A portable guidebook for enjoying the night sky in 2023. 2023 Night Sky Almanac is the ideal resource for both novice and experienced sky watchers in the United States and Canada, with all the advice, information and data that enthusiasts need to understand and enjoy the wonders of the night sky.

Beautiful ... we're given a glimpse into the wild world of mushrooms that exists like another realm beneath our feet. With over one million species of mushrooms said to exist worldwide, this book shows us some of the world's most diverse.... There is much in nature that goes unnoticed on a leisurely afternoon trek of the woods. Astounding Mushrooms inspires us to explore with new vision. You won't wander the same way after reading. -- Ontario Nature Blog A heartfelt appreciation of the beauty and diversity of fungi. Astounding Mushrooms features gorgeous full-color photographs of more than 200 mushroom species in their wild habitats. The close-up images reveal every size of growth, every shade of color, every shadow of silhouette and every detail of texture. Chapter text sheds light on this unique living species, neither animal nor plant. Concise captions identify the mushrooms and provide further description of their biology. As Astounding Mushrooms reveals, mushrooms are astonishingly diverse. Shapes include buttons, nests, fans, feet, clubs, hooves, trumpets, mesh, tentacles, stars, tubes and spines. Textures are smooth, shiny or pimpled. They can be dry or wet, edible or deadly. Nuanced colors and blushes include yellows, reds, blues and greens. They may be speckled, stinky, slimy, hairy or fuzzy. Some wear a hat, some a skirt, and some can even move. Wild mushrooms are enjoyed by an increasing number of locavores, vegans and wild food enthusiasts. Chefs everywhere are foraging wild foods, including mushrooms. Mushroom hunting tours have become popular, and mycolophiles are sharing their enthusiasm and identification tips online. Astounding Mushrooms invites readers into the extraordinary fungi universe.

By the author of the number one bestseller The Weather Makers comes a groundbreaking new book of vital importance for the future of humankind. Earth’s climate system is fast approaching a crisis. Public understanding has not kept up with the debate, and there is an absence of political leadership. Many people are less engaged with the issue of climate change than they were a decade ago, and opinion is divided between technological optimists and pessimists who feel that catastrophe is inevitable. Tim Flannery, bestselling author and one of the most influential scientists on the planet, is here to tell us that catastrophe is not inevitable, but time is running out. Around the world people are already living with the consequences of an altered climate—with intensified or more frequent storms, heat waves, droughts and floods. For some it’s already a question of survival. Atmosphere of Hope is timed for publication in the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Change Summit to be held in Paris in December 2015. There will be enormous coverage of the Paris conference, which is widely acknowledged as our last chance to take decisive action on a global treaty to limit warming to 2C. This book will influence the debate generated by the Paris conference and will spark a new wave of conversations around this most important of subjects. Atmosphere of Hope is both a snapshot of the trouble we are in, and an up-to-the-minute analysis of some of the new possibilities for mitigating climate change. In his inimitable style, Tim Flannery makes this urgent issue completely accessible, a decade after the publication of his groundbreaking book The Weather Makers.

Shortlisted for the Donner Prize and the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award Droughts, floods, and contamination of fresh water in the American Southwest, in the Great Lakes region, in Australia, in northern China, in the Middle East, and in India have broguht the critical issue of water supply to the forefront of public consciousness. In dozens of countries, ordinary citizens have cause to worry about what (or how much) will come out of their taps — if they even have taps — and who will make sure it is available, affordable, and safe. In this refreshing examination of the fate and future of water, Marq de Villiers takes on some of the biggest questions and shibboleths of the century. Who owns water? Is access to water a human right? Who is responsible for keeping water clean and ensuring it gets to the people who need it most? Is privatization of ownership and supply networks evil or an extension of the public trust? Fifteen years after the publication of Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource, his influential Governor General's Award-winning book on the water crisis, de Villiers returns with a clear-eyed assessment of the politics of water — from the personal and commercial uses of water to the impact of climate change and global conflicts. Examining how political ideologies often obscure the underlying issues, de Villiers makes the controversial suggestion that there is no global water crisis, but that water problems are fundamentally local and regional and can most effectively be addressed through local, rather than global, action.

An illustrated history of a single atom of carbon, tracing its many manifestations from the Big Bang to the present. Carbon: One Atom's Odyssey is an illustrated adaptation of 'Carbon,' a short story from Italian chemist, writer, and Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. It traces the life story and many molecular manifestations of a single atom of this life-essential element. You'll follow one atom from its spectacular birth 14 billion years ago through its harrowing journey on planet earth where it has become a basic building block of nearly 10 million known compounds in living things. Along the way, you'll learn that it is breathed in by the Peregrine Falcon; it is dissolved in the ocean before making its way back into the atmosphere; it is found in your pencil as well as in your liver; it helps trees grow strong and tall; and it even lets a moth's eye make sense of light.

Featuring more than 140 spectacular photographs of this magnificent animal. The story of the contemporary caribou begins during the last Ice Age, over two million years ago. This origin is appropriate; the caribou are rugged survivors, forged by icy terrain and windswept snow, enduring some of the coldest and harshest environments on the planet. Illustrated with exquisite photographs by famed wilderness photographer and writer Mark Raycroft, Caribou: Wind Walkers of the Northern Wilderness celebrates this fascinating and breathtaking animal. Calling tundra and boreal forests their home, there are over 2.5 million caribou worldwide with 15 subspecies, the largest of which is the boreal woodland caribou, found in Alaska and the north of Canada. Revered, hunted and domesticated by cultures across the globe for thousands of years, caribou (also known as reindeer) migrate farther than any other land mammal in search of food, with some having been documented traveling 700 kilometers. With its towering antlers, weather-resistant coat of fur and ability to forage lichen and fungi buried deep beneath the ice and snow, the caribou are an awe-inspiring symbol of perseverance. Chapters include: In the Company of Caribou The Role of Antlers A Brief History of the Species The Rut Caribou Ecology Conservation and the Future Migration and Range Photographing Caribou. Caribou: Wind Walkers of the Northern Wilderness is perfect for lovers of nature photography and those who wish to get personally acquainted with one of this world's most hardy and fascinating creatures.

Andrew Westoll spent months at Fauna Sanctuary, a refuge for thirteen chimps rescued from a research lab, as a volunteer caregiver. In The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary, Westoll vividly recounts his adventures in the chimp house and the heart-wrenching histories of its residents. He arrives with dreams of striking up an immediate friendship with the legendary Tom, a father figure to the rest of the chimps. Tom proves the greatest teacher to the indomitable Gloria Grow, who presides over the sanctuary. Through Westoll's eyes, we witness the chimps' remarkable recovery first-hand. Simple things like establishing friendships, nurturing alliances, grooming one another and playing games of tickle-chase are all poignant testament to the capacity of these animals to heal--and to learn how to be chimps again.

With climate change at the forefront of current discussion, Words of Change: CLIMATE offers a curated collection of thought-provoking quotes and passages from the writings and speeches of activists in the environmental community, with a focus on diverse and previously unheard voices. Compiled by social scientist and researcher Tina Limpert, this collection of stirring words is intended to enlighten, to prompt change, to provide encouragement, and to deepen readers' conviction. Celebrating activism, focusing on solutions, and avoiding apathy and pessimism, this book is call to action. The back matter includes a brief bio for each person quoted to provide context for their life and work.

In the second volume of the Discovering Life's Story series by best-selling author Joy Hakim, the theory of evolution takes hold--transforming ideas about survival, extinction, and life itself. Can species change? Or go extinct? In the eighteenth century, most people answer no to both questions. But in the century that follows, that certainty gets challenged as some people in Europe question the common belief that all creatures are the same as they've been since life's creation. The Evolution of an Idea, the second volume of Discovering Life's Story, opens with the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who attempts to create an organizing system for the myriad forms of life on earth. It continues into the late 1800s, when two Englishmen--Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace--each develop their own version of a startling new theory of how life-forms change over time. This evolutionary idea will alter the understanding of our place in the great web of life on earth. In this remarkable volume, author Joy Hakim continues charting the path of human discovery and shows how groundbreaking thinkers began to unlock the biological secrets of our own existence.

Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but here Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning. Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate. (back cover)

From the award-winning, bestselling author of The Golden Spruce and The Tiger comes a stunning account of a colossal wildfire, and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada's petroleum industry and America's biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world. For hundreds of millennia, fire has been a partner in our evolution, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways. With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America's oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant's urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.

Celebrity forester: Peter Wohlleben has presented alongside Jane Goodall, been endorsed by Hollywood celebrities, profiled in the New Yorker andthe New York Times, and topped international bestseller lists. Author credited for changing the conversation about trees: In his instant NYT bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees,Wohlleben drew on scientific studies to explain how trees communicate and live in social networks, sparking an online conversation about tree sentience that continues today. More than 3 million copies of The Hidden Life of Trees have sold worldwide in all formats. Unique co-author partnership: For the first time, Peter and his longtime translator and editor, Jane Billinghurst, are teaming up to write an original book together--like a conversation between two old friends who love trees. Forest bathing is a recognized way to rejuvenate, reconnect, and restore our energy: The Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) has exploded in popularity in recent years due to the proven physical and mental health benefits of reconnecting with nature.