Nature Biography

The Navy SEAL teams' elite K9 warriors do it all - from detecting explosives to eliminating the bad guys. These powerful dogs are also some of the smartest and most highly skilled working animals on the planet. Mike Ritland's job is to train them. This is the tale of how Ritland discovered his passion and grew up to train these elite dogs. After becoming a SEAL, he was on combat deployment in Iraq when he saw a military working dog in action, and he instantly knew he'd found his true calling.

Since its inception, however, America’s public land system has been embroiled in controversy - caught in the push and pull between the desire to develop the valuable resources the land holds or conserve them. Alarmed by rising tensions over the use of these lands, hunter, angler, and outdoor enthusiast Mark Kenyon set out to explore the spaces involved in this heated debate, and learn firsthand how they came to be and what their future might hold.

Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below. This is the climb Silvia Vasquez-Lavado braves in her pulse-raising memoir. A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. Deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she’d suffered as a child, she started climbing. She then took her biggest pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest.

Stephen Alter was raised by American missionary parents in the hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he and his wife Ameeta, now live. Their idyllic existence was brutally interrupted when four armed intruders invaded their house and viciously attacked them, leaving them for dead. The violent assault and the trauma of almost dying left him questioning assumptions he had lived by since childhood. For the first time, he encountered the face of evil and the terror of the unknown.

In the tradition of Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Orchid Thief, Stronghold is Tucker Malarkey’s eye-opening account of one of the world’s greatest fly fishermen and his crusade to protect the world’s last bastion of wild salmon. From a young age, Guido Rahr was a misfit among his family and classmates, preferring to spend his time in the natural world. When the salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest began to decline, Guido was one of the few who understood why.

Wishing to leave behind the quiet isolation of her Orkney island life, Amy Liptrot books a one-way flight to Berlin. Searching for new experiences, inspiration and love, she rents a loftbed in a shared flat and looks for work. She explores the streets, nightclubs and parks and seeks out the city’s wildlife—goshawks, raccoons and hooded crows. She looks for love through the screen of her laptop. Over the course of a year, Amy makes space, hoping for the unexpected. And it comes with an erotic jolt, in the form of a love affair that obsesses her.

"It’s a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up it, it’ll be the hardest thing that’s been done in the Himalayas." Thus spoke Chris Bonington when Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker presented him with their plan to tackle the unscaled West Wall of Changabang - the Shining Mountain - in 1976. Bonington’s was one of the more positive responses; most felt the climb impossibly hard, especially for a two-man, lightweight expedition.

In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred.

On the evening of July 27, 1985, five hikers made a fateful choice to climb Yosemite's fabled Half Dome, even as the sky darkened and thunder rolled. By night's end, two would be dead from a lightning strike, three gravely wounded, and desperate EMTs would be overseeing a harrowing midnight helicopter rescue.

With his characteristic color and flair, Capstick recalls the extraordinary careers of men like Colonel J.H. Patterson and Colonel Jim Corbett, who stalked legendary man-eaters through the silent darkness on opposite sides of the world; men like Karamojo Bell, acknowledged as the greatest elephant hunter of all time; men like the valiant Sasha Siemel, who tracked killer jaguars though the Matto Grosso armed only with a spear.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, something unique happened in the quiet little town on the west coast of Florida known as Homosassa. The best fly anglers in the world all gathered together to chase the same holy grail - the world record for the most glamorous and coveted fly-rod species, the tarpon. In Lords of the Fly, Monte Burke, an obsessed tarpon fly angler himself, delves into this seminal moment and the growing popularity of the amazing tarpon, a 50-million-year-old species that can live to 80 years old and can grow to 300 pounds.

Hangdog Days vividly chronicles the era when rock climbing exploded in popularity, attracting a new generation of talented climbers eager to reach new heights via harder routes and faster ascents. This contentious, often entertaining period gave rise to sport climbing, climbing gyms, and competitive climbing-indelibly transforming the sport. Jeff Smoot was one of those brash young climbers, and here he traces the development of traditional climbing "rules," enforced first through peer pressure, then later through intimidation and sabotage.

A pioneering neuroscientist shares his story of growing up in one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods and how it led him to his groundbreaking work in drug addiction. As a youth, Carl Hart didn't realize the value of school; he studied just enough to stay on the basketball team. At the same time, he was immersed in street life. Today he is a cutting-edge neuroscientist - Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences.

Crimson Arrows: A Bowhunting Odyssey is narrated from the heart and soul of a bowhunter. Spanning three decades of his adventures, Eyad Yehyawi takes you through the emotions, heartbreaks, and successes from his earliest years in Iowa, to physically and psychologically challenging backcountry hunts in Alaska and Canada, to a breathtaking African safari. Every setback and missed opportunity is revealed, along with the rewards earned through hard work and perseverance.

Sue Tidwell lived in awe of Africa’s extraordinary wildlife. After years spent appreciating the animals in her imagination, the tenderhearted American hated the idea of joining her husband on a big game hunting safari. And getting attacked by blood-sucking tsetse flies the moment she stepped off the plane gave no hint of the mind-blowing change of perspective in her future. With her initial animosity turning into curiosity as they breathlessly tracked dangerous beasts, Sue formed a surprising bond with their young female government-assigned game scout.

Suzie Fletcher is the warm and friendly face on TV's The Repair Shop that viewers look forward to watching every week as the resident leather expert - a craft she has honed over four decades and was born out of her love of horses. But while she tends to be the one repairing and offering a gentle kindness to others, Suzie has also been in a process of change, reflection, and healing.In her first book Suzie looks back over her life - which moves from England to Colorado and back again - and the places, people and experiences that have shaped the person she is today.

What compels mountain climbers to take the risks that they do? Is it the thrill in the physical accomplishment, in managing to defy the odds, or both - and why do they continue to do what they do in the face of such great danger? In On the Ridge Between Life and Death, David Roberts confronts these questions head-on as he recounts the exhilarating highs and desperate lows of his climbing career.

Wilderness guide and lifelong Alaskan Bjorn Dihle weaves personal experience with historical and contemporary accounts to explore the world of brown bears - from encounters with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to frightening attacks including the famed death of Timothy Treadwell, the controversies related to bear hunting, the animal's place in native cultures, and the impacts on the species from habitat degradation and climate change.

Fascinated from an early age by the natural world in general and ants in particular, Edward Osborne Wilson's field work on them and on all social insects has vastly expanded our knowledge of their many species and fascinating ways of being. This work led to his 1975 book Sociobiology, which created an intellectual firestorm from his contention that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is governed by the laws of evolution and genetics. Subsequently, Wilson has become a leading voice on the crucial importance to all life of biodiversity.

In this “striking, brave[,] and often lyrical” (The Guardian) blend of nature writing, whale science, and memoir, Doreen Cunningham interweaves two stories: tracking the extraordinary northward migration of the grey whales with a mischievous toddler in tow and living with an Iñupiaq family in Alaska seven years earlier. A story of courage and resilience, Soundings is about the migrating whales and all we can learn from them as they mother, adapt, and endure, their lives interrupted and threatened by global warming.