Download or read book Mozart s Starling written by Lyanda Lynn Haupt and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On May 27th, 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart met a flirtatious little starling in a Viennese shop who sang an improvised version of the theme from his Piano Concerto no. 17 in G major. Sensing a kindred spirit in the plucky young bird, Mozart bought him and took him home to be a family pet. For three years, the starling lived with Mozart, influencing his work and serving as his companion, distraction, consolation, and muse. Two centuries later, starlings are reviled by even the most compassionate conservationists. A nonnative, invasive species, they invade sensitive habitats, outcompete local birds for nest sites and food, and decimate crops. A seasoned birder and naturalist, Lyanda Lynn Haupt is well versed in the difficult and often strained relationships these birds have with other species and the environment. But after rescuing a baby starling of her own, Haupt found herself enchanted by the same intelligence and playful spirit that had so charmed her favorite composer. In Mozart's Starling, Haupt explores the unlikely and remarkable bond between one of history's most cherished composers and one of earth's most common birds. The intertwined stories of Mozart's beloved pet and Haupt's own starling provide an unexpected window into human-animal friendships, music, the secret world of starlings, and the nature of creative inspiration. A blend of natural history, biography, and memoir, Mozart's Starling is a tour de force that awakens a surprising new awareness of our place in the world.
Download or read book Crow Planet written by Lyanda Lynn Haupt and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2009-07-27 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are more crows now than ever. Their abundance is both an indicator of ecological imbalance and a generous opportunity to connect with the animal world. Crow Planet reminds us that we do not need to head to faraway places to encounter "nature." Rather, even in the suburbs and cities where we live we are surrounded by wild life such as crows, and through observing them we can enhance our appreciation of the world's natural order. Crow Planet richly weaves Haupt's own "crow stories" as well as scientific and scholarly research and the history and mythology of crows, culminating in a book that is sure to make readers see the world around them in a very different way.
Download or read book Arnie the Darling Starling written by Margarete Sigl Corbo and published by Hamlyn. This book was released on 1983 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent written by Lyanda Lynn Haupt and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2009-09-26 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By focusing mostly on the birds Charles Darwin observed, and by brilliantly mining his lesser-known writings, Haupt pens a startlingly fresh exploration of the man's genius that invites readers to look at the world with new eyes.
Download or read book How to Know the Birds written by Ted Floyd and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this elegant narrative, celebrated naturalist Ted Floyd guides you through a year of becoming a better birder. Choosing 200 top avian species to teach key lessons, Floyd introduces a new, holistic approach to bird watching and shows how to use the tools of the 21st century to appreciate the natural world we inhabit together whether city, country or suburbs." -- From book jacket.
Download or read book A Sudden Light written by Garth Stein and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the million-copy bestselling The Art of Racing in the Raincomes the breathtaking and long-awaited new novel. This novel centres on four generations of a once terribly wealthy and influential timber family who have fallen from grace; a mysterious yet majestic mansion, crumbling slowy into the bluff overlooking Puget Sound in Seattle; a love affair so powerful it reaches across the planes of existence; and a young man who simply wants his parents to once again experience the moment they fell in love, hoping that if can feel that emotion again, maybe they won't get divorced after all.
Download or read book Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid written by Thor Hanson and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *A New York Times Editor's Choice pick *Shortlisted for the 2022 Pacific Northwest Book Awards A beloved natural historian explores how climate change is driving evolution In Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, biologist Thor Hanson tells the remarkable story of how plants and animals are responding to climate change: adjusting, evolving, and sometimes dying out. Anole lizards have grown larger toe pads, to grip more tightly in frequent hurricanes. Warm waters cause the development of Humboldt squid to alter so dramatically that fishermen mistake them for different species. Brown pelicans move north, and long-spined sea urchins south, to find cooler homes. And when coral reefs sicken, they leave no territory worth fighting for, so aggressive butterfly fish transform instantly into pacifists. A story of hope, resilience, and risk, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is natural history for readers of Bernd Heinrich, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and David Haskell. It is also a reminder of how unpredictable climate change is as it interacts with the messy lattice of life.
Download or read book Mozart Finds a Melody written by Stephen Costanza and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An imaginative story about Mozart's many inspirations, now in paperback! Wolfgang Mozart must compose a new piano concerto to perform at the famous Burgtheatre in Vienna. But Mozart can't think of a note to write. When he hears his hungry pet starling sing out melodiously, his creativity begins to flow. Before he can put notes to paper, however, his muse escapes through the window, and Mozart is off on a frantic search to bring her back. Will Mozart find both his friend and song in time? Based on a true story about the famous composer and his beloved pet starling, this enchanting tale celebrates inspiration in any form it takes.
Download or read book Mozart written by Jan Swafford and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 832 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed composer and biographer Jan Swafford comes the definitive biography of one of the most lauded musical geniuses in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. At the earliest ages it was apparent that Wolfgang Mozart’s singular imagination was at work in every direction. He hated to be bored and hated to be idle, and through his life he responded to these threats with a repertoire of antidotes mental and physical. Whether in his rabidly obscene mode or not, Mozart was always hilarious. He went at every piece of his life, and perhaps most notably his social life, with tremendous gusto. His circle of friends and patrons was wide, encompassing anyone who appealed to his boundless appetites for music and all things pleasurable and fun. Mozart was known to be an inexplicable force of nature who could rise from a luminous improvisation at the keyboard to a leap over the furniture. He was forever drumming on things, tapping his feet, jabbering away, but who could grasp your hand and look at you with a profound, searching, and melancholy look in his blue eyes. Even in company there was often an air about Mozart of being not quite there. It was as if he lived onstage and off simultaneously, a character in life’s tragicomedy but also outside of it watching, studying, gathering material for the fabric of his art. Like Jan Swafford’s biographies Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, Mozart is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: a man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music. As Swafford reveals, it’s nearly impossible to understand classical music’s origins and indeed its evolutions, as well as the Baroque period, without studying the man himself.
Download or read book Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds written by Lyanda Lynn Haupt and published by Sasquatch Books. This book was released on 2004-06-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt, an ornithology teacher and researcher, examines the amazing talents and personalities of the most common of birds. Some birdwatchers will hop the red-eye to Costa Rica if a rare species is reported to be in residence. She makes the argument for sticking close to home. She muses on the tarnished reputation of the starling, the sexed-up antics of male woodpeckers, and the mysterious behavior and startling population explosion of crows in her hometown. Through the eye and voice of this talented writer, birds provide a fascinating point of contact with the natural world at large.
Download or read book Adventures in Opting Out written by Cait Flanders and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opt out of expectations and live a more intentional life with this refreshing guide from the national bestselling author of The Year of Less. We all follow our own path in life. At least, that's what we're told. In reality, many of us either do what is expected of us, or follow the invisible but well-worn paths that lead to what is culturally acceptable. For some, those paths are fine -- even great. But they leave some of us feeling disconnected from ourselves and what we really want. When that discomfort finally outweighs the fear of trying something new, we're ready to opt out. After going through this process many times, Cait Flanders found there is an incredible parallel between taking a different path in life and the psychological work it takes to summit a mountain -- especially when you decide to go solo. In Adventures in Opting Out, she offers a trail map to help you with both. As you'll see, reaching the first viewpoint can be easy -- and it offers a glimpse of what you're walking toward. Climbing to the summit for the full view is worth it. But in the space between those two peaks you will enter a world completely unknown to you, and that is the most difficult part of the path to navigate. With Flanders's guidance and advice, drawn from her own journey and stories of others, you'll have all the encouragement and insight you'll need to take the path less traveled and create the life you want. Just step up to the trailhead and expect it to be an adventure.
Download or read book Bitch written by Lucy Cooke and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fierce, funny, and revolutionary look at the queens of the animal kingdom Studying zoology made Lucy Cooke feel like a sad freak. Not because she loved spiders or would root around in animal feces: all her friends shared the same curious kinks. The problem was her sex. Being female meant she was, by nature, a loser. Since Charles Darwin, evolutionary biologists have been convinced that the males of the animal kingdom are the interesting ones—dominating and promiscuous, while females are dull, passive, and devoted. In Bitch, Cooke tells a new story. Whether investigating same-sex female albatross couples that raise chicks, murderous mother meerkats, or the titanic battle of the sexes waged by ducks, Cooke shows us a new evolutionary biology, one where females can be as dynamic as any male. This isn‘t your grandfather’s evolutionary biology. It’s more inclusive, truer to life, and, simply, more fun.
Download or read book Nature Obscura written by Kelly Brenner and published by Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 2020-02-26 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With wonder and a sense of humor, Nature Obscura author Kelly Brenner aims to help us rediscover our connection to the natural world that is just outside our front door--we just need to know where to look. Through explorations of a rich and varied urban landscape, Brenner reveals the complex micro-habitats and surprising nature found in the middle of a city. In her hometown of Seattle, which has plowed down hills, cut through the land to connect fresh- and saltwater, and paved over much of the rest, she exposes a diverse range of strange and unknown creatures. From shore to wetland, forest to neighborhood park, and graveyard to backyard, Brenner uncovers how our land alterations have impacted nature, for good and bad, through the wildlife and plants that live alongside us, often unseen. These stories meld together, in the same way our ecosystems, species, and human history are interconnected across the urban environment.
Download or read book Sounds Wild and Broken written by David George Haskell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction and the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Winner of the Acoustical Society of America's 2023 Science Communication Award “[A] glorious guide to the miracle of life’s sound.” —The New York Times Book Review A lyrical exploration of the diverse sounds of our planet, the creative processes that produced these marvels, and the perils that sonic diversity now faces We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution’s creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales. In the startlingly divergent sonic vibes of the animals of different continents, we experience the legacies of plate tectonics, the deep history of animal groups and their movements around the world, and the quirks of aesthetic evolution. Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, Haskell illuminates and celebrates the emergence of the varied sounds of our world. In mammoth ivory flutes from Paleolithic caves, violins in modern concert halls, and electronic music in earbuds, we learn that human music and language belong within this story of ecology and evolution. Yet we are also destroyers, now silencing or smothering many of the sounds of the living Earth. Haskell takes us to threatened forests, noise-filled oceans, and loud city streets, and shows that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative, just, and beautiful. The appreciation of the beauty and brokenness of sound is therefore an important guide in today’s convulsions and crises of change and inequity. Sounds Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act.
Download or read book Star The Bird Who Inspired Mozart written by Mireille Messier and published by Tundra Books. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chance encounter with a starling inspires Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in this picture book based on a true story. Star: The Bird Who Inspired Mozart is based on the true story of how Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the world's most remarkable musicians, was inspired by one of the world's most unremarkable birds: a starling. In this charming picture book, author Mireille Messier tells the story of a very special relationship and how it began: with a chance musical encounter. And Matte Stephens's playful art captures both the grandeur of 18th century Vienna and the budding unlikely friendship between a famous musician and a humble starling.
Download or read book The Birds of Shakespeare written by Archibald Geikie and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Great Lives in Graphics Mozart written by G. M. C. Editors and published by Great Lives in Graphics. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great Lives in Graphics: Mozart is a graphic retelling of Mozart's story which gives children a colorful snapshot of his life and the world he grew up in, while educating them on everything from the history of music to the Age of Enlightenment. You may already know that Mozart was a child prodigy, but did you know that he had a pet starling? Or that his letters are full of rhyming poo jokes? Great Lives in Graphics reimagines the lives of extraordinary people in vivid technicolor, presenting 250+ fascinating facts in a new and exciting way. It takes the essential dates and achievements of each person's life, mixes them with lesser-known facts and trivia, and uses infographics to show them in a fresh visual way that is genuinely engaging for children and young adults. The result is a colorful, fascinating and often surprising representation of that person's life, work and legacy. Using timelines, maps, repeated motifs and many more beautiful and informative illustrations, readers learn not just about the main subject of the book but also about the cultural background of the time they lived in.
