Nature
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are
Hailed as a classic, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition--in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos--to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we've underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal--and human--intelligence.
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Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times
In a world that seems so troubled, how do we hold on to hope?
Looking at the headlines--the worsening climate crisis, a global pandemic, loss of biodiversity, political upheaval--it can be hard to feel optimistic. And yet hope has never been more desperately needed. In this urgent book, Jane Goodall, the world's most famous living naturalist, and Douglas Abrams, the internationally bestselling co-author of The Book of Joy, explore through intimate and thought-provoking dialogue one of the most sought after and least understood elements of human nature: hope. In The Book of Hope, Jane focuses on her Four Reasons for Hope: The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit. Drawing on decades of work that has helped expand our understanding of what it means to be human and what we all need to do to help build a better world, The Book of Hope touches on vital questions, including: How do we stay hopeful when everything seems hopeless? How do we cultivate hope in our children? What is the relationship between hope and action? Filled with moving and inspirational stories and photographs from Jane's remarkable career, The Book of Hope is a deeply personal conversation with one of the most beloved figures in the world today. While discussing the experiences that shaped her discoveries and beliefs, Jane tells the story of how she became a messenger of hope, from living through World War II to her years in Gombe to realizing she had to leave the forest to travel the world in her role as an advocate for environmental justice. And for the first time, she shares her profound revelations about her next, and perhaps final, adventure. The second book in the Global Icons Series--which launched with the instant classic The Book of Joy with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu--The Book of Hope is a rare and intimate look not only at the nature of hope but also into the heart and mind of a woman who revolutionized how we view the world around us and has spent a lifetime fighting for our future. There is still hope, and this book will help guide us to it.- Please log in to review this product
BRAIDING SWEETGRASS
A Washington Post Bestseller
Named a Best Essay Collection of the Decade by Literary Hub As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings--asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass--offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
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Coming of Age at the End of Nature
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Complete Guide to Winter Camping
The Happy Camper is back! This time Kevin Callan is equipping campers with all they need to know about how to have fun in the great winter outdoors.
Complete Guide to Winter Camping is the only book on the market that will educate readers on both hot tenting and cold tenting.
Cold tenting -- without a heat source -- has been long considered the only way to winter camp. But Kevin Callan says that "hot tenting", or camping with a small stove in the tent, is a safe and fun way to camp in the winter elements. You're careful -- and you're warm!
Complete Guide to Winter Camping covers nearly every aspect of snow and ice fun and safety. Advice on setting up shelter to choosing a sleep system and warm clothing, gives readers the knowledge to outfit themselves properly to enjoy winter. And with chapters on how to track animals, check ice thickness, operate a snowmobile and catch a fish while ice fishing, the Happy Camper ensures you'll have a good time once you're all bundled up!
Complete with photos and expert advise from other seasoned winter campers and explorers, this book will appeal equally to car-camping families and adventurous individuals looking to extend their outdoors activities into another season.
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Don't Get Sunburned
* Includes special considerations for babies and children
* Great for boaters, beach lovers, hikers, climbers, bicyclists, parents, and more Sunny days naturally draw people out-of-doors: we love to feel the warm, nourishing effect of direct sunlight on our bodies. But these days, the dangers of overexposure to the sun's rays are well known to everyone, and simply applying sunscreen isn't enough anymore. How do you choose the best sunscreen and sunglasses? What protective clothing should you wear? What role does global warming play? The answers to these and many more questions are found in this new pocket-sized handbook, released just in time for new labeling laws that require sunscreen packaging to include a "no-guarantee" disclaimer. Outdoor expert Buck Tilton shares the latest information and research on protecting yourself from the sun, with tips on determining your risk based on location, altitude, and time of day, as well as what foods help protect skin, and self-monitoring for signs of a problem. Armed with sun smarts, readers will be better prepared and protected when heading outdoors.
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Genius of Birds
"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.
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Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, Prospect (UK), She Reads, Kirkus Reviews The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth's magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile's scaly face is as sensitive as a lover's fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called "the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes."
FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE - FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL
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Master Guide Handbook to Outdoor Adventure Trips
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Omega Principle: Seafood and the Quest for a Long Life and a Healthier Planet
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