Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Nature & Ecology

Anyone who has ever stood on the shores of Monterey Bay, watching the rolling ocean waves and frolicking otters, knows it is a unique place. But even residents on this idyllic California coast may not realize its full history. Monterey began as a natural paradise, but became the poster child for industrial devastation in John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, and is now one of the most celebrated shorelines in the world. It is a remarkable story of life, death, and revival - told here for the first time in all its stunning color and bleak grays.

Imagine raising an orphaned bear cub, carefully reintroducing her to the wild, then being welcomed back, almost daily, to observe her wild world for more than 17 years. Imagine visiting her in her feeding spots, watching her with her mates and her young, peering into her den, and, over time, observing the lives of all the other wild bears in her territory and surrounding ones. That is what happened to Ben Kilham.

Quando nel 1961 pubblica Le mie montagne, il suo primo libro, Walter Bonatti ha da rac- contare oltre un decennio di imprese impossibili, trionfi e sofferenze: dalla scalata sullo sperone Walker (a 19 anni) all’odissea sul Pilone Centrale, passando per il Grand Capucin, il Dru e la fatidica notte all’addiaccio sul K2. Se questo libro segnerà una svolta nella sua vita, sarà anche per il riaccendersi delle braci che covavano proprio sotto la memoria di quell’episodio.

In its 2001 report on global climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations prominently featured the "Hockey Stick", a chart showing global temperature data over the past 1,000 years. The Hockey Stick demonstrated that temperature had risen with the increase in industrialization and use of fossil fuels. The inescapable conclusion was that worldwide human activity since the industrial age had raised CO2 levels, trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and warming the planet.

Caradonna's unique and concise history broadens our understanding of what "sustainability" means, revealing how it progressed from a relatively marginal concept to an ideal that shapes everything from individual lifestyles, government and corporate strategies, and even national and international policy. For anyone seeking understand the history of those striving to make the world a better place to live, here's a place to start.

What do you do when your world ends? At 28 years old, Krista Schlyer sold almost everything she owned and packed the rest of it in a station wagon bound for the American wild. Her two best friends joined her - one a grumpy, grieving introvert, the other a feisty dog - and together they sought out every national park, historic site, forest, and wilderness they could get to before their money ran out or their minds gave in.

Many people think wild tigers are on the road to recovery, but they are in greater danger than ever - from a menace few experts saw coming. There may be only three thousand wild tigers left in the entire world. More shocking is the fact that twice that many - some six thousand - have been bred on farms, not for traditional medicine but to supply a luxury-goods industry that secretly sells tiger-bone wine, tiger-skin decor, and exotic cuisine enjoyed by China's elite.

Get up close and personal with an amazing creature that has invaded our lexicon as well as our restaurants. It breathes with tubes, it has no head or brain, it feeds through a filter, and it is the source of dozens of familiar proverbs ("happy as a clam!"). Clams, it turns out, have been worshipped (by the Moche people of ancient Peru), used as money (by the Algonquin Indians), and consumed by people for thousands of years.

Beginning in his kayak in his home waters of eastern Long Island, Carl Safina's The View from Lazy Point takes us through the four seasons to the four points of the compass, from the high Arctic south to Antarctica, across the warm belly of the tropics from the Caribbean to the west Pacific, then home again.

A lifetime of reading and writing, observation and contemplation is distilled in this comprehensive volume of the best essays, profiles and sketches by Ruskin Bond, the masterly and compassionate chronicler of the small details and lambent moments that capture the essence of a meaningful life. By turns thoughtful, humorous, keenly observed and wise, these essays span more than 60 years of his writing - from reflections on companionship and solitude to lyrical yet finely honed appreciations of nature to nostalgic evocations of bygone people and ways of life.

Following on from the success of 13 Journeys Through Space and Time, which took us on a voyage of astronomical discovery through past Christmas Lectures given at the Royal Institution on space and space exploration, this audiobook turns our attention to our own planet and the animals, plants, fish and insects and all the other living things that inhabit it - how they've evolved and the vital roles they play in the intricate webs of life on earth.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble announced the greatest discovery in the history of astronomy since Galileo first turned a telescope to the heavens. The galaxies, previously believed to float serenely in the void, are in fact hurtling apart at an incredible speed: the universe is expanding. This stunning discovery was the culmination of a decades-long arc of scientific and technical advancement.

Since moving west over a decade ago, Tom Groneberg has worked with horses as a trail guide, as a ranch hand, and as the manager of his own ranch in Montana, but he has never owned a really good horse. Until, on an autumn night, in a warm barn under a blanket of snow, Blue is born. Soon, he will belong to Tom Groneberg. "If I had a good horse," writes Tom, "I could give it my life. I could ride it for years. We could grow old together." So begins this unique American love story about a man and his horse.

Well-known nature and conservation writer Ted Williams is an avid fisherman who has devoted many years to writing about the sport and advocating the preservation of bodies of water and species of fish. Here, he brings together his love of angling with his profound sense of responsibility for the environment.

Doctor, angler, and raconteur Donald Thomas takes fishermen on a rollicking road trip through Alaska, Costa Rica, Australia, the Galapagos, and more. Fishing in oceans along the way, he enjoys the kind of adventures most people can only dream of. Each chapter includes a sidebar that gives Thomas an opportunity to riff entertainingly on a particular game fish, as well as an “At a Glance” section with both the current IGFA All-Tackle and Fly-Rod world records for that species.

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.

Writing with the same mastery that has won him praise for his fiction, Richards takes us - even those unfamiliar with days spent in chilly waters - on an unforgettable journey to the famed Miramichi River. Casting new light on the mysterious and elegant world of fly fishing, it teems with lore and wisdom, humor, and most of all, passion.

Each day, headlines warn that baby bottles are leaching dangerous chemicals, nonstick pans are causing infertility, and plastic containers are making us fat. What if green chemistry could change all that? What if rather than toxics, our economy ran on harmless, environmentally-friendly materials? Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed journalist who brought national attention to the contaminants hidden in computers and other high tech electronics, now tackles the hazards of ordinary consumer products.

Gilles Fonteneau, a longtime colleague of the legendary Jacques Cousteau's Calypso team, fulfilled a lifelong dream when in 2001 he launched his own exploration, aboard the 45-foot catamaran Prince de Vendee, into the silent world of the sea. Little did he know when he set out that his efforts to better understand the dynamics of the tectonic plates of the region would have such worldwide significance, as shown by the tsunami disaster of southeast Asia in December 2004.

A 25-year-old backcountry wanderer, a man happiest exploring wild places with his dog, Dan Bigley woke up one midsummer morning to a day full of promise. Before it was over, after a stellar day of salmon fishing along Alaska’s Kenai and Russian rivers, a grizzly came tearing around a corner in the trail. Dan barely had time for “bear charging” to register before it had him on the ground, altering his life forever.