . .’ ★★★★★ ‘Brilliant. Captivating. Absolutely addicting!’ ★★★★★ ‘The plot is gripping, the world is beautifully constructed, the descriptions are vivid, and the characters wonderfully well developed.’ ★★★★★ ‘Every book she writes is magic!!’ ★★★★★ ‘I love everything about this story and I love this author so much. I know when I get her book that it’s going to be a fantastic read and she never disappoints. . .’ ★★★★★ ‘Kendra has the power to make you love books you don't normally read or look twice at.’ ★★★★★ ‘If you like strong, quick witted, heroic women & sweet, sexy & dangerous Norse gods this book is for you!’
Download or read book Herbert Binns the Flying Tricycle written by Caroline Castle and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herbert Binns is such a clever mouse that some of the other animals are jealous of his talents and plot to sabotage his new invention, a flying tricycle.
Download or read book Tove Jansson Life Art Words written by Boel Westin and published by Sort of Books. This book was released on 2013-12-18 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Finnish-Swedish writer and artist Tove Jansson achieved worldwide fame as the creator of the Moomin stories, written between 1945 and 1970 and still in print in more than twenty languages. However, the Moomins were only a part of her prodigious output. Already admired in Nordic art circles as a painter, cartoonist and illustrator, she would go on to write a series of classic novels and short stories. She remains Scandinavia's best loved author. Tove Jansson's work reflected the tenets of her life: her love of family (and special bond with her mother), of nature, and her insistence on freedom to pursue her art. Love and work was the motto she chose for herself and her approach to both was joyful and uncompromising. If her relationships with men foundered on her ambivalence towards marriage, those with women came as a revelation, especially the love and companionship she found with her long-time partner, the artist Tuulikki Pietilä, with whom she lived on the solitary island of Klovharu. In this meticulously researched, authorised biography, Boel Westin draws together the many threads of Jansson's life: from the studies interrupted to help her family; the dark shades of war and her emergence as an artist with a studio of her own; to the years of Moomin-mania, and later novel writing. Based on numerous conversations with Tove, and unprecedented access to her journals, letters and personal archives, Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words offers a rare and privileged insight into the world of a writer whom Philip Pullman described, simply, as 'a genius'.
Download or read book Writing on the Wall written by Mumia Abu Jamal and published by City Lights Publishers. This book was released on 2015-06-29 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Revolutionary love, revolutionary memory and revolutionary analysis are at work in every page written by Mumia Abu-Jamal … His writings are a wake-up call. He is a voice from our prophetic tradition, speaking to us here, now, lovingly, urgently. Black man, old-school jazz man, freedom fighter, revolutionary—his presence, his voice, his words are the writing on the wall."—Cornel West, from the foreword From the first slave writings to contemporary hip hop, the canon of African American literature offers a powerful counter-narrative to dominant notions of American culture, history and politics. Resonant with voices of prophecy and resistance, the African American literary tradition runs deep with emancipatory currents that have had an indelible impact on the United States and the world. Mumia Abu-Jamal has been one of our most important contributors to this canon for decades, writing from the confines of the U.S. prison system to give voice to those most silenced by chronic racism, impoverishment and injustice. Writing on the Wall is a selection of more than 100 previously unpublished essays that deliver Mumia Abu-Jamal's essential perspectives on community, politics, power, and the possibilities of social change in the United States. From Rosa Parks to Edward Snowden, from the Trail of Tears to Ferguson, Missouri, Abu-Jamal addresses a sweeping range of contemporary and historical issues. Written mostly during his years of solitary confinement on Death Row, these essays are a testament to Abu-Jamal's often prescient insight, and his revolutionary perspective brims with hope, encouragement and profound faith in the possibility of redemption. "Greatness meets us in this book, and not just in Mumia's personal courage and character. It's in the writing. This is art with political power, challenging institutional injustice in the U.S. while catalyzing our understanding, memory and solidarities for liberation and love. Writing on the Wall can set the nation aflame—yes, for creating new possible worlds."—Mark Lewis Taylor, Professor of Theology and Culture, Princeton Theological Seminary Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist and author of two best-selling books, Live From Death Row and Death Blossoms. Johanna Fernández is a Fulbright Scholar and Professor of History at Baruch College in New York City. Cornel West is a scholar, philosopher, activist and author of over a dozen books including his bestseller, Race Matters. He appears frequently in the media, and has appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, CNN and C-Span as well as Tavis Smiley.
Download or read book The Genius of Birds written by Jennifer Ackerman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Lovely, celebratory. For all the belittling of ‘bird brains,’ [Ackerman] shows them to be uniquely impressive machines . . .” —New York Times Book Review “A lyrical testimony to the wonders of avian intelligence.” —Scientific American An award-winning science writer tours the globe to reveal what makes birds capable of such extraordinary feats of mental prowess Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. According to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores their newly discovered brilliance and how it came about. As she travels around the world to the most cutting-edge frontiers of research, Ackerman not only tells the story of the recently uncovered genius of birds but also delves deeply into the latest findings about the bird brain itself that are shifting our view of what it means to be intelligent. At once personal yet scientific, richly informative and beautifully written, The Genius of Birds celebrates the triumphs of these surprising and fiercely intelligent creatures. Ackerman is also the author of Birds by the Shore: Observing the Natural Life of the Atlantic Coast.
Download or read book An Unorthodox Match written by Naomi Ragen and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Unorthodox Match is a powerful and moving novel of faith, love, and acceptance, from author Naomi Ragen, the international bestselling author of The Devil in Jerusalem. California girl Lola has her life all set up: business degree, handsome fiancé, fast track career, when suddenly, without warning, everything tragically implodes. After years fruitlessly searching for love, marriage, and children, she decides to take the radical step of seeking spirituality and meaning far outside the parameters of modern life in the insular, ultraorthodox enclave of Boro Park, Brooklyn. There, fate brings her to the dysfunctional home of newly-widowed Jacob, a devout Torah scholar, whose life is also in turmoil, and whose small children are aching for the kindness of a womanly touch. While her mother direly predicts she is ruining her life, enslaving herself to a community that is a misogynistic religious cult, Lola’s heart tells her something far more complicated. But it is the shocking and unexpected messages of her new community itself which will finally force her into a deeper understanding of the real choices she now faces and which will ultimately decide her fate.
Download or read book Maps written by Aleksandra Mizielinska and published by Big Picture Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book of maps is a visual feast for readers of all ages, with lavishly drawn illustrations from the incomparable Mizielinskis.
Download or read book Peanut Butter Puppies written by and published by Gibbs Smith. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An irresistible photo collection of 70 rescued puppies in expressions of peanut butter bliss. Rescue-dog advocate and professional photographer Greg Murray has followed up on the fan favorite Peanut Butter Dogs with an even more irresistible theme: Peanut Butter Puppies. These adorable portraits of rescued dogs, captured in studio with colorful backgrounds and in delightfully amusing detail, will tug at your heartstrings. Prepare to swoon over Wallaby, the seven-month-old heeler; Archie, the eight-month-old Chihuahua; Fiona Wigglesworth, the eight-month-old Boston terrier; Zoey, the nine-month-old mastiff mix, and so many more! Each one-of-a-kind portrait is sure to make your day. Names, ages, and breed/mix accompany each portrait. Greg Murray is an award-winning lifestyle, commercial, and portrait animal photographer. He is active in animal rescue and advocacy for pit bull-type dogs. Greg is the photographer behind Peanut Butter Dogs, a rollicking portrait collection of more than 140 dogs enjoying peanut butter, and Pit Bull Heroes: 49 Underdogs with Resilience & Heart, which spotlights forty-nine underdogs who beat the odds and became heroes in their families, neighborhoods, and communities. His work has been featured in Huffington Post, Today, Daily Mail, Elle, People, and other media outlets throughout the world. Greg lives near Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife, Kristen, daughter, Evie, and two rescue dogs, Leo and Kensie.
