Showing titles in Environmentalists & Naturalists

Roger Deakin, author of the immortal Waterlog and Wildwood, was a man of unusually many parts. A born writer who nonetheless took decades to write his first book, Roger was also variously—and sometimes simultaneously—maverick ad-man, seller of stripped pine furniture on the Portobello Road, cider-maker, teacher, environmentalist, music promoter, and filmmaker. But above all he was the restorer of ancient Walnut Tree Farm in Suffolk.

In Origin Story, medical historian Howard Markel recounts the two-year period (1858 to 1860) of Darwin's writing of On the Origin of Species through its spectacular success and controversy. Simultaneously, Markel delves into the mysterious health symptoms Darwin developed, combing the literature to emerge with a cogent diagnosis of a case that has long fascinated medical historians.

From Mexico to the Arctic ice, grey whale mothers swim with their calves. Following them, by bus, train and ferry, are Doreen and her toddler Max, in pursuit of a wild hope. Doreen first visited Alaska as a young journalist reporting on climate change among indigenous whaling communities. There, drawn deeply into an Iñupiaq family, she joined the bowhead whale hunt, watching for polar bears under the never-ending light. Years later, now a single mother living in a hostel, Doreen embarks on this extraordinary journey.

Between 1970 and 1980, broadcaster Derek Jones invited a host of famous names to chat about their enthusiasm for nature and their encounters with animals. Delving into the BBC Sound Archive to select some of their favourite natural history recordings, they reveal their hitherto unknown passions – from birds and butterflies to the countryside and conservation.

In 1987, Robert Harris happened upon an unusual job advert in The Kerryman - a new warden service was being set up on Skellig Michael, and the deadline was imminent. Just weeks later, he was on his way to set up camp in one of Ireland’s most remote locations, unaware that he would be making that same journey every May for the next 30 years. Here he transports us to the otherworldly island, a place that is teeming with natural life, including curious puffins that like to visit his hut.

L'histoire fascinante d'un "Mowgli" d'aujourd'hui. Amoureux de la nature, Geoffroy Delorme n'a pas vingt ans quand il aperçoit, dans la forêt de Louviers en Normandie, un chevreuil curieux et joueur. Le jeune homme et l'animal s'apprivoisent. Geoffroy lui donne un nom, Daguet, et le chevreuil lui ouvre les portes de la forêt et du monde fascinant de ses semblables. Geoffroy s'installe parmi eux et son expérience immersive va durer sept ans.

Born in Boston, Stephen Bodio wandered into Magdalena, New Mexico, in the 1970s while on his way to Montana and never left. He was accompanied by Betsy Huntington, who was twenty years his senior; the couple had been inseparable from the day they met. After stumbling upon a vintage home along the highway, they settled into a country life; it was the perfect way for the two of them to make their lives together in an out-of-the-way place.

A poet at heart, Amy Minato rejects her life of consumption in Chicago to go back to nature - specifically, to a commune in Oregon, where she rediscovers herself. She also cops occasionally to the pretentiousness of her mission, and laughs along with the listener at her attempts to be both environmentally friendly and sane, considering the fact that she’s moved in with a bunch of strangers in a remote locale.

In Erin Brockovich’s long-awaited book — her first to reckon with conditions on our planet — she makes clear why we are in the trouble we’re in, and how, in large and practical ways, we each can take actions to bring about change. She shows us what's at stake, and writes of the fraudulent science that disguises these issues, along with cancer clusters not being reported. She writes of the saga of PG&E that continues to this day, and of the communities and people she has worked with who have helped to make an impact.

Author Eiren Caffall is the inheritor of a family legacy of two hundred years of genetic kidney disease and the mother of a child who may inherit that legacy. A literary memoir on loss, chronic illness, and generational healing, Caffall’s The Mourner’s Bestiary is also a meditation on grief and survival told through the stories of animals in two collapsing marine ecosystems—the Gulf of Maine and the Long Island Sound—and the lives of a family facing a life-threatening illness on their shores.

Immerse yourself in the serene and reflective world of Walden by Henry David Thoreau, narrated by Gary Middleton. This timeless literary classic chronicles Thoreau’s two years living in a simple cabin near Walden Pond, exploring themes of self-reliance, nature, and the pursuit of a meaningful life. Through his philosophical insights and poetic descriptions of the natural world, Thoreau invites readers to reflect on the essentials of existence and the beauty of simplicity.

Steve Jenkins and Derek Walter had their lives turned upside down when they adopted their pig-daughter Esther - the so-called micro pig who turned out to be a full-sized commercial pig growing to a whopping 600 pounds - as they describe in their best-selling memoir Esther the Wonder Pig. Told with joy and humor and filled with delicious Esther-approved recipes dispersed throughout the book, this charming memoir captures an emotional journey of one little family advocating for animals everywhere.

Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina - a place "easy to pass by on the way somewhere else" - has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, listeners meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be "the rare bird, the oddity".

Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the 18th century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds - it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe’s industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion.

Few people have had the privilege of living on an isolated nature reserve of international importance, their every move judged by countless critics. Young ranger Ajay Tegala, embarking on his placement at Blakeney Point aged just nineteen, would have to stand firm in the face of many challenges to protect the wildlife of one of Britain's prime nature sites. In over 120 years, only a select few rangers have devoted their heart and soul to the wildlife of Norfolk's Blakeney Point.

Sie wurden ausgesetzt oder von Lkw überfahren – und heißen nun »Pizza Man«, »Fire Chief« oder »Snowball«. Zu Hunderten haben sie Zuflucht gefunden in einem Haus in Massachusetts. In diesem Refugium für Schildkröten tritt Sy Montgomery einen Freiwilligendienst an – und lässt uns an einer lebensverändernden Erfahrung teilhaben: Wenn wir unsere Existenz mit den Augen dieser uralten, gemächlichen und langlebigen Wesen betrachten, bekommen wir eine Ahnung von dem, was uns überdauern wird.

For nearly 50 years Walter Eschenburg lived and worked as a pioneering wildlife vet in the South African bushveld with its many animals and a host of weird and wonderful people. After a childhood spent in a German castle during the Second World War, a harrowing escape from the Russian army, and a sequence of bold moves and fortunate circumstances, it is here that Walter comes into his own and develops into a seasoned vet. He encounters charging rhinos, tame buffalo, irate cows, and angry giraffes; he deals with snakes and warthogs, amorous elephants, cats, dogs, and donkeys.

On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the Earth, the ranch most of all.

In this groundbreaking epic biography, Douglas Brinkley draws on never-before-published materials to examine the life and achievements of our "naturalist president." By setting aside more than 230 million acres of wild America for posterity between 1901 and 1909, Theodore Roosevelt made conservation a universal endeavor. This crusade for the American wilderness was perhaps the greatest U.S. presidential initiative between the Civil War and World War I.

This is the second volume in a best-selling series of true stories from "[a]n extraordinary landscape populated with befuddled bears, hormonally-crazed elk, homicidal wild boars, hopelessly timid wolves, and nine million tourists, some of whom are clueless." In Kim DeLozier's world, when sedated wild black bears wake up unexpectedly in the back seat of a helicopter in mid-flight, or in his car as he's driving down the highway, or in his office while he's talking on the phone, it's just another day in the park.