Stories and science surrounding the beloved bat, from an ecologist who has dedicated his life to the curious creature.Few people realize how sophisticated and intelligent bats are. Merlin Tuttle knows, and he has stopped at nothing to find and protect them on every continent they inhabit. Sharing highlights from a lifetime of adventure and discovery, Tuttle takes us to the frontiers of bat research to show that frog-eating bats can identify frogs by their calls, th...

Why build bat houses? Because bats are essential. They protect our crops, reduce use of pesticides that can cause cancer and dementia, and even help protect us from mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile. However, they are in alarming decline, often due to loss of natural roosts.Armed with this handy guide from Merlin Tuttle's Bat Conservation (MTBC), you can have fun helping both bats and your neighborhood. We summarize decades of discoveries by more than a dozen leading expert...

A lifetime of adventures with bats around the world reveals why these special and imperiled creatures should be protected rather than feared.From menacing moonshiners and armed bandits to charging elephants and man-eating tigers, Merlin Tuttle has stopped at nothing to find and protect bats on every continent they inhabit. Enamored of bats ever since discovering a colony in a cave as a boy, Tuttle saw how effective photography could be in persuading people not to f...

From one of the finest naturalists and writers of our time, a fascinating investigation of Nature’s inspiring death-to-life cycle.How does the animal world deal with death? And what ecological and spiritual lessons can we learn from examining this? Bernd Heinrich has long been fascinated by these questions, and when a good friend with a terminal illness asked if he might have his “green burial” at Heinrich’s hunting camp in Maine, it inspired the acclaimed biologis...

An around-the-world journey to discover where in the wild we can find the elements of life and the surprising ways they're essential to our survivalWe all know that we depend on elements for survival—from the oxygen in the air we breathe to the carbon in the molecular structures of all living things. But we don't often stop to appreciate how, say, phosphorous holds our DNA together or how potassium powers our optic nerves so that we can see.In The Eleme...

Say “algae” and most people think of pond scum. What they don’t know is that without algae, none of us would exist.There are as many algae on Earth as stars in the universe, and they have been essential to life on our planet for eons. Algae created the Earth we know today, with its oxygen-rich atmosphere, abundant oceans, and coral reefs. Crude oil is made of dead algae, and algae are the ancestors of all plants. Today, seaweed production is a multi-billion dollar industry, with al...

**"Listening to Godfrey-Smith's exploration of animal consciousness will rattle every nook and cranny of your brain with an onslaught of interesting questions...the author leaves listeners with a radical new perspective." —AudioFile on MetazoaThis program is read by the author.The bestselling author of Other Minds shows how we and our ancestors have reinvented our planet.**If the history of the Earth were compressed down to a year, our spe...

An awe-inspiring tour of bat world by the world’s leading expertWith nearly 1500 species, bats account for more than twenty percent of mammalian species. The most successful and most diverse group of mammals, bats come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, from the tiny bumblebee bat to the giant golden-crowned flying fox. Some bats eat fruit and nectar; others eat frogs, scorpions, or fish. Vampire bats feed on blood. Bats are the only mammals that can fly; thei...

A captivating exploration of how underwater animals tap into sound to survive, and a clarion call for humans to address the ways we invade these critical soundscapes—from an award-winning science writer“Sing Like Fish is that rare book that makes you see the world differently.”—Mark Kurlansky, New York Times bestselling author of Salt and CodLONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE ...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A hugely ambitious, “delightfully readable, genuinely informative” portrait (The New York Times) of the two-centuries-long entwined histories of Iran and America—two powers who were once allies and now adversaries—by an admired historian and former journalist.In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations between these two nations back to the Persian Empire o...

**A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice · A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2025 · A People Best Book of November 2025 · An NPR Most Anticipated Book of Fall 2025A revealing exploration of a quarter century of cultural stagnation, examining the commercial and technological forces that have come to dominate contemporary culture—from music and fashion to art, film, TV, and beyond**Over the past twenty-five years, pop culture has su...

On the morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob numbering in the thousands marched across the railroad tracks dividing black from white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and obliterated a black community then celebrated as one of America's most prosperous. Thirty-four square blocks of Tulsa's Greenwood community were reduced to smoldering rubble.And now, eighty years later, the death toll of what is known as the Tulsa Race Riot is more difficult to pinpoint. Conservative estimates put the number of ...