The stories in Bob Reed's delightful book are surefire spirit lifters that celebrate life and enrich the soul.Reed's seven tales not only come alive with hilarity and warmth, they show how God works through even the most bumbling and misdirected human efforts. Reed's humor is laced with insight, his descriptions with inspiration, and his characters with God's own love. In the lead story, "The Choir That Couldn't Sing," Reed's description of a hopelessly off-key chu...

Our feline companions are much-loved but often mysterious. In The Inner Life of Cats, Thomas McNamee blends scientific reportage with engaging, illustrative anecdotes about his own beloved cat, Augusta, to explore and illuminate the secrets and enigmas of her kind.As it begins, The Inner Life of Cats follows the development of the young Augusta while simultaneously explaining the basics of a kitten's physiological and psychological development. As...

Human activity has irreversibly changed the natural environment. But the news isn't all bad.It's accepted wisdom today that human beings have permanently damaged the natural world, causing extinction, deforestation, pollution, and of course climate change. But in Inheritors of the Earth, biologist Chris Thomas shows that this obscures a more hopeful truth -- we're also helping nature grow and change. Human cities and mass agriculture have created new place...

A revised edition of the classic self-care guide, with new research on aging. "Every family should have this book"(Annals of Internal Medicine).Continuing to break new ground after forty years in print, Take Care of Yourself is the go-to guide for at home self-care. Simple to use, even in a crisis, the easy-to-navigate flowcharts help you quickly look up your symptoms and find an explanation of likely causes and possible home remedies, as well as advice on...

The first hopeful book about climate change, The Future Earth shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades.The basics of climate science are easy. We know it is entirely human-caused. Which means its solutions will be similarly human-led. In The Future Earth, leading climate change advocate and weather-related journalist Eric Holthaus (“the Rebel Nerd of Meteorology”—Rolling Stone

The Control of Nature is John McPhee's bestselling account of places where people are locked in combat with nature. Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking is his depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those attempting to wrest control from her—stubborn, sometimes foolhardy, more often ingenious, and always arresting characters.

A riveting manifesto for the millions of people who long to forge a more vital, meaningful connection to the natural world to live a better, more fulfilling lifeLooking around at the world today—a world of skyscrapers, super highways, melting ice caps, and rampant deforestation—it is easy to feel that humanity has actively severed its ties with nature. It’s no wonder that we are starving to rediscover a connection with the natural world.With new insights in...

In the eighteenth century, the Catholics of England lacked many basic freedoms under the law: they could not serve in political office, buy or inherit land, or be married by the rites of their own religion. So virulent was the sentiment against Catholics that, in 1780, violent riots erupted in London—incited by the anti-Papist Lord George Gordon—in response to the Act for Relief that had been passed to loosen some of these restrictions.The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning poin...

The president of the National Bar Association and one of the most distinguished civil rights attorneys working today reflects on the landmark cases he has battled—including representing Trayvon Martin’s family—and offers a disturbing look at how the justice system is used to promote injustice in this memoir and clarion call as shocking and important as the bestsellers Just Mercy and Slavery by Another Name and Ava DuVernay’s film 13th.Benjamin Crump firml...

**This program is read by the author.National Geographic Explorer and TED Prize-winner Dr. Sarah Parcak welcomes you to the exciting new world of space archaeology, a growing field that is sparking extraordinary discoveries from ancient civilizations across the globe.**In Archaeology from Space, Sarah Parcak shows the evolution, major discoveries, and future potential of the young field of satellite archaeology. From surprise advancements after the declassification...

Nuclear weapons are, today, as important as they were during the Cold War, and some experts say we could be as close to a nuclear catastrophe now as we were at the height of that conflict. Despite that, conversations about these bombs generally often happen in past tense.In Countdown, science journalist Sarah Scoles uncovers a different atomic reality: the nuclear age's present. Drawing from years of on-the-ground reporting at the nation's nuclear weapons labs, Scoles inte...

From the author of The Hidden Lives of Owls, an exploration of the elusive lives of whales in the Pacific Ocean, home to orcas, humpbacks, sperm, blue, and gray whales.Leigh Calvez has spent a dozen years researching, observing, and probing the lives of the giants of the deep. Here, she relates the stories of nature's most remarkable creatures, including the familial orcas in the waters of Washington State and British Columbia; the migratory humpbacks; and...