Nature Biography

Can you recognise the cheerful chirrups of the house sparrow? A song thrush singing out at winter's darkest hour? Or the beautiful, haunting call of the curlew? At a time of great anxiety and uncertainty, while coping with the untimely death of his mother, Charlie Corbett realised his perspective on life was slipping. In a moment of despair, he found himself - somewhat damp - lying on the side of a lonely hill staring up at a leaden sky, a melancholy drizzle seeping into his bones.

This is the true story of a Londoner who gives up his job as an estate agent in the city, moves to the wilds of Exmoor, starts a smallholding and becomes self-sufficient, with a few bumps along the way. Simon's journey from urbanite to self-sufficient smallholder is brimming with incidents - some funny and some tragic - leading him to question Mother Nature, himself, the food he eats and his role in it all.

In 1872 Congress established Yellowstone National Park, and its vast wonders mesmerized early sightseers, including school superintendent William Wallace Wylie. From 1896 to 1905 his Wylie Camping Company fed, sheltered, and guided thousands of Victorian vacationers through relaxed week-long tours. Wylie promised travelers comfort and delicious meals. His clients enjoyed heated sleeping tents, informative outings, and fresh-air bonfires.

In February 2019, award-winning writer Alex Roddie left his online life behind when he set out to walk 300 miles through the Scottish Highlands, seeking solitude and answers. In leaving the chaos of the internet behind for a month, he hoped to learn how it was truly affecting him - or if he should look elsewhere for the causes of his anxiety. The Farthest Shore is the story of Alex’s solo trek along the remote Cape Wrath Trail.

Native woodland is one of the most valuable resources for biodiversity in Ireland’s wet climate. Yet Ireland has the lowest forest cover of any part of Europe, with the surviving native woodland covering a tiny area of the country. Ireland lost the majority of its ancient forest centuries ago, but now is when we need it most to help solve the climate crisis. This audiobook is a celebration of Ireland’s native woodlands blended with a personal account of learning to manage a single small wood over a typical year.

Susan Brind Morrow brings her singular sensibility as a classicist and linguist to this strikingly original reflection on the fine but resilient threads that bind humans to the natural world. Prompted by the emotional loss of two friends, one a trapper and one a beekeeper, Susan Brind Morrow explores the implications of their very different relationships to the natural world.

It is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came The Ancient Mariner and ‘Kubla Khan’, as well as Coleridge’s unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, Wordsworth’s revolutionary verses in Lyrical Ballads and the greatness of ‘Tintern Abbey’, his paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding.

Son of the renowned Sydney obstetrician, Dr William McBride raised the alarm on the anti-nausea drug thalidomide in the 1960s and was later struck off the medical register for falsifying research results in a bid to challenge the safety of another drug. David chose to study Law, firstly at Sydney University and then at Oxford. There he met some British army officers and decided that soldiering was his calling, going on to train at Sandhurst.

After escaping war-torn France, where 18 members of her family were murdered in the Holocaust, Gisèle Huff arrived in the US with her mother. It was 1947, and they had $400 to their name. Gisèle quickly found her footing in America, eventually earning a PhD at Columbia University, running for Congress, and launching a spectacular career in K–12 education.

Manda Kalimian is fully committed to changing the world by championing the practice of rewilding. This book shares her remarkable journey so far and her plans for the future. We live in a time of crushing change and unrest. The world is at a turning point, and we with it. Our individual lives and journeys are all interconnected. It is a moment in time to stop and listen to the voices within ourselves and what they are saying about our individual roles at this time.

L'histoire fascinante d'un "Mowgli" d'aujourd'hui. Amoureux de la nature, Geoffroy Delorme n'a pas vingt ans quand il aperçoit, dans la forêt de Louviers en Normandie, un chevreuil curieux et joueur. Le jeune homme et l'animal s'apprivoisent. Geoffroy lui donne un nom, Daguet, et le chevreuil lui ouvre les portes de la forêt et du monde fascinant de ses semblables. Geoffroy s'installe parmi eux et son expérience immersive va durer sept ans.

Hunting squirrels on an autumn morning, probing the woods, rifle in hand, Jackson reveals an attention to nature too often neglected. Following a bird dog into the damp and mysterious places where woodcock settle on their southbound migrations; chasing hounds on the trail of raccoons on a frosty winter night; stalking deer in a quiet corner of a small farm; fishing for carp in a creek, bass and bluegill in ponds, catfish in a murky river, and reef fish in the Gulf, Jackson reminds that we are stewards of not only resources but also a past that defines us as hunters and fishers.

The Science of Human Nature is a comprehensive introduction to psychology from the standpoint of an educator. Pyle examines the nature and purpose of psychology and the potential this science has for education and for other aspects of life. Due to the emphasis on education, this text is replete with useful and practical knowledge on how to learn and to teach.

Il rapporto dell'uomo con la montagna è antichissimo. La montagna, spesso ostile e pericolosa, l'ha protetto dai pericoli, gli ha permesso di cogliere il mondo dall'alto, nel suo insieme, di guardare il cielo e sentirsi più vicino all'infinito. È il luogo in cui l'uomo ritrova sé stesso, spingendosi oltre i propri limiti, nella solitudine delle cime, pur in mezzo ai compagni di cordata. Questo audiolibro è un mosaico di storie di eroi che si sono distinti sulle vette più alte del mondo, realizzando imprese eroiche, salvataggi rischiosi.

Originally published in 1969, The Inland Island is Josephine W. Johnson’s startling and brilliant chronicle of nature and the seasons at her rambling 37-acre farm in Ohio, which she and her husband reverted to wilderness with the help of a state forester. Over the course of 12 months, she observes the changing landscape with a naturalist’s precision and a poet’s evocative language. Listeners will marvel at the way she brings to life flashes of beauty, the inexorable cycle of growth and decay, and the creatures who live alongside her, great and small.

Sloths spend most of their lives in trees, and until recently, scientists didn’t know very much about them. But Dr. Rebecca Cliffe was determined to discover their secrets. To find out more, she fitted sloths with special backpacks containing a device to track their activity. She learned how to climb trees in the Costa Rican jungle so she could take sloth hair samples and test their DNA. And she’s helped create sloth crossings and plant trees to ensure the sloths aren’t trapped in shrinking territories. Along the way, she earned the nickname Dr. Sloth.

Learn about America's founding conservationists: Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, Stephen T. Mather, Hugh Hammond Bennett.

In this earnest, understated, and sublime work of nonfiction literature, the molecatcher shares what led him to this strange career: from sleeping among hedges as a homeless teen, to toiling on the railway, to weeding windswept gardens in Wales. Beautifully written, life-affirming, and highly original, How to Catch a Mole offers a gorgeous portrait of one man's deep, unbreakable bond with his natural surroundings, and offers hope and inspiration for anyone looking to improve their relationship with the natural world.

After years of unexplained health problems, Polly Atkin's perception of her body was rendered fluid and disjointed. When she was finally diagnosed with two chronic conditions in her thirties, she began to piece together what had been happening to her - all the misdiagnoses, the fractures, the dislocations, the bone-crushing exhaustion, the not being believed. Some of Us Just Fall combines memoir, pathography and nature writing to trace a fascinating journey through illness, a journey which led Polly to her current home in the Lake District.

Best known for his best-selling novel, Babe, which was made into a major motion picture, Dick King-Smith draws on his over 14 years of experience on Woodlands Farm to create this thoughtful and humorous memoir. His time on the farm inspired countless stories as well as the numerous lovable characters found in them. In Chewing the Cud, he candidly talks about what moved him to become a children’s author.