Showing titles in Outdoors & Nature

Forest bathing is a gentle, meditative practice of connecting with nature. Simply being present with all of our senses, in a forest or other wild area, can produce mental, emotional, and physical health benefits. It is a simple, accessible antidote to our nature-starved lives and can inspire us to become advocates for healing our relationships with the more-than-human world. This book is both an invitation to take up the practice of forest bathing and an inspiration to connect with nature as a way to help heal both the planet and humanity.

Alone on the Wall recounts the most astonishing achievements of Honnold's extraordinary life and career, brimming with lessons on living fearlessly, taking risks, and maintaining focus even in the face of extreme danger. Now Honnold tells, for the first time and in his own words, the story of his three hours and 56 minutes on the sheer face of El Cap, which Outside called "the moon landing of free soloing.... A generation-defining climb. Bad ass and beyond words.... One of the pinnacle sporting moments of all time."

Conservationist Rachel Carson spent over six years documenting the effects on DDT, a synthetic organic compound used as an insecticide, on numerous communities. Her analysis revealed that such powerful, persistent chemical pesticides have been used without a full understanding of the extent of their potential harm to the whole biota, including the damage they've caused to wildlife, birds, bees, agricultural animals, domestic pets, and even humans. An instant best seller that was read by President Kennedy during the summer of 1962, this classic remains one of the best introductions to the complicated and controversial subject.

In Dirt to Soil, Gabe Brown tells the story of his ranch's amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to our most pressing and complex contemporary agricultural challenge - restoring the soil. The Brown’s Ranch model, developed over 20 years of experimentation and refinement, focuses on regenerating resources by continuously enhancing the living biology in the soil.

To reduce risk of pandemics for ourselves, our gaze needs to turn to the health of animals. From the bestselling author of the essential new 2019 book on animal agriculture and climate crisis: We are the Weather Discover Jonathan Safran Foer's eye-opening and life-changing account of the meat we...

Every night, above our heads, a drama of epic proportions is playing out. Diamond planets, zombie stars, black holes heavier than a billion Suns. The cast of characters is extraordinary, and each one has its own incredible story to tell. We once thought of our Earth as unique, but we have now...

Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection – yet we know hardly anything...

Brought to you by Penguin. It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all, and if your anxiety about it is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of...

GROW CALM. GROW CURIOUS. GROW JOY. Dig into 52 simple, seasonal projects to bring a little more green – and a healthy hit of dopamine (your ‘feel-good hormone’) – to everyday life. Whether you have a garden, balcony, or windowsill – reconnect with nature, and watch your happiness...

In the misty Puerto Rican El Yunque rainforest, coquí frogs no larger than your thumb fill the air with their distinctive two-note song: “co-quí, co-quí.” They alternate routines—one night singing to attract potential mates, the next hunting to fuel up for tomorrow’s performance. In this episode, we follow a singer and a hunter amid the vibrant nighttime chorus.

 Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows offers an absorbing look at what social psychologist Melanie Joy calls carnism, the belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals when we would never dream of eating others. Carnism causes extensive animal suffering and global injustice, and it drives us to act against our own interests and the interests of others without fully realizing what we are doing.  

More than a hundred salt lakes dot Earth's surface, most of them hidden away in remote desert valleys. But today nearly all of them are at risk of drying up. Their death is a harbinger of rising sea levels, life-threatening dust storms, and environmental collapse. Writer and geographer Caroline Tracey didn't know this when she began crossing paths with salt lakes during her early twenties. From the Great Salt Lake to the Aral Sea, across the American West and around the world, the unusual beauty of these shimmering, uncanny bodies of water captured her imagination.

Brought to you by Penguin. We can’t afford to delay climate action, but with all the shouting and disagreement it’s hard to know where to turn. In her new book, bestselling environmental star Hannah Ritchie answers 50 key climate questions once and for all, clearing the air so we can get on...

The ability to communicate with animals is not a rare gift, but a skill we all possess. On The Beginner s Guide to Animal Communication, author and teacher Carol Gurney brings nearly 20 years of experience in interpreting the language of animals to anyone seeking a heart-to-heart connection with...

BBC R4 Book of the Week ‘Brilliant’ Guardian ‘Fascinating and often delightful’ The Times What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter? In Other Minds, Peter...

The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano -- Krakatoa. The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the...

"[An] intriguing philosophical journey into a critical issue within evolutionary theory that for too long has remained unresolved." —Wall Street Journal Matt Ridley is one of our finest science writers. This book is a treat for bird lovers and evolutionary biologists alike.” —Richard...

The nation's greatest voice, David Attenborough, reads J. A. Baker's extraordinary classic of British nature writing, The Peregrine. J. A. Baker's classic of British nature writing was first published in 1967. Greeted with acclaim, it went on to win the Duff Cooper Prize, the pre-eminent literary prize of the time. Luminaries such as Ted Hughes, Barry Lopez and Andrew Motion have cited it as one of the most important books in 20th-century nature writing.

The Last Great Mountain tells the story of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga the third highest but reputedly the hardest mountain in the world. It was an astonishing achievement for a British team led by Everest veteran Charles Evans. Drawing on interviews, diaries and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey begins his story in 1905 with the disastrous first attempt on the mountain by a team led by Aleister Crowley, explores the three dramatic German expeditions of the the late 1920s and brings it all to a climax 50 years later with the first ascent by Joe Brown and George Band.

Over the past seventy years, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and other consumer goods makers have harnessed single-use plastics to turbocharge their profits. They've poured billions of dollars into convincing us we need disposable diapers, cups, bags, bottles, shampoo sachets and ultra-processed foods. In investigating how we got here, Consumed arms us to make better decisions about where we go next. It is only by understanding this history that we will stop accepting the same failed solutions and demand better from the brands that got us hooked on plastic in the first place.