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Animals
From fairy tales to photography, nowhere is the complexity of human-animal relationships more apparent than in the creative arts. Art illuminates the nature and significance of animals in modern, Western thought, capturing the complicated union that has long existed between the animal kingdom and us. In Beauty and the Beast, authors Arluke and Bogdan explore this relationship through the unique lens of photo post-cards. This visual medium offers an enormous and relatively untapped archive to compelling document their subject.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
An intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver--the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future. From award-winning writer Leila Philip, Beaverland is a masterful work of narrative science writing, a book that highlights, though history and contemporary storytelling, how this weird rodent plays an oversized role in American history and its future. She follows fur trappers who lead her through waist high water, fur traders and fur auctioneers, as well as wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers, and the colorful group of activists known as beaver believers. Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver's profound influence on our nation's early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires. In her pursuit of this weird and wonderful animal, she introduces us to people whose lives are devoted to the beaver, including a Harvard scientist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, who uses drones to create 3-dimensional images of beaver dams; and an environmental restoration consultant in the Chesapeake whose nickname is the "beaver whisperer". What emerges is a poignant personal narrative, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Beaverland reveals the profound ways in which one odd creature and the trade surrounding it has shaped history, culture, and our environment.The New York Times Editors' Choice
NPR Science Friday Book Club Selection
An intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver--the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future.
From award-winning writer Leila Philip, Beaverland is a masterful work of narrative science writing, a book that highlights, though history and contemporary storytelling, how this weird rodent plays an oversized role in American history and its future. She follows fur trappers who lead her through waist high water, fur traders and fur auctioneers, as well as wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers, and the colorful group of activists known as beaver believers. Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver's profound influence on our nation's early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires. In her pursuit of this weird and wonderful animal, she introduces us to people whose lives are devoted to the beaver, including a Harvard scientist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, who uses drones to create 3-dimensional images of beaver dams; and an environmental restoration consultant in the Chesapeake whose nickname is the "beaver whisperer". What emerges is a poignant personal narrative, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Beaverland reveals the profound ways in which one odd creature and the trade surrounding it has shaped history, culture, and our environment.The New York Times Editors' Choice
NPR Science Friday Book Club Selection
From the co-author of the New York Times bestseller When Elephants Weep comes a book that uses true stories backed by scientific research to explore the way young animals discover their worlds and learn how to survive.
How does a baby animal figure out how to get around in the world? How much of what animals know is instinctive, and how much must they learn?
In Becoming a Tiger, bestselling author Susan McCarthy addresses these intriguing matters, presenting fascinating and funny examples of animal behaviour in the laboratory and in the wild. McCarthy shows us how baby animals transform themselves from clueless kittens, clumsy cubs, or scrawny chicks into efficient predators, successful foragers, or deft nest-builders. From geese to mice, dolphins to orang-utans, bats to (of course) tigers, McCarthy's warm, amusing, and insightful examinations of animal life and developments provides a surprising window into the mental worlds of our fine fuzzy, furred, finned, and feathered friends.
oReaders will be fascinated by a close look at animal intelligence, learning, and family life.
David Abram's first book, "The Spell of the Sensuous"--hailed as "revolutionary" by the "Los Angeles Times, " as "daring and truly original" by "Science"--has become a classic of environmental literature. Now Abram returns with a startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature.
As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we've inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our muscled flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This book subverts that distance, drawing readers ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth.
The shapeshifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in Abram's investigation. He shows that from the awakened perspective of the human animal, awareness (or mind) is not an exclusive possession of our species but a lucid quality of the biosphere itself--a quality in which we, along with the oaks and the spiders, steadily participate.
With the audacity of its vision and the luminosity of its prose, "Becoming Animal" sets a new benchmark for the human appraisal of our place in the whole.
In a wonderfully diverse selection of writings and gorgeous illustrations, this stunning companion to The Bedside Book of Birds explores the relationship between predators and their prey. The intricate, complex connection between the hunter and the hunted has defined animal life on earth throughout time. In The Bedside Book of Beasts, Graeme Gibson gathers breathtaking works of art and literature that capture the power, grace, and inventiveness of both predators and their natural prey. The Bedside Book of Beasts presents myths, fables, poetry, and excerpts from nature and travel writing, journals, sacred texts, and works of fiction. Within these pages we encounter big cats, bears, wolves, and the small but voracious praying mantis, as well as works that bring to life the experience of more vulnerable prey. Portraits of such legendary evil beasts as the Minotaur, Grendel, and the biblical Leviathan add to the depth and breadth of the collection. An impressive array of art, both traditional and contemporary, as well as scientific, religious, and mythological drawings, paintings, and woodcuts make this volume an utterly unique gift for the holidays or any occasion. A fascinating exploration of the chain of life, of survival and mortality, The Bedside Book of Beasts evokes a profound sense of the eternal connection between humans and the creatures they endeavor to tame.
In this stunning assemblage of words and images, novelist and avid birdwatcher Graeme Gibson has crafted an extraordinary tribute to the venerable relationship between humans and birds.
Birds have ever been the symbols of our highest aspirations. As divine messengers, symbols of our yearning for the heavens, or avatars of glorious song and colour, they have stirred our imaginations from the moment we first looked into the sky. Whether as the Christian dove, or Quetzalcoatl the Aztec Plumed Serpent or in Plato s vision of the human soul growing wings and feathers, religion and philosophy have looked to birds as representatives of our better selves that part of us not bound to the earth.
With the passion of a birdwatcher and hoarder of words, Gibson has spent fifteen years collecting the literary and artistic forms our affinity for birds has taken over the centuries. Birds appear again and again in mythology and folk tales, and in literature by writers as diverse as Ovid, Thomas Hardy, Kafka, Thoreau and T.S. Eliot. They ve been omens, allegories, disguises and guides; they ve been worshipped, eaten, feared and loved. Nor does Gibson forget the fascination they hold for science, as the Galapagos finches did for Darwin. Birds figure charmingly and tellingly in the work of such nature writers as Gilbert White, Peter Matthiessen, Farley Mowat and Barry Lopez.
Gorgeously illustrated, woven from centuries of human response to the delights of the feathered tribes, "The Bedside" "Book of Birds "is for anyone who is aware of birds, and for everyone who is intrigued by the artistic forms that humanity has created to represent its soul.
From "The Bedside Book of Birds
"Stevenson remembered the story of a monk who had been distracted from his copy-work by the song of a bird. He went into the garden to listen more closely, and when he returned, after what he thought were only a few minutes, he discovered that a century had gone by, that his fellow monks were dead and his ink had turned to dust. The song of the bird had given him a taste of Paradise, where an instant is as a hundred years of earthly time. Was the same true of time in hell, Stevenson asked himself.
Alberto Manguel"
Birds have ever been the symbols of our highest aspirations. As divine messengers, symbols of our yearning for the heavens, or avatars of glorious song and colour, they have stirred our imaginations from the moment we first looked into the sky. Whether as the Christian dove, or Quetzalcoatl the Aztec Plumed Serpent or in Plato s vision of the human soul growing wings and feathers, religion and philosophy have looked to birds as representatives of our better selves that part of us not bound to the earth.
With the passion of a birdwatcher and hoarder of words, Gibson has spent fifteen years collecting the literary and artistic forms our affinity for birds has taken over the centuries. Birds appear again and again in mythology and folk tales, and in literature by writers as diverse as Ovid, Thomas Hardy, Kafka, Thoreau and T.S. Eliot. They ve been omens, allegories, disguises and guides; they ve been worshipped, eaten, feared and loved. Nor does Gibson forget the fascination they hold for science, as the Galapagos finches did for Darwin. Birds figure charmingly and tellingly in the work of such nature writers as Gilbert White, Peter Matthiessen, Farley Mowat and Barry Lopez.
Gorgeously illustrated, woven from centuries of human response to the delights of the feathered tribes, "The Bedside" "Book of Birds "is for anyone who is aware of birds, and for everyone who is intrigued by the artistic forms that humanity has created to represent its soul.
From "The Bedside Book of Birds
"Stevenson remembered the story of a monk who had been distracted from his copy-work by the song of a bird. He went into the garden to listen more closely, and when he returned, after what he thought were only a few minutes, he discovered that a century had gone by, that his fellow monks were dead and his ink had turned to dust. The song of the bird had given him a taste of Paradise, where an instant is as a hundred years of earthly time. Was the same true of time in hell, Stevenson asked himself.
Alberto Manguel"
Featuring a new foreword by Margaret Atwood! In this stunning assemblage of words and images, novelist and avid birdwatcher Graeme Gibson offers an extraordinary tribute to the venerable relationship between humans and
birds.
From the Aztec plumed serpent to the Christian dove to Plato's vision of the human soul growing wings, religion and philosophy use birds to represent our aspirational selves. Winged creatures appear in mythology and folk tales, and in literature by writers as diverse as Ovid, Thoreau, and T. S. Eliot. They've been omens, allegories, and guides; they've been worshipped, eaten, and feared. Birds figure tellingly in the work of such nature writers as Gilbert White and Peter Matthiessen, and are synonymous with the science of Darwin. Gibson spent years collecting this gorgeously illustrated celebration of centuries of human response to the delights of the feathered tribes. The Bedside Book of Birds is for everyone who is intrigued by the artistic forms that humanity creates to represent its soul.
birds.
From the Aztec plumed serpent to the Christian dove to Plato's vision of the human soul growing wings, religion and philosophy use birds to represent our aspirational selves. Winged creatures appear in mythology and folk tales, and in literature by writers as diverse as Ovid, Thoreau, and T. S. Eliot. They've been omens, allegories, and guides; they've been worshipped, eaten, and feared. Birds figure tellingly in the work of such nature writers as Gilbert White and Peter Matthiessen, and are synonymous with the science of Darwin. Gibson spent years collecting this gorgeously illustrated celebration of centuries of human response to the delights of the feathered tribes. The Bedside Book of Birds is for everyone who is intrigued by the artistic forms that humanity creates to represent its soul.
How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour / and gather honey all the day from every opening flower! This famed Isaac Watts verse reveals the enduring fascination that bees have held for humans: bees have long been admired for their remarkable socialization and architectural skills, and since the earliest times they have carried profound symbolic meanings. Claire Preston's Bee offers a comprehensive survey of the natural and cultural history of the bee and explores the impressive body of literature that has grown out of man's search for honey. Bee traces the bee's role in art, politics, and social thought, drawing on scientific studies, literature, and historical texts. The volume examines the evolution of the bee's cultural image from a symbol of virtue and civility to the dangerous swarms of killer bees in Hollywood horror flicks. From ancient political analogies to Renaissance debates about monarchy to studies of bee behavior that portend ominous conclusions for our own socialization and use of technology, Bee analyzes the complex connections between the bee and human culture.
Written with energy and enthusiasm, Bee offers an original and fascinating meditation on this tiny workaholic.
Written with energy and enthusiasm, Bee offers an original and fascinating meditation on this tiny workaholic.
The Bee Book shows you step-by-step how to create a bee-friendly garden, get started in beekeeping, and harness the power of honey for well-being.
Fully illustrated with full-color photographs throughout, this beautiful guide covers everything you need to know to start your own backyard hive, from setup to harvest. Practical beekeeping techniques are explained with clear step-by-step sequences, photos, and diagrams so you'll be prepared to establish your own colony, deal with diseases, collect a swarm, and much more.
A comprehensive gardening chapter features planting plans to fill container and border gardens, bee hotel and habitat projects, and an at-a-glance flower gallery of bees' favorite plants. The Bee Book also shows you how to harvest honey, beeswax, and propolis from the hive and use these ingredients in 38 recipes for home remedies, beauty treatments, and candle-making.
Discover the wonder of bees in nature, in your garden, and in the hive with The Bee Book, lavishly bound in a beautiful gold-foil and texture cover and perfect for gift giving.
A comprehensive guide on establishing and maintaining beehives
Beekeeping is a popular pastime that more and more people are taking up for fun or even modest profit. Today, you will find hives not only in large fields or rural spaces, but also in city gardens and on rooftops--to the benefit of both bee and beekeeper. If you're at the early or middle stages of your beekeeping journey and need a go-to guide on establishing and maintaining your hives, The Beekeeper's Guide is the perfect companion. It offers invaluable information about a wide range of bee species and their life cycle, behavior, and optimal habitat, and covers the practicalities of beekeeping, from personal safety and hive hygiene to feeding methods and record keeping. Complete with an extensive troubleshooting section and a directory of useful resources, The Beekeeper's Guide is a comprehensive tool for all beekeepers.
"You'llnever think of bees, their keepers, or the fruits (and nuts) of their laborsthe same way again." --Trevor Corson, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters
Award-winning journalist Hannah Nordhaus tells the remarkable story of John Miller, one of America's foremost migratory beekeepers, and the myriad and mysterious epidemics threatening American honeybee populations. In luminous, razor-sharp prose, Nordhaus explores the vital role that honeybees play in American agribusiness, the maintenance of our food chain, and the very future of the nation. With an intimate focus and incisive reporting, in a book perfect for fans of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire, and John McPhee's Oranges, Nordhaus's stunning exposé illuminates one the most critical issues facing the world today, offering insight, information, and, ultimately, hope.
Beekeeping For Dummies, 2nd Edition reviews the tools of the trade, including complete instructions for building and maintaining beehives; offers detailed and easy-to-follow guidelines for all phases of honey production--including harvesting, bottling, packaging and marketing your honey; explores theories into the recent unexplained collapse of colonies and its environmental and economic on society; and provides new information on mites and diseases and recommend changes in bee medication and treatments.
Learn how to set up a successful beekeeping operation no matter where you are located. Recent headlines about the disappearing bees throughout the country have brought bees, bee breeding and beekeeping to the forefront of many people's minds. Those headlines have prompted many to start beekeeping and have made others wonder if beekeeping is a hobby they want to pursue. This book helps answer that question and helps the beginner, whether an urban beekeeper or backyard farmer, get started on setting up their own successful beekeeping operation. The Beekeeping Handbook covers all the beekeeping instruction and advice you need: *Bee anatomy and typical behaviors *Space requirements for a healthy beehive *Startup costs and subsequent expenditures to keep your hive safe, happy, and healthy *Tips and beekeeping instruction on honey harvesting and selling the product *How to minimize bee stings *How to treat bee stings *Beekeeping equipment and costs *Beekeeping advice on threats, including manmade and natural pests and diseases *How to prepare your hives for seasonal changes *Assessing and troubleshooting common bee and beehive problems. In addition, every chapter has aids that can help the reader get started and master beekeeping, including an annual beekeeper's calendar, detailed hand illustrations, and task checklists. While the book imparts a lot of great information, most of it is well known. The difference is the author and the way she writes about what obviously is a passion of hers. While the information is standard, it is written in a fun, engaging, and highly entertaining manner. It will become a beekeeping reference source that beginners and pros will use year in and year out. Perhaps most importantly, this book knocks down the perception that beekeeping must be done on a secluded hill in the middle of the wilderness. It lays out clearly how to keep bees in rural, suburban, and urban settings as well as how to navigate challenges that can emerge in each setting. If you are interested in beekeeping or even just exploring possible hobbies, you need to own The Beekeeping Handbook: A Practical Apiary Guide for the Yard, Garden or Rooftop!
An enchanting, fact-filled treasury for the bee lover in all of us
Beepedia is a one-of-a-kind celebration of bees, from A to Z. Featuring dozens of alphabetical entries on topics ranging from pollination and beekeeping to the peculiar lifestyles of cuckoo bees and carrion-eating vulture bees, this enticing, pocket-sized compendium takes you on an unforgettable journey into the remarkable world of bees. Explore the many wonders of bee morphology, behavior, and ecology, and learn about the role of bees in agriculture, art, literature, and religion. With more than 20,000 described species, bees can be found anywhere on the planet where flowering plants are pollinated by insects. With Laurence Packer as your guide, you will meet some of the most inquisitive and prolific bee experts who ever lived and marvel at the astonishing variety of wild bees and the creative methods scientists use to study them. Discover why bees have intrigued us for millennia, why Napoleon Bonaparte chose the bee as his emblem when he became emperor, where the expression "the bee's knees" comes from, and much more. With captivating drawings by Ann Sanderson, Beepedia is an informative and entertaining blend of fact, folklore, and fancy that will captivate anyone who has ever been curious about these amazing insects.
Unleash your dog's potential and build a rewarding relationship that will last a lifetime! From walking on a loose lead to carrying the shopping, The Beginner's Dog Training Guide has everything you need to know to train your dog and ensure you have a happy canine companion. Choose the right dog breed for you and then keep your dog healthy by understanding their exercise, diet, and grooming needs. Follow clear, step-by-step explanations and illustrations to learn every aspect of owning and training a dog, from basic obedience to advanced tricks. Expert advice accompanied by over 800 clear photographs provide a user-friendly visual guide to training your dog, by showing you exactly what to do. Filled with tips and tricks, this book will help you become the owner of a well-behaved, healthy, and happy dog! This dog training book promises: - An easy-to-follow approach to understanding dog behavior and dog training based on the latest research into canine intelligence
- Offers expert guidance on selecting the right dog for you, with a catalog of the most popular breeds
- Features behavioral analysis to help you understand what your dog is thinking
- More than 800 photographs provide clear visual guidance so you know exactly what to do to succeed with your dog A must-have volume for families training their new pet, for first-time dog owners and experienced owners alike as well as those interested in training theory and dog psychology.
- Offers expert guidance on selecting the right dog for you, with a catalog of the most popular breeds
- Features behavioral analysis to help you understand what your dog is thinking
- More than 800 photographs provide clear visual guidance so you know exactly what to do to succeed with your dog A must-have volume for families training their new pet, for first-time dog owners and experienced owners alike as well as those interested in training theory and dog psychology.
Charles Foster set out to know the ultimate other: the non-humans, the beasts. And to do that, he tried to be like them, choosing a badger, an otter, a fox, a deer, and a swift. He lived alongside badgers for weeks, eating earthworms and learning to sense the landscape by smell rather than sight. He tried to catch fish in his teeth while swimming like an otter, rooted through London garbage cans as an urban fox, was hunted by bloodhounds as a red deer, nearly dying in the snow. And he followed the swifts on their migration route over the Strait of Gibraltar, discovering himself to be strangely connected to the birds.
A lyrical, joyful, and completely radical look at the life of animals--human and other--Being a Beast mingles neuroscience and psychology, nature writing and memoir to cross the boundaries separating the species.
From the #1 bestselling author of Inside of a Dog--"an incredible journey into the olfactory world of man's best friend" (O, The Oprah Magazine), Alexandra Horowitz's follow-up to her New York Times bestseller explains how dogs experience the world through their most spectacular organ--the nose. In her "fascinating book...Horowitz combines the expertise of a scientist with an easy, lively writing style" (The New York Times Book Review) as she imagines what it is like to be a dog. Guided by her own dogs, Finnegan and Upton, Horowitz sets off on a quest through the cutting-edge science behind the olfactory abilities of the dog. In addition to speaking to cognitive researchers and smell experts, Horowitz visits detection-dog trainers and training centers; she meets researchers working with dogs to detect cancerous cells and anticipate epileptic seizure or diabetic shock; and she even attempts to smell-train her own nose. As we come to understand how rich, complex, and exciting the world around us is to the canine nose, Horowitz changes our perspective on dogs forever. Readers will finish this book feeling that they have broken free of their human constraints and understanding smell as never before; that they have, for however fleetingly, been a dog. And, as The Boston Globe says about Being a Dog, "becoming more doglike, not surprisingly, can make anyone's life a little more vivid."