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  Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

 
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $14.95
Sale: $8.35
 
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Laurence Gonzales
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.69
Publication Date: 2004-10-30
Reading Level: 318
 
Description: "Unique among survival books...stunning...enthralling. Deep Survival makes compelling, and chilling, reading."—Penelope Purdy, Denver Post

After her plane crashes, a seventeen-year-old girl spends eleven days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter, or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash sits down and dies. What makes the difference?

Examining such stories of miraculous endurance and tragic death—how people get into trouble and how they get out again (or not)—Deep Survival takes us from the tops of snowy mountains and the depths of oceans to the workings of the brain that control our behavior. Through close analysis of case studies, Laurence Gonzales describes the "stages of survival" and reveals the essence of a survivor—truths that apply not only to surviving in the wild but also to surviving life-threatening illness, relationships, the death of a loved one, running a business during uncertain times, even war.

Fascinating for any reader, and absolutely essential for anyone who takes a hike in the woods, this book will change the way we understand ourselves and the great outdoors.


 

  Finding Beauty in a Broken World

 
Finding Beauty in a Broken World under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $26.00
Sale: $16.46
 
Manufacturer: Pantheon
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Terry Tempest Williams
Publisher: Pantheon
Edition: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.54
Publication Date: 2008-10-07
Reading Level: 432
 
Description: In her most original, provocative, and eloquently moving book since Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams gives us a luminous chronicle of finding beauty in a broken world. Always an impassioned and far-sighted advocate for a just relationship between the natural world and humankind, Williams has broadened her concerns over the past several years to include a reconfiguration of family and community in her search for a deeper understanding of what it means to be human in an era of physical and spiritual fragmentation.

Williams begins in Ravenna, Italy, where “jeweled ceilings became lavish tales” through the art of mosaic. She discovers that mosaic is not just an art form but a form of integration, and when she returns to the American Southwest, her physical and spiritual home, and observes a clan of prairie dogs on the brink of extinction, she apprehends an ecological mosaic created by a remarkable species in the sagebrush steppes of the Colorado Plateau. And, finally, Williams travels to a small village in Rwanda, where, along with fellow artists, she joins survivors of the 1994 genocide and builds a memorial literally from the rubble of war, an act that becomes a spark for social change and healing.

A singular meditation on how the natural and human worlds both collide and connect in violence and beauty, this is a work of uncommon perceptions that dares to find intersections between arrogance and empathy, tumult and peace, constructing a narrative of hopeful acts by taking that which is broken and creating something whole.

 

  The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008 (The Best American Series)

 
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008 (The Best American Series) under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $14.00
Sale: $7.98
 
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Edition: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.80356
Publication Date: 2008-10-08
Reading Level: 352
 
Description: "The articles . . . draw the reader more tightly into the web of the world. They forge links in unexpected ways. They connect us to nature and to each other, and those connections nourish the intellect and uplift the spirit."—Jerome Groopman, M.D., editor

This year's Best American Science and Nature Writing offers another rich assortment of "fascinating science and impressive journalism" (New Scientist) culled from an array of periodicals, such as The New Yorker, Scientific American, and National Geographic. The twenty-four provocative and often visionary stories chosen by guest editor Jerome Groopman form an outstanding sampling of the very best in a field of writing that stays ahead of the curve, bringing important topics to the forefront of American discussion.

In "The Universe's Invisible Hand," Christopher Conselice takes us into the recent spectacular discovery of the crucial role of dark energy, which is making our universe expand faster and faster. Florence Williams tells the story of a more down-to-earth form of energy in "A Mighty Wind," which describes how a small Danish island community is making great leaps in energy conservation by using innovative wind farms. John Cohen explores the marvelous world of ligers, zorses, wholphins, and other hybridized creatures in "Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal." And Robin Marantz Henig delves into the possibly hazardous ramifications of the rapidly expanding science of nanotechnology.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008 packs a wallop of intriguing, informative, and wondrous stories, each one bringing with it, as Jerome Groopman writes, "a sense of excitement [to be] shared with others."

 

  Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

 
Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $13.95
Sale: $7.50
 
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Ralph Helfer
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.320929
Publication Date: 1998-10-01
Reading Level: 352
 
Description: Modoc is the joint biography of a man and an elephant born in a small German circus town on the same day in 1896. Bram was the son of an elephant trainer, Modoc the daughter of his prize performer. The boy and animal grew up devoted to each other. When the Wunderzircus was sold to an American, with no provision to take along the human staff, Bram stowed away on the ship to prevent being separated from his beloved Modoc. A shipwreck off the Indian coast and a sojourn with a maharajah were only the beginning of the pair's incredible adventures. They battled bandits, armed revolutionaries, cruel animal trainers, and greedy circus owners in their quest to stay together. They triumphed against the odds and thrilled American circus audiences with Modoc's dazzling solo performances, only to be torn apart with brutal suddenness, seemingly never to meet again. Hollywood animal trainer Ralph Helfer rescued Modoc from ill-treatment and learned her astonishing story when Bram rediscovered her at Helfer's company. His emotional retelling of this true-life adventure epic will make pulses race and bring tears to readers' eyes. --Wendy Smith

 

  A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All

 
A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $24.99
Sale: $16.49
 
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Luke Dempsey
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Edition: 1st
Dewey Decimal Number: 598.0723473
Publication Date: 2008-07-22
Reading Level: 272
 
Description:
It was an epiphany: The moment two friends showed Luke Dempsey a small bird flitting around the bushes of his country garden, he fell madly in love. But did he really want to be a birder? Didn’t that mean he’d be forced to eat granola? And wear a man-pouch? Before he knew it, though, he was lost to birding mania. Early mornings in Central Park gave way to weekend mornings wandering around Pennsylvania, which morphed into weeklong trips to Texas, Arizona, Michigan, Florida—anywhere the birds were.A Supremely Bad Idea is one man’s account of an epic journey around America, all in search of the rarest and most beautiful birds the country has to offer. But the birds are only part of it. There are also his crazy companions, Don and Donna Graffiti, who obsess over Dempsey’s culinary limitations and watch in horror as an innocent comment in a store in Arizona almost turns into an international incident; as a trip through wild Florida turns into a series of (sometimes poetic) fisticuffs; and as he teeters at the summit of the Rocky Mountains, a displaced Brit falling in love all over again, this time with his adopted country.Both a paean to avian beauty and a memoir of the back roads of America, A Supremely Bad Idea is a supremely fun comic romp: an environmentally sound This Is Spinal Tap with binoculars.

 

  The Snow Leopard (Penguin Classics)

 
The Snow Leopard (Penguin Classics) under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $15.00
Sale: $8.63
 
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Peter Matthiessen
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.496
Publication Date: 2008-09-30
Reading Level: 368
 
Description: In the autumn of 1973, the writer Peter Matthiessen set out in the company of zoologist George Schaller on a hike that would take them 250 miles into the heart of the Himalayan region of Dolpo, "the last enclave of pure Tibetan culture on earth." Their voyage was in quest of one of the world's most elusive big cats, the snow leopard of high Asia, a creature so rarely spotted as to be nearly mythical; Schaller was one of only two Westerners known to have seen a snow leopard in the wild since 1950.

Published in 1978, The Snow Leopard is rightly regarded as a classic of modern nature writing. Guiding his readers through steep-walled canyons and over tall mountains, Matthiessen offers a narrative that is shot through with metaphor and mysticism, and his arduous search for the snow leopard becomes a vehicle for reflections on all manner of matters of life and death. In the process, The Snow Leopard evolves from an already exquisite book of natural history and travel into a grand, Buddhist-tinged parable of our search for meaning. By the end of their expedition, having seen wolves, foxes, rare mountain sheep, and other denizens of the Himalayas, and having seen many signs of the snow leopard but not the cat itself, Schaller muses, "We've seen so much, maybe it's better if there are some things that we don't see."

That sentiment, as well as the sense of wonder at the world's beauty that pervades Matthiessen's book, ought to inform any journey into the wild. --Gregory McNamee


 

  Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes: A Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness

 
Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes: A Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $23.95
Sale: $13.25
 
Manufacturer: New World Library
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Robert Kull
Publisher: New World Library
Dewey Decimal Number: 204.092
Publication Date: 2008-09-01
Reading Level: 320
 
Description:
Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia’s coastal wilderness with supplies to live alone for a year. He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he’d been seeking all his life. With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the forces of nature raged around him. The physical challenges were immense, but the struggles of mind and spirit pushed him even further.

Solitude is the diary of Kull’s tumultuous year as well as a meditation on the tensions between nature and technology, isolation and society. With humor and brutal honesty, Kull explores the pain and longing we typically avoid in our busy lives as well as the peace and wonder that arise once we strip away our distractions.

Kull went into solitude seeking the Answer, but came back empty-handed. Wilderness, he found, is a place to clearly see the insanity of denying that the world is as it is. He discovered that life itself teaches us all we need to know — once we pause to really listen.

 

  Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

 
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $13.95
Sale: $6.51
 
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Terry Tempest Williams
Publisher: Vintage
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.196994490092
Publication Date: 1992-09-01
Reading Level: 336
 
Description: The only constants in nature are change and death. Terry Tempest Williams, a naturalist and writer from northern Utah, has seen her share of both. The pages of Refuge resound with the deaths of her mother and grandmother and other women from cancer, the result of the American government's ongoing nuclear-weapons tests in the nearby Nevada desert. You won't find the episode in the standard history textbooks; the Feds wouldn't admit to conducting the tests until women and men in Utah, Nevada, and northwestern Arizona took the matter to court in the mid-1980s, and by then thousands of Americans had fallen victim to official technology. Parallel to her account of this devastation, Williams describes changes in bird life at the sanctuaries dotting the shores of the Great Salt Lake as water levels rose during the unusually wet early 1980s and threatened the nesting grounds of dozens of species. In this world of shattered eggs and drowned shorebirds, Williams reckons with the meaning of life, alternating despair and joy.

 

  The Last American Man

 
The Last American Man under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $15.00
Sale: $6.49
 
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.310973
Publication Date: 2003-05-27
Reading Level: 288
 
Description: In this rousing examination of contemporary American male identity, acclaimed author and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert explores the fascinating true story of Eustace Conway. In 1977, at the age of seventeen, Conway left his family's comfortable suburban home to move to the Appalachian Mountains. For more than two decades he has lived there, making fire with sticks, wearing skins from animals he has trapped, and trying to convince Americans to give up their materialistic lifestyles and return with him back to nature. To Gilbert, Conway's mythical character challenges all our assumptions about what it is to be a modern man in America; he is a symbol of much we feel how our men should be, but rarely are.

 

  Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (Dover Thrift Editions)

 
Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (Dover Thrift Editions) under Essays in The Books Store
Price: $3.50
Sale: $0.71
 
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Publisher: Dover Publications
Edition: Unabridged
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.303
Publication Date: 1995-04-12
Reading Level: 224
 
Description:
One of the great books of American letters and a masterpiece of reflective philosophizing. Accounts of Thoreau's daily life on the shores of Walden Pond outside Concord, Massachusetts, are interwoven with musings on the virtues of self-reliance and individual freedom, on society, government, and other topics.

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