Celebrating the beauty, diversity, and significance of the state’s natural landscapes, Wild North Carolina provides an engaging, beautifully illustrated introduction to North Carolina’s interconnected webs of plant and animal life. From dunes and marshes to high mountain crags, through forests, swamps, savannas, ponds, pocosins, and flatrocks, David Blevins and Michael Schafale reveal in words and photographs natural patterns of the landscape that will help readers see familiar pl...

In this stunning book, nature photographer and ecologist David Blevins offers an inspiring visual journey to North Carolina's barrier islands as you have never seen them before. These islands are unique and ever-changing places with epic origins, surprising plants and animals, and an uncertain future. From snow geese midflight to breathtaking vistas along otherworldly dunes, Blevins has captured the incredible natural diversity of North Carolina's coast in singular detail. His photographs ...

Come explore the geology of Florida’s Gulf Coast beaches, from a bird’s-eye view down to a crab’s-eye view. You'll journey from Panhandle sugar-sand beaches to southwestern shell beaches, taking a fresh look at the ever-changing landscape. With Tonya Clayton as your guide, you'll learn how to recognize the stories and read the clues of these dynamic shores, reshaped daily by winds, waves, and sometimes bulldozers or dump trucks.This dynamic tour begins with a broad description of Fl...

From masterful storyteller Michael J. Tougias comes a heart-stopping true-life tale of death and survival at sea—a thrilling "edge-of-your-seat chronicle of what happens when a sailboat goes up against a fierce storm in the heart of the Gulf Stream" (The Providence Journal).In May 2005, Tom Tighe, captain of a forty-five-foot-long sailboat named the Almeisan, and his first mate, Loch Reidy, welcomed three new crewmembers for a fiv...

Beginning in 1967 and for just over 30 years, the oil industry toiled in the relative obscurity of Northern Alberta as machines peeled away earth and boreal forest to exhume what has now become one of humanity’s most precious and contentious resources: bitumen. As the years passed, the bitumen mines sprawled, poisonous tailings ponds spread, toxins polluted the environment, cancer reared its head downstream and the price of petroleum soared beyond all expectations.As plans continue...

“I told God that if he would let us survive this night, I would make it mean something worthwhile. And then, somehow, I felt calmer than I have ever felt. Unreasonably so. Irrationally so. I looked over the scene of our wrecked life and I smiled–a crazy smile for sure–and I looked through the dark at the mad beauty of it.”–Jean SilverwoodAn exhilarating true-life adventure of one family’s extraordinary sea voyage of self-discovery and survival, trag...

Something is stirring. People around the world are deciding that the well-being of their community and its economy lies with them.They're people like you. They've had enough, and, rather than waiting for permission, they're rolling up their sleeves, getting together with friends and neighbours, and doing something about it. Whether they start small or big, they're finding that just doing stuff can transform their neighbourhoods and their lives.The Power...

Now with a new afterword by the author, the tenth-anniversary edition of Peter Heller’s “swashbuckling adventure” (Publishers Weekly) takes us on a hair-raising journey aboard a whale saving pirate ship with a vigilante crew whose mission is to stop illegal Japanese whaling in the stormy seas of Antarctica.The Whale Warriors is an adventure story set in the far reaches of the globe. For two months in 2005, journalist Peter Heller was aboard the

There is no better way to see America than on foot. And there is no better way to appreciate what you are looking at than with a walking tour. Whether you are preparing for a road trip or just out to look at your own town in a new way.Each walking tour describes historical and architectural landmarks and provides pictures to help out when those pesky street addresses are missing. Every tour also includes a quick primer on identifying architectural styles seen on American streets.

The oceans, and the challenges they face, are so vast that it’s easy to feel powerless to protect them. 50 Ways to Save the Ocean, written by veteran environmental journalist David Helvarg, focuses on practical, easily-implemented actions everyone can take to protect and conserve this vital resource. Well-researched, personal, and sometimes whimsical, the book addresses daily choices that affect the ocean's health: what fish should and should not be eaten; how and where to vacatio...

In 2014 it was named "Best Travel Guide of the Year" by the Society of American Travel Writers, a stunning accolade from the nation's most prestigious travel journalists, who find it surpasses any competing guide. Note that the book is careful not simply to review the attractions and lodgings of the Disney theme parks, but the wildly popular Universal parks (including those themed from the Harry Potter books) and the other intriguing attractions and facilities of the city of Orlando. Autho...

The acclaimed author and biologist shares "a superb personal account [of Antarctica] . . . a remarkable evocation of a land at the bottom of the world" ( Boston Globe).During the 1980s, biologist David Campbell spent three summers in Antarctica, researching its surprisingly plentiful wildlife. In The Crystal Desert, he combines travelogue, nature writing and science history to tell the story of life's tenacity on the coldest of Earth's continents.