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Nature

PLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: WHAT REAL-LIFE ZOMBIES REVEAL ABOUT OUR WORLD--AND OURSELVES

PLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: WHAT REAL-LIFE ZOMBIES REVEAL ABOUT OUR WORLD--AND OURSELVES

By: Simon, Matt
$16.00
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A brain-bending exploration of real-life zombies and mind controllers, and what they reveal to us about nature--and ourselves

Zombieism isn't just the stuff of movies and TV shows like The Walking Dead. It's real, and it's happening in the world around us, from wasps and worms to dogs and moose--and even humans.

In Plight of the Living Dead, science journalist Matt Simon documents his journey through the bizarre evolutionary history of mind control. Along the way, he visits a lab where scientists infect ants with zombifying fungi, joins the search for kamikaze crickets in the hills of New Mexico, and travels to Israel to meet the wasp that stings cockroaches in the brain before leading them to their doom.

Nothing Hollywood dreams up can match the brilliant, horrific zombies that natural selection has produced time and time again. Plight of the Living Dead is a surreal dive into a world that would be totally unbelievable if very smart scientists didn't happen to be proving it's real, and most troublingly--or maybe intriguingly--of all: how even we humans are affected.

"Fantastic . . . You'll be thinking about this book long after you're done reading it." --Kelly Weinersmith, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Soonish

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POINTS UNKNOWN

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From Robert Falcon Scott's final journal entry to Jon Krakauer's reckless solo climb of the Devil's Thumb, David Roberts and the editors of Outside have gathered the most enduring adventure literature of the century into one heart-stopping volume. A frigid winter ascent of Mount McKinley; the vastness of Arabia's Empty Quarter; the impossibly thin air at Everest's summit; the deadly black pressure of an underwater cave; a desperate escape through a Norwegian winter these and thirty-six other stories recount the minutes, hours, and days of lives pushed to the brink. But there is more to adventure than hair's-breadth escapes. By turns charming and tragic, whimsical and nerve-racking, this extraordinary collection gets to the heart of why adventure stories enthrall us. Includes works by Sebastian Junger, Jon Krakauer, Edward Abbey, Tim Cahill, Edward Hoagland, Ernest Shackleton, Freya Stark, and Wilfred Thesiger."
POSTCARDS FROM THE LEDGE

POSTCARDS FROM THE LEDGE

By: Child, Greg
$16.95
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1998 Banff Mountain Literature Award Winner
  • Reflections and humorous pieces, plus insights into some of mountaineering's more controversial events
  • Revealing portraits of other Himalayan climbers
  • Peeling back the layers to reveal the gritty truth about the elite climbing world is Greg Child's specialty. With clever wit, sharp observations, and insightful reflections, Child's writing covers the full spectrum of the mountaineering experience.

    Entertaining even to those who have never been above sea level, Child's stories reveal climbing's other face. His description of the daily habits of mountaineers on expedition (who don't bathe for months) is both disgusting and horrifyingly funny. A post-climb fiasco in the offices of petty Pakistani bureaucrats proves that not all epics take place on high mountain faces. Falling of a rock climb in front of his mother is an exercise in humility.

    Child takes up climbing controversy with the same keen insight. His investigation of Tomo Cesen's claimed first ascent of Lhotse's south wall is considered the definitive report on this controversial event. A hard look at the media frenzy around the death of Alison Hargreaves on K2 evolves into a brilliant, impassioned defense of a friend. He also speaks out on the money- and media-driven expeditions that now crowd Everest.

    But Child never preaches. Whether contrasting his clumsy performance with Lynn Hill's elegant moves on a climb in the remote mountains of Kyrgyzstan or reflecting upon artifacts (from crucifixes to pink flamingos) that decorate the world's highest peaks, he writes it as he sees it, with a dose of wit. A true insider, Greg Child draws us deep into the world of climbing but never denies its dark side.

    PRACTICE OF THE WILD: New Expanded

    PRACTICE OF THE WILD: New Expanded

    By: Snyder, Gary
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    This is an important book for anyone interested in the ethical interrelationships of things, places, and people, and it is a book that is not just read but taken in. --Library Journal

    Featuring a new introduction by Robert Hass, the nine captivatingly meditative essays in The Practice of the Wild display the deep understanding and wide erudition of Gary Snyder in the ways of Buddhist belief, wildness, wildlife, and the world. These essays, first published in 1990, stand as the mature centerpiece of Snyder's work and thought, and this profound collection is widely accepted as one of the central texts on wilderness and the interaction of nature and culture.

    PYROCENE

    PYROCENE

    By: Pyne, Stephen J
    $22.95
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    A provocative rethinking of how humans and fire have evolved together over time--and our responsibility to reorient this relationship before it's too late.​

    The Pyrocene tells the story of what happened when a fire-wielding species, humanity, met an especially fire-receptive time in Earth's history. Since terrestrial life first appeared, flames have flourished. Over the past two million years, however, one genus gained the ability to manipulate fire, swiftly remaking both itself and eventually the world. We developed small guts and big heads by cooking food; we climbed the food chain by cooking landscapes; and now we have become a geologic force by cooking the planet.

    Some fire uses have been direct: fire applied to convert living landscapes into hunting grounds, forage fields, farms, and pastures. Others have been indirect, through pyrotechnologies that expanded humanity's reach beyond flame's grasp. Still, preindustrial and Indigenous societies largely operated within broad ecological constraints that determined how, and when, living landscapes could be burned. These ancient relationships between humans and fire broke down when people began to burn fossil biomass--lithic landscapes--and humanity's firepower became unbounded. Fire-catalyzed climate change globalized the impacts into a new geologic epoch. The Pleistocene yielded to the Pyrocene.

    Around fires, across millennia, we have told stories that explained the world and negotiated our place within it. The Pyrocene continues that tradition, describing how we have remade the Earth and how we might recover our responsibilities as keepers of the planetary flame.

    QUOTABLE CLIMBER

    QUOTABLE CLIMBER

    $20.00
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    One of our preeminent alpinists and dimbing writers has collected some of the most fascinating, evocative, and humorous comments into one volume, capturing the essence of this challenging and diverse sport.

    Writings from some of the best writers in the field -- Jon Krakauer, Heinrich Harrer, Maurice Herzog, Joe Simpson, Elizabeth Knowlton, Reinhold Messner, Alison Osius, and many others -- brilliantly provide an intimate portrait of the how and why of the sport. "The Quotable Climber" also offers a fascinating look into the world of climbing from those who have written very little and those who have never gone higher than where the stairs or an elevator deposited them. Derived from hundreds of books, as well as magazines, journals, the Internet, remembered lectures, and even videotapes, these entries proffer a one-of-a-kind insight into the romanticism, motivation, and discipline of climbing. With selections that explore the tragedies and triumphs as well as acts of profound will and sacrifice, this is truly a book that will inspire and enlighten the experienced climber as well as the legions of armchair readers thrilled by adventure literature.

    QUOTABLE THOREAU

    QUOTABLE THOREAU

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    The most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Thoreau quotations ever published

    Few writers are more quotable than Henry David Thoreau. His books, essays, journals, poems, letters, and unpublished manuscripts contain an inexhaustible treasure of epigrams and witticisms, from the famous (The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation) to the obscure (Who are the estranged? Two friends explaining) and the surprising (I would exchange my immortality for a glass of small beer this hot weather). The Quotable Thoreau, the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Thoreau quotations ever assembled, gathers more than 2,000 memorable passages from this iconoclastic American author, social reformer, environmentalist, and self-reliant thinker. Including Thoreau's thoughts on topics ranging from sex to solitude, manners to miracles, government to God, life to death, and everything in between, the book captures Thoreau's profundity as well as his humor (If misery loves company, misery has company enough). Drawing primarily on The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, published by Princeton University Press, The Quotable Thoreau is thematically arranged, fully indexed, richly illustrated, and thoroughly documented. For the student of Thoreau, it will be invaluable. For those who think they know Thoreau, it will be a revelation. And for the reader seeking sheer pleasure, it will be a joy.

  • Over 2,000 quotations on more than 150 subjects
  • Richly illustrated with historic photographs and drawings
  • Thoreau on himself and his contemporaries
  • Thoreau's contemporaries on Thoreau
  • Biographical time line
  • Appendix of misquotations and misattributions
  • Fully indexed
  • Suggestions for further reading
  • RACHEL CARSON: SILENT SPRING & OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL WRITINGS

    RACHEL CARSON: SILENT SPRING & OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL WRITINGS

    By: Carson, Rachel
    $35.00
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    The book that sparked the modern environmental movement, with an unprecedented collection of letters, speeches, and other writings that reveal the extraordinary courage and vision of its author

    Library of America launches its Rachel Carson edition with this deluxe illustrated volume presenting one of the landmark books of the twentieth century together with rare letters, speeches, and other writings that reveal the personal courage and passionate commitment of its author. A huge bestseller when published in September 1962, Silent Spring led not only to many of the laws and government agencies that protect our air, land, and water, but prompted a revolution in environmental consciousness. Now for the first time, in previously unpublished and newly collected letters to biochemists, ecologists, cancer specialists, ornithologists, and other experts, Carson's groundbreaking expose of the unintended consequences of pesticide use comes together piece-by-piece, like a puzzle or detective story. She makes common cause with conservationists and other allies to build public awareness, hiding her private battle with cancer for fear it might distract from her message. And in the wake of her book's astonishing impact, as she becomes the target of an organized campaign of disinformation by the chemical industry, Carson speaks out in defense of her findings while remaining a model of grace under pressure. Throughout the collection, Carson's lifelong love of nature shines through. In writings both lyrical and intensely moving, she conveys her sense of wonder to her young nephew, dreams of conserving old-growth forest in Maine for posterity, and recounts her adventures and epiphanies as birdwatcher and beachcomber. A future companion volume will gather Carson's sea trilogy: Under the Sea-Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951), and The Edge of the Sea (1955).

    LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

    RADICAL BY NATURE

    RADICAL BY NATURE

    By: Costa, James T
    $39.95
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    A major new biography of the brilliant naturalist, traveler, humanitarian, and codiscoverer of natural selection

    Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was perhaps the most famed naturalist of the Victorian age. His expeditions to remote Amazonia and southeast Asia were the stuff of legend. A collector of thousands of species new to science, he shared in the discovery of natural selection and founded the discipline of evolutionary biogeography.

    Radical by Nature tells the story of Wallace's epic life and achievements, from his stellar rise from humble origins to his complicated friendship with Charles Darwin and other leading scientific lights of Britain to his devotion to social causes and movements that threatened to alienate him from scientific society.

    James Costa draws on letters, notebooks, and journals to provide a multifaceted account of a revolutionary life in science as well as Wallace's family life. He shows how the self-taught Wallace doggedly pursued bold, even radical ideas that caused a seismic shift in the natural sciences, and how he also courted controversy with nonscientific pursuits such as spiritualism and socialism. Costa describes Wallace's courageous social advocacy of women's rights, labor reform, and other important issues. He also sheds light on Wallace's complex relationship with Darwin, describing how Wallace graciously applauded his friend and rival, becoming one of his most ardent defenders.

    Weaving a revelatory narrative with the latest scholarship, Radical by Nature paints a mesmerizing portrait of a multifaceted thinker driven by a singular passion for science, a commitment to social justice, and a lifelong sense of wonder.

    RAPTORS OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICA

    RAPTORS OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICA

    By: Wheeler, Brian K
    $29.95
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    Raptors of Western North America--together with its companion volume, Raptors of Eastern North America--are the best and most thorough guides to North American hawks, eagles, and other raptors ever published. Abundantly illustrated with hundreds of full-color high-quality photographs, they are essential books for anyone seeking to identify these notoriously tricky-to-identify birds.

    The Wheeler Guides will help birders and biologists navigate the pitfalls of raptor identification, including raptors' often extreme variation by age and sex as well as the existence of numerous "confusion" species. The plumage section discusses more plumage variations--and in greater consistency, depth, and clarity--than any previously published guide. The text--informed by years of study and consultation with local, state, provincial, and regional experts--covers all aspects of raptor biology in an easy-to-read and consistent format. It provides the most up-to-date information available on status and distribution, taking into account the recent alteration of some species' ranges due to pesticide bans and introduction programs. The range maps--which include "city" plotting--are the most accurate and largest ever produced for North American raptors.

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    RECLAIMING THE WILD SOUL: HOW EARTH'S LANDSCAPES RESTORE US TO WHOLENESS

    By: Thompson, Mary Reynolds
    $15.95
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    Reclaiming the Wild Soul takes us on a journey into Earth's five great landscapes -- deserts, forests, oceans and rivers, mountains, and grasslands -- as aspects of our deeper, wilder selves. Where the inner and outer worlds meet we discover our own true nature mirrored in the Earth's wild beauty and fierce challenges.

    A powerful archetypal model for transformation, the "soulscapes" return us to a primal terrain rich in knowing, healing, and wholeness. To guide our path, each soulscape offers up wisdom in the form of soul qualities the modern world often undervalues and even undermines. We see how deserts model simplicity and silence, how forests help us make peace with uncertainty, how rivers and oceans reveal the power of flow, how mountains inspire our highest purpose, and how grasslands teach us about giving back.

    Weaving personal story with poetry, imagery, and explorations, Reclaiming the Wild Soul is simultaneously self-help and a courageous call to action. It is written for all those disillusioned with our hyper-paced, high-tech world, who decry what we are doing to the Earth, who feel the tug of their own wild souls longing for discovery and mystery -- a new, yet ancient, way of being human.

    RED SKY AT MORNING

    RED SKY AT MORNING

    By: Speth, James Gustave
    $16.00
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    Why we are failing to protect the global environment. What we can--and must--do to succeed.

    This book will change the way we understand the future of our planet. It is both alarming and hopeful. James Gustave Speth, renowned as a visionary environmentalist leader, warns that in spite of all the international negotiations and agreements of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth's environment are not succeeding. Still, he says, the challenges are not insurmountable. He offers comprehensive, viable new strategies for dealing with environmental threats around the world.

    The author explains why current approaches to critical global environmental problems--climate change, biodiversity loss, deterioration of marine environments, deforestation, water shortages, and others--don't work. He offers intriguing insights into why we have been able to address domestic environmental threats with some success while largely failing at the international level. Setting forth eight specific steps to a sustainable future, Speth convincingly argues that dramatically different government and citizen action are now urgent. If ever a book could be described as "essential," this is it.

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    REDISCOVERY OF THE WILD

    $25.00
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    A compelling case for connecting with the wild, for our psychological and physical well-being and to flourish as a species

    We often enjoy the benefits of connecting with nearby, domesticated nature--a city park, a backyard garden. But this book makes the provocative case for the necessity of connecting with wild nature--untamed, unmanaged, not encompassed, self-organizing, and unencumbered and unmediated by technological artifice. We can love the wild. We can fear it. We are strengthened and nurtured by it. As a species, we came of age in a natural world far wilder than today's, and much of the need for wildness still exists within us, body and mind. The Rediscovery of the Wild considers ways to engage with the wild, protect it, and recover it--for our psychological and physical well-being and to flourish as a species.

    The contributors offer a range of perspectives on the wild, discussing such topics as the evolutionary underpinnings of our need for the wild; the wild within, including the primal passions of sexuality and aggression; birding as a portal to wildness; children's fascination with wild animals; wildness and psychological healing; the shifting baseline of what we consider wild; and the true work of conservation.

    REMNANTS OF ANCIENT LIFE

    REMNANTS OF ANCIENT LIFE

    By: Greenwalt, Dale
    $27.95
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    The revolution in science that is transforming our understanding of extinct life

    We used to think of fossils as being composed of nothing but rock and minerals, all molecular traces of life having vanished long ago. We were wrong. Remnants of Ancient Life reveals how the new science of ancient biomolecules--pigments, proteins, and DNA that once functioned in living organisms tens of millions of years ago--is opening a new window onto the evolution of life on Earth.

    Paleobiologists are now uncovering these ancient remnants in the fossil record with increasing frequency, shedding vital new light on long-extinct creatures and the lost world they inhabited. Dale Greenwalt is your guide to these astonishing breakthroughs. He explains how ancient biomolecules hold the secrets to how mammoths dealt with the bitter cold, what colors dinosaurs exhibited in mating displays, how ancient viruses evolved to become more dangerous, and much more. Each chapter discusses different types of biomolecules and the insights they provide about the physiology, behavior, and evolution of extinct organisms, many of which existed long before the age of dinosaurs.

    A marvelous adventure of discovery, Remnants of Ancient Life offers an unparalleled look at an emerging science that is transforming our picture of the remote past. You will never think of fossils in the same way again.

    RETHINKING NATURE: Essays in Environmental Philosophy

    RETHINKING NATURE: Essays in Environmental Philosophy

    $24.95
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    Rethinking Nature brings the voices of leading Continental philosophers into discussion about what is emerging as one of our most pressing and timely concerns--the environmental crisis facing our planet. The essays featured in this volume embrace environmental philosophy in its broadest sense and include topics such as environmental ethics, environmental aesthetics, ontology, theology, gender and the environment, and the role of science and technology in forming knowledge about our world. Here, philosophy goes out into the field and comes back with rich insights and new approaches to environmental problems. This far-reaching and lively volume affords firm ground for thinking about the multiple ways that humans engage nature.

    Contributors are David Abram, Edward S. Casey, Daniel Cerezuelle, Ron Cooper, Bruce V. Foltz, Robert Frodeman, Trish Glazebrook, James Hatley, Robert Kirkman, Irene J. Klaver, Alphonso Lingis, Kenneth Maly, Diane Michelfelder, Elaine P. Miller, Robert Mugerauer, Stephen David Ross, John Sallis, Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, Bruce Wilshire, David Wood, and Michael E. Zimmerman.

    RIVER TOWN: TWO YEARS ON YANGTZE

    RIVER TOWN: TWO YEARS ON YANGTZE

    By: Hessler, Peter
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    In the tradition of Iron & Silk comes a powerful memoir about a young American teacher in the Peace Corps living in the small Chinese city of Fuling as it navigates increasing waves of cultural and social upheaval. Maps.
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    ROAD TO OXIANNA

    By: Byron, Robert
    $15.95
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    In 1933, the delightfully eccentric travel writer Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana, near the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Throughout, he kept a thoroughly captivating record of his encounters, discoveries, and frequent misadventures. His story would become a best-selling travel book throughout the English-speaking world, until the acclaim died down and it was gradually forgotten. When Paul Fussell published his own book Abroad, in 1982, he wrote that The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book what "Ulysses is to the novel between the wars, and what The Waste Land is to poetry." His statements revived the public's interest in the book, and for the first time, it was widely available in American bookstores. Now this long-overdue reprint will introduce it to a whole new generation of readers. This edition features a new introduction by Rory Stewart, best known for his book The Places In Between, about his extensive travels in Afghanistan.
    Today, in addition to its entertainment value, The Road to Oxiana also serves as a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travelers, and a nostalgic look back at a more innocent time.
    ROCK CLIMBING: BASIC SKILLS

    ROCK CLIMBING: BASIC SKILLS

    By: Luebben, Craig
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    New in the Mountaineers Outdoor Expert Series: instruction for the beginning to intermediate rock climber by an internationally known guide.
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    ROUGH RIDE TO THE FUTURE

    By: Lovelock, James
    $17.95
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    Now in his 95th year, James Lovelock has been hailed as "the man who conceived the first wholly new way of looking at life on earth since Charles Darwin" (Independent) and "the most profound scientific thinker of our time" (Literary Review). A Rough Ride to the Future introduces two new Lovelock-ian ideas. The first is that three hundred years ago, when Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine, he was un-knowingly beginning what Lovelock calls "accelerated evolu-tion," a process that is bringing about change on our planet roughly a million times faster than Darwinian evolution. The second is that as part of this process, humanity has the capacity to become the intelligent part of Gaia, the self-regulating earth system whose discovery Lovelock first an-nounced nearly fifty years ago. A Rough Ride to the Future is also an intellectual autobiography, in which Lovelock reflects on his life as a lone scientist, and asks--eloquently--whether his career trajec-tory is possible in an age of increased bureaucratization. We are now changing the atmosphere again, and Lovelock argues that there is little that can be done about this. But instead of feeling guilty, we should recognize what is happening, prepare for change, and ensure that we survive as a species so we can contribute to--perhaps even guide--the next evolution of Gaia. The road will be rough, but if we are smart enough, life will continue on earth in some form far into the future.
    RUNNING OUT

    RUNNING OUT

    By: Bessire, Lucas
    $18.95
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    Finalist for the National Book Award
    An intimate reckoning with aquifer depletion in America's heartland

    The Ogallala aquifer has nourished life on the American Great Plains for millennia. But less than a century of unsustainable irrigation farming has taxed much of the aquifer beyond repair. The imminent depletion of the Ogallala and other aquifers around the world is a defining planetary crisis of our times. Running Out offers a uniquely personal account of aquifer depletion and the deeper layers through which it gains meaning and force.

    Anthropologist Lucas Bessire journeyed back to western Kansas, where five generations of his family lived as irrigation farmers and ranchers, to try to make sense of this vital resource and its loss. His search for water across the drying High Plains brings the reader face to face with the stark realities of industrial agriculture, eroding democratic norms, and surreal interpretations of a looming disaster. Yet the destination is far from predictable, as the book seeks to move beyond the words and genres through which destruction is often known. Instead, this journey into the morass of eradication offers a series of unexpected discoveries about what it means to inherit the troubled legacies of the past and how we can take responsibility for a more inclusive, sustainable future.

    An urgent and unsettling meditation on environmental change, Running Out is a revelatory account of family, complicity, loss, and what it means to find your way back home.

    SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

    SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

    By: Slocum, Joshua
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    The classic travel narrative of a Don Quixote-of-the-seas-the first person to circumnavigate the world singlehandedly.
    First published in 1900, Joshua Slocum's autobiographical account of his solo trip around the world is one of the most remarkable--and entertaining--travel narratives of all time. Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six foot wooden sloop "Spray" in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world's great circumnavigators--Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in maritime history for courage, skill, and determination. "Sailing Alone Around the World" recounts Slocum's wonderful adventures: hair-raising encounters with pirates off Gibraltar and savage Indians in Tierra del Fuego; raging tempests and treacherous coral reefs; flying fish for breakfast in the Pacific; and a hilarious visit with Henry ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?") Stanley in South Africa. A century later, Slocum's incomparable book endures as one of the greatest narratives of adventure ever written.
    SEASONS: DESERT SKETCHES

    SEASONS: DESERT SKETCHES

    By: Meloy, Ellen
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    "Sharp as the needles on a pinyon pine, these essays will make you rethink your view of the American West. Meloy's wise and unexpected observations are a pure delight."
    --MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

    The late writer and naturalist Ellen Meloy wrote and recorded a series of audio essays

    for KUER, NPR Utah in the 1990s. Every few months, she would travel to their Salt Lake City studios from her red rock home of Bluff to read an essay or two. With understated humor and sharp insight, Meloy would illuminate facets of human connection to nature and challenge listeners to examine the world anew. Seasons: Desert Sketches is a compilation of these essays, transcribed from their original cassette tape recordings. Whether Meloy is pondering geese in Desolation Canyon or people at the local post office, readers will delight in her signature wit and charm--and feel the pull of the desert she loves and defends. With a foreword by Annie Proulx.

    ELLEN MELOY was a native of the West and lived in California, Montana, and Utah. Her book The Anthropology of Turquoise (2002) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the Utah Book Award and the Banff Mountain Book Festival Award in the adventure and travel category. She is also the author of Raven's Exile: A Season on the Green River (1994), The Last Cheater's Waltz: Beauty and Violence in the Desert Southwest (2001), and Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild (2005). Meloy spent most of her life in wild, remote places; at the time of her sudden death in November 2004 (three months after completing Eating Stone), she and her husband were living in southern Utah.

    SELECTED WRITINGS

    SELECTED WRITINGS

    By: Muir, John
    $35.00
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    A new collection of the seminal writings of America's first naturalist and the founder of the modern conservation movement.
    AN EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY ORIGINAL.

    This volume of John Muir's selected writings chronicles the key turning points in his life and study of the American wilderness. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth is Muir's account of his childhood on a Wisconsin farm, where his interest in nature was first piqued; in The Mountains of California, The Yosemite, and Travels in Alaska, we follow him on long journeys into stunning mountain ranges and valleys, where he records native flora and fauna and finds proof of his theories of the effect of glaciers on landscape formation. These four full-length works--along with a selection of important essays--helped galvanize American naturalists, and led to the founding of the Sierra Club and several national parks. In these pages, written with meticulous thoroughness and an impassioned lyricism, we witness Muir's awakening to the incredible beauty of our planet, and the honing of an eye turned as acutely toward the scientific as the spiritual.

    SHAPED BY WIND & WATER

    SHAPED BY WIND & WATER

    By: Zwinger, Ann Haymond
    $12.00
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    Known for her observant and beautifully illustrated books on the rivers, deserts, and mountains of the West, Ann Haymond Zwinger focuses here on her guiding principles as a naturalist as she "looks" with notebook and pencil, believing that "to know the world intimately is the beginning of caring."
    SILENT SPRING

    SILENT SPRING

    By: Carson, Rachel
    $15.99
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    One of the landmark books of the twentieth century, the searing classic that launched the environmental movement.

    Rarely does a single book alter the course of history, but Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did exactly that. The outcry that followed its publication in 1962 forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson's passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world.

    The introduction by the acclaimed biographer Linda Lear tells the story of Carson's courageous defense of her truths in the face of a ruthless assault form the chemical industry following the publication of Silent Spring and before her untimely death.



    SLENDER THREAD

    SLENDER THREAD

    By: Venables, Stephen
    $14.95
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    Stephen Venables and three companions made the first ascent of Panchu Chuli V--a remote Himalayan peak on the borders of India, Nepal and Tibet. A rappel anchor failed on the descent, pitching Venables into a 300-foot fall. Crashing through the black night, flung from rock to rock, he assumed that he was plunging to his death. Against all odds he survived, but was left stranded 19,000 feet above a labyrinth of glaciers and snow slopes with two broken legs, the threat of gangrene, and scant food or medical supplies. If he was to return to his wife and son waiting at home some 5000 miles away, Venables knew he had to draw on his reserve of courage and determination. The third Adrenaline Classic, A Slender Thread is a spellbinding account of Venables' survival--and his intense personal struggle to understand the risks he takes for the sake of his insatiable passion for climbing. He comes as close to anyone to answering the unanswerable question: Why do they do it?
    SMALLER MAJORITY

    SMALLER MAJORITY

    By: Naskrecki, Piotr
    $30.00
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    Smaller, on average, than a human finger, creatures climbing, scampering, and flying out of sight make up 99 percent of all animal life visible to the naked eye. This is the "smaller majority" that we meet eye-to-eye, often for the first time and certainly as never before, in Piotr Naskrecki's spectacular book. A large-format volume of over 400 exquisite, full-color photographs, some depicting animals never before captured with a camera, The Smaller Majority takes us on a visual journey into the remote world of organisms that, however little known, overlooked, or even reviled, are critical to the biodiversity of the tropics, and to the life of our planet. Here are the species who truly dominate the tropics, both in terms of their diversity and the ecological functions they play: invertebrates such as insects, arachnids, or flatworms, but also little-known vertebrates such as the pygmy chameleons of Madagascar or legless, underground frog kin known as caecilians; here is behavior never before documented, as in katydids preying upon one another, photographed in places few have visited. Using pioneering camera techniques that allow us to see the world of these creatures from their point of view, the book exposes the environment in which they live, the threats they face, and the devastating impact their disappearance may have. A unique introduction to the marvelous variety of the overlooked life under our feet, Naskrecki's book returns us to a child's sense of wonder with a fully informed, deeply felt understanding of the importance of so much of the world's smaller, teeming life.
    SNOW LEOPARD

    SNOW LEOPARD

    By: Matthiessen, Peter
    $18.00
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    An unforgettable spiritual journey through the Himalayas by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), the National Book Award-winning author of the new novel In Paradise

    In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one, with a deepening Buddhist understanding of reality, suffering, impermanence, and beauty. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by acclaimed travel writer and novelist Pico Iyer.

    For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    SNOWSHOEING

    SNOWSHOEING

    By: Felkley, Dave
    $16.95
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    Completely revised, the fifth edition of Snowshoeing teaches you how to navigate through snow-clad woods, compete in races, and climb to new summits with easily-learned snowshoeing techniques.

    This classic how-to snowshoeing manual has all the latest information on snowshoeing equipment, from various types of snowshoes to bindings and clothing. Discover techniques for all types of terrain and snow conditions, plus information on conditioning, cross-training, and even snowshoe racing.

    Snowshoeing also includes a chapter on the history of snowshoeing, information on navigation and route finding, camping, gauging snow conditions, and winter safety, with emphasis on the dangers of avalanches.

    Part of the Mountaineers Outdoor Expert series.

    SOLASTALGIA

    SOLASTALGIA

    By: Bogard, Paul
    $24.95
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    The concept of solastalgia comes from the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, who describes it as "the homesickness we feel while still at home." It's the pain and longing we feel as we realize the world immediately around us is changing, with our love for that world serving as a catalyst for action on its behalf.

    This powerful anthology brings together thirty-four writers-educators, journalists, poets, and scientists-to share their emotions in the face of environmental crisis. They share their solastalgia, their beloved places, their vulnerability, their stories, their vision of what we can create.