Nature Biography

In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, Krakauer explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has himself battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, Eiger.

The Last Great Mountain tells the story of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga the third highest but reputedly the hardest mountain in the world. It was an astonishing achievement for a British team led by Everest veteran Charles Evans. Drawing on interviews, diaries and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey begins his story in 1905 with the disastrous first attempt on the mountain by a team led by Aleister Crowley, explores the three dramatic German expeditions of the the late 1920s and brings it all to a climax 50 years later with the first ascent by Joe Brown and George Band.

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.

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.

The Wild Rose ends with the dramatic Barn Fire Incident in which the author and his steady new young Barb stallion, Punk, pull a flame stunned mare out of a burning barn, just seconds before the whole burning structure collapses, then together they both drive straight out of that book and into a new life in the next book. This third book in the trilogy brings the story far away from all those troubled times, ins and outs, and hardships and betrayals involved in the author’s effort to gather up those old style Indian Ponies of his youth.

How can you truly belong to a place? What does being at home mean in a society that has always celebrated the search for greener pastures? And can a newcomer ever acquire the deep understanding of the land that comes from being part of a culture that has lived there for centuries? When Daniel Coleman came to Hamilton to take a position at McMaster University, he began to ask himself these kinds of questions, and Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place is his answer.

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.

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.

In The Last of His Kind, renowned adventure writer David Roberts gives readers a spellbinding history of mountain climbing in the twentieth century as told through the biography of Brad Washburn, legendary mountaineering pioneer and photographer. Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, has praised David Roberts, saying, “Nobody alive writes better about mountaineering” - and nowhere is that truth more evident than in this breathtaking account of the life and exploits of America’s greatest mountain climber.

A riveting blend of science writing and true-crime narrative, The Nature of Life and Death details Wiltshire's unique journey from college professor to crime fighter: solving murders, locating corpses, and exonerating the falsely accused. Along the way, she introduces us to the unseen world all around us and underneath our feet: plants, animals, pollen, spores, fungi, and microbes that we move through every day. Her story is a testament to the power of persistence and reveals how our relationship with the vast natural world reaches far deeper than we might think.

In 1945, Gwen Moffat deserted from her post as dispatch rider in the Army and went to live rough in Wales and Cornwall, climbing and living on practically nothing. She hitch-hiked her way around, travelling from Skye to Chamonix and many places in between, with all her possessions on her back. When the money ran out, she worked as a forester, went winkle-picking on the Isle of Skye and did a stint as an artist's model. And always there were the mountains, drawing her away from a "proper" job.

In The Plant Hunter, Dr. Quave weaves together science, botany, and memoir to tell us the extraordinary story of her own journey. Traveling by canoe, ATV, mule, airboat, and on foot, she has conducted field research in the flooded forests of the remote Amazon, the murky swamps of southern Florida, the rolling hills of central Italy, isolated mountaintops in Albania and Kosovo, and volcanic isles arising out of the Mediterranean - all in search of natural compounds, long-known to traditional healers, that could help save us all from the looming crisis of untreatable superbugs.

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.

On the afternoon of July 13, 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse.

Back again with even more "mostly true" tales from the trail, Lawton Grinter's new book I Hike Again is sure to find a place in every adventurer's library! I Hike Again imparts hard-earned wisdom from trails both in the United States (Arizona Trail, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, Wind River High Route) and abroad (Spain's GR11 and New Zealand's Te Araroa).

In the tradition of Educated and The Glass Castle, this shattering and poetic memoir from a brave new voice tells the story of the author’s experience in an apocalyptic cult, and how understanding the natural world was her key to escape—and survival.

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.

These essays recount his adventures alone and with friends, taking listeners through the seasons. In Paulsen’s north country, every expedition is a major one, and often hilarious. Once again Gary Paulsen demonstrates why he is one of America’s most beloved writers, for he shows us fishing and hunting as pleasure, as art, as companionship, and as source of life’s deepest lessons.

"I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer," John Muir wrote. "Civilization and fever and all the morbidness that has been hooted at me has not dimmed my glacial eye, and I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness. My own special self is nothing". In Donald Worster's magisterial biography, John Muir's "special self" is fully explored as is his extraordinary ability, then and now, to get others to see the sacred beauty of the natural world.

Son of the renowned Sydney obstetrician, Dr William McBride raised the alarm on the anti-nausea drug thalidomide in the 1960s and was later struck off the medical register for falsifying research results in a bid to challenge the safety of another drug. David chose to study Law, firstly at Sydney University and then at Oxford. There he met some British army officers and decided that soldiering was his calling, going on to train at Sandhurst.