Nature Writing

Everyone has dreams of what they want to accomplish in life. Marty Essen’s childhood dream of becoming a herpetologist gave way to his dream of becoming a popular DJ, which led to his dream of becoming a big-time talent manager, which morphed into the dream of becoming an in-demand author and college speaker. While he achieved most of his dreams at various levels, he also realized that he didn’t necessarily have to reach the top to find success or happiness. Sometimes, “almost” is close enough.

The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is one of the strangest creatures nature ever created. Remarkably little is known about the eel, even today. What we do know is that it’s born as a tiny willow-leaf-shaped larva in the Sargasso Sea, travels on the ocean currents toward the coasts of Europe - a journey of about 4,000 miles that takes at least two years. Upon arrival, it transforms itself into a glass eel and then into a yellow eel before it wanders up into fresh water.

Adelaide loves writing. Bear loves writing. But Theo does NOT love writing. Thankfully, Adelaide and Bear are ready to team up and persuade the entire class, including Mrs. Fitz-Pea, that Bears make the best writing buddies. After all, who better to teach you how to fish and forage for new ideas than a bear? This third book in Carmen Oliver's Bears Make the Best...series is sure to encourage even the most reluctant writer to write a story.

'Grass Root Words' is a Naturalist periodical journal for essays, poems, and short-stories on inspirational themes like history, education, evolution, environmentalism, civil rights, philosophy, arts, advances in technology, and discoveries in science. Contributing authors include all ages; alive or dead; famous or infamous. This 'SCOD-zine' is like a grass-roots 'Leaves of Grass', except anyone can be in it, not just Walt Whitman.

When not writing his famous Western novels, Zane Grey was an insatiable angler. Tales of Southern Rivers recounts his tales of fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys, the Everglades, and on remote rivers in the jungles of Mexico. With many of these venues being some of today's most popular saltwater fly-fishing destinations, no one will want to miss these highly entertaining and informative stories. Armchair fishing will never be the same.

On a series of coastal walks, Lisa Woollett takes us on an illuminating journey, bringing to life the places where mythology and reality meet at the very edges of Britain and Ireland. From Bronze Age settlements on the Isles of Scilly and submerged prehistoric forests in Wales, to a Victorian amusement park on the Isle of Wight and castles in the air off County Clare, Lisa draws together archaeology, meetings with locals and tales from folklore to reveal how the sea has forged, shaped and often overwhelmed these landscapes and communities.

The Timberline Trail is an iconic hiking trail circumnavigating Mount Hood in Northern Oregon. Packed with incredible scenery, the journey cuts through gorgeous forests, across volcanic terrain, through glacier-carved canyons, along alpine meadows, and under thundering waterfalls while providing unprecedented views of Mount Hood and the surrounding Cascade Range volcanic peaks. This is the story of a four-day backpacking trip on the Timberline—the day-to-day experience, the highs and the lows, and the awe-inspiring beauty.

Though he made his name and fortune as an author of Western novels, Zane Grey's best writing has to do with fishing. There, he was free from the conventions of the Western genre and the market's expectations, and was able to blend his talent for narrative with his keen eye for detail and sense of humor (much of it self-deprecating) into his books and articles.

I can move only with the aid of barrels of anti-inflammatory gel, sticking plasters, and real ale anesthetic. Martin and I descend from hours of walking to the small town of Middleton-in-Teesdale. I walk, stiff-legged, into the campsite office, and a plump, middle-aged woman looks up from her desk and can see the old timer is in trouble.

In the footsteps of Desert Solitaire, these essays by an award-winning writer and student of culture sift decades of experience backpacking and boating for a stance that questions the mainstream. More than mere tales of bravado, they offer glimpses into the heart of the places explored, with the Grand Canyon as their center of gravity. Vivid, finely crafted, shot through with humor, self-effacing while deeply opinionated, No Walk in the Park shows what it means to meet nature on nature's terms.

Five generations of Marnie O. Mamminga's family have been rejuvenated by times together in Wisconsin's Northwoods. In a series of evocative remembrances, Mamminga takes us to Wake Robin, the cabin her grandparents built in 1929 on Big Spider Lake near Hayward, on land adjacent to Moody's Camp. Along the way, she preserves the spirit and cultural heritage of a vanishing era, conveying the heart of a place and the community that once gathered there.

From the Lambic breweries of Belgium, where beer is fermented with wild yeasts drawn down from the air around the brewery, to the aquifers below Burton-on-Trent, where the brewing water is rumored to contain life-giving qualities, Miracle Brew tells the full story behind the amazing role each of these fantastic four - a grass, a weed, a fungus, and water - has to play.

In June 2007, Erin McKittrick and her husband, Hig, embarked on a 4,000-mile expedition from Seattle to the Aleutian Islands, traveling solely by human power. This is the story of their unprecedented trek along the northwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean-a year-long journey through some of the most rugged terrain in the world - and their encounters with rain, wind, blizzards, bears, and their own emotional and spiritual demons.

From the Paleozoic volcanoes that stained its soil, to the Saxons who occupied it, to the Tudors who traded its wool, to the Land Girls of wartime, John Lewis-Stempel charts a sweeping, lyrical history of Woodston: the quintessential English farm. With his combined skills of farmer and historian, Lewis-Stempel digs deep into written records, the memories of relatives and the landscape itself to celebrate the farmland his family have been bound to for millennia.

Noreen Masud has always loved flatlands. Her earliest memory is of a wide, flat field glimpsed from the back seat of her father's car in Lahore. As an adult in Britain she has discovered many more flat landscapes to love: Orford Ness, the Cambridgeshire Fens, Morecambe Bay, Orkney. These bare, haunted expanses remind her of the flat place inside herself: the place created by trauma. Noreen suffers from complex post traumatic stress disorder: the product of a profoundly disrupted and unstable childhood.

Sixty years after Mount Everest was first climbed, this unique book of letters celebrates, in a very personal way, this most majestic of mountains. With exclusive access to the private archives of pioneering New Zealand climber George Lowe, this is a welcome tribute to an unsung hero.The ascent of Everest in the summer of 1953 was one of the twentieth century’s great triumphs of exploration. George Lowe’s efforts on the mountain were crucial to the endeavour.

This classic essay from Jon Krakauer is now available as an unabridged audiobook download. This essay is also included in the Classic Krakauer collection. From the best-selling author of Missoula and Into the Wild: a selection of the singular investigative journalism that made Krakauer famous, covering topics from avalanches on Mt. Everest to a volcano in Washington state; from a wilderness therapy program for teens to an extraordinary cave in New Mexico so unearthly that is used by NASA to better understand Mars.

Según el Génesis, el primer castigo fue botánico, y consistió en expulsarnos de un paraíso, de un jardín. Desde entonces vivimos en la añoranza. Bajo esta tensión entre exilio y pertenencia, Clara Obligado nos invita, con su escritura híbrida, a un paseo por la naturaleza en el que se mezclan pensamiento y literatura, ensayo y memorias. Un itinerario por los espacios más indómitos y los más sometidos que chocan y crecen dentro de nosotros. Desde la niñez, desde la semilla, desde distintas partes del mundo, una reflexión poética y conmovedora, un canto a todo lo que crece.

Twelve-year-old Georgia believes her toothless rescue dog is psychic. With a spin of a Magic 8 Ball, Chester predicts the future with a high degree of probability. He assures Georgia the "outlook is good" for her parents' troubled marriage. He wows her math class by predicting heads or tails with every coin toss. But when the stakes are life or death, Georgia must learn the difference between magic and probability and find her own powers to increase the likelihood of a happy ending.

Fun-loving, mischievous Fox is late for lunch, so he hops on his skateboard. Go, Fox, go! What is this winning trickster character doing, zooming over and under and around on his skateboard? His animal friends follow him home to find out—and get a big surprise!