Nature Writing

What happens when a 37-year-old office worker, who exercises marginally less than the average cheese sandwich, decides to walk 630 miles of challenging coastline in one go? Will he go on an epic voyage of self-discovery...or just get really knackered? Find out the answers to these important questions, and many more, by joining him on a grand adventure that takes in 26,719 steps, 921 stiles, 302 bridges, 91,000 feet of climbing and descending, one seal, zero basking sharks, lots of chips and one overweight, oversize backpack.

In the footsteps of Desert Solitaire, these essays by an award-winning writer and student of culture sift decades of experience backpacking and boating for a stance that questions the mainstream. More than mere tales of bravado, they offer glimpses into the heart of the places explored, with the Grand Canyon as their center of gravity. Vivid, finely crafted, shot through with humor, self-effacing while deeply opinionated, No Walk in the Park shows what it means to meet nature on nature's terms.

A lifelong traveler, riding on a train from Long Beach to New Orleans, Louisiana, at age one—in the middle of World War II, to a 520-mile pilgrimage trek on the Camino de Santiago in his mid-70s—the author describes many ways he has grown internally as a result of his travels and bonding with nature.

Sir Peter Scott had a truly incredible life. He was the only son of legendary explorer Captain Scott. His godfather was J. M. Barrie, and he was married to Elizabeth Jane Howard. He also represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at sailing in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal. He founded the Wildfoul and Wetlands Trust and also helped to found the Worldwide Fund for Nature. This is a beautiful and timely re-discovered book, perfect for those who are interested in preserving our planet.

From the Lambic breweries of Belgium, where beer is fermented with wild yeasts drawn down from the air around the brewery, to the aquifers below Burton-on-Trent, where the brewing water is rumored to contain life-giving qualities, Miracle Brew tells the full story behind the amazing role each of these fantastic four - a grass, a weed, a fungus, and water - has to play.

The cycle of day and night and the cycle of seasons are two familiar natural cycles around which many human activities are organized. But is there a third natural cycle of importance for us humans? Nature's Third Cycle discusses the fascinating science behind the sunspot cycle, and gives an insider's perspective of this cutting-edge scientific research from one of the leaders of the field.

Elemental, fierce, and full of wonder, the Cairngorm mountains are the high and rocky heart of Scotland. To know them would take forever, to love them demands a kind of courageous surrender. In The Hidden Fires, Merryn Glover undertakes that challenge with Nan Shepherd as companion and guiding light. Following in the footsteps and contours of The Living Mountain, she explores the same landscapes and themes as Shepherd's seminal work

Twelve-year-old Georgia believes her toothless rescue dog is psychic. With a spin of a Magic 8 Ball, Chester predicts the future with a high degree of probability. He assures Georgia the "outlook is good" for her parents' troubled marriage. He wows her math class by predicting heads or tails with every coin toss. But when the stakes are life or death, Georgia must learn the difference between magic and probability and find her own powers to increase the likelihood of a happy ending.

Caleb's finest hour is his deepest secret. Not even his parents knew what really happened after three nights in the wilderness. Now another school, another class, and another group of kids who were not his friends.

In this extraordinary narrative, Alan Tennant recounts his all-out effort to radio-track the transcontinental migration of the peregrine falcon, an investigation no one before him had ever taken to such lengths.

Outdoor writer Mike Arnold takes us on an impressionistic journey through Coutada 11, a once again magnificent natural area in Mozambique's Zambeze Delta. Mike leads us from its poached-out days as a source of bush meat for starving villagers and civil war military troops to the arrival in the early '90s of hunting outfitter Mark Haldane and his partners, on their often perilous, sometimes hilarious, travails to take the defiled and uninhabitable place and make it whole again.

A North Country Life is the story of author Sydney Lea’s powerful connection to his family, friends, and the northern outdoors. Loosely organized by the changing of seasons, different sections feature essays on such topics as childhood family fishing trips in the wilds of Maine, trophy fly-fishing the northern reaches of the Connecticut River, the opening day of turkey hunting season in Vermont, and getting lost in the deep woods while deer hunting. The essays are introspective and dramatic.

South Solo is a story of indomitable courage, of passion to save an endangered species like the albatross, and the unique adventure of solo kayaking in the frigid waters off Antarctica.

Join author Tim Hauserman on his solo journeys through the Sierra Nevada and the forests of Minnesota. Hauserman shares his experiences hiking by himself through some of the most spectacular landscapes in the United States. Along the way, he confronts his conflicting desires to be alone in the wilderness, then facing profound loneliness and fear once he is there. In a single instant, he goes from enjoying a shimmering mountain lake to being petrified by the sound of a bear crunching through sticks right next to his tent.

From morpho butterflies in the rain forest to the blue jay flitting past your window, vanishingly few living things are blue. Yet this hard-to-spot accent color in our surroundings looms large in our affections. Science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt has been fascinated by blue since childhood. His quest to find and understand his favorite color and its hallowed place in our culture takes him to a gene-splicing laboratory in Japan, a volcanic lake in Oregon, and to Brandenburg, Germany - home of the last Spix's macaws.

A firsthand account of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail in 2009. Starting in Georgia and continuing on foot nearly 2,200 miles to Maine, this is a collection of stories, adventures, and experiences from the Appalachian Trail. Anyone who has hiked or wishes to hike the AT will benefit from this easy and enjoyable listen.

Helen and Frank Schreider's dream was to drive the length of the Americas; from the town of Circle, Alaska (just outside the Arctic Circle), to the world's southernmost town, Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego. With their German shepherd Dinah along for the ride, they were the first people in history to have made this trip.

Everyone has dreams of what they want to accomplish in life. Marty Essen’s childhood dream of becoming a herpetologist gave way to his dream of becoming a popular DJ, which led to his dream of becoming a big-time talent manager, which morphed into the dream of becoming an in-demand author and college speaker. While he achieved most of his dreams at various levels, he also realized that he didn’t necessarily have to reach the top to find success or happiness. Sometimes, “almost” is close enough.

This audiobook is a personal and professional exploration of how the writing process may be experienced as therapeutic. The author, an educator, counselor, and researcher, demonstrates how we may reconsider life experiences in a spiritual context to promote the development of resilience. There are opportunities to reflect on the factors that influence our behavior, our choices, and our attitudes.

This classic essay from Jon Krakauer is now available as an unabridged audiobook download. This essay is also included in the Classic Krakauer collection. From the best-selling author of Missoula and Into the Wild: a selection of the singular investigative journalism that made Krakauer famous, covering topics from avalanches on Mt. Everest to a volcano in Washington state; from a wilderness therapy program for teens to an extraordinary cave in New Mexico so unearthly that is used by NASA to better understand Mars.