Other books that might interest you

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  Fifty States - Every Question...

  Lori Baird, Marcel Brousseau,...

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  Take a tour of America with this outstanding reference—including photos, maps, and extensive facts about each state’s geography, history—and more. What was the last state to join the Union? What does the state quarter for Alabama look like? What is the state bird of Texas? How did Vermont get its name? All the answers are contained in Fifty States: Every Question Answered!   Whether you’re a student or just a history buff, this book is a great reference manual to each state’s geography, history, factual details, and ecology. Beautiful color photos and maps also provide a view of how the landscape has changed over the years. Young and old alike will enjoy this adventurous, wide-ranging walk through the United States of America.

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  The Seasons of the Robin

  Don Grussing

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  This dramatic tale of nature, survival, and learning to fly “covers a year in the life of a robin, from the bird’s point of view” (Star Tribune).   In a small nest in a large oak tree, the drama begins. A young American Robin breaks open his shell and emerges into a world that will provide the warmth of sunny days and the life-threatening chill of cold, rainy nights; the satisfaction of a full stomach and the danger of sudden predator attacks; and the chance to mature into an adult robin who’ll begin the cycle of life all over again come next spring.   In The Seasons of the Robin, Don Grussing tells the uncommon life story of one of the most common birds, the North American Robin. Written as fiction to capture the high drama that goes on unnoticed right outside our windows, the book follows a young male robin through the first year of life. From his perspective, we experience many common episodes of a bird’s life—struggling to get out of the egg; awkwardly attempting to master flight; learning to avoid predators; migrating for the first time; returning home; establishing a territory; finding a mate; and beginning the cycle again. This creative approach of presenting natural history through a fictional, yet factually based, story allows us to experience the spine-tingling, nerve-wracking, adrenaline-flowing excitement that is so much a part of the life of every wild thing.

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  The Wasp That Brainwashed the...

  Matt Simon

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  The Wasp that Brainwashed the Caterpillar is an absurdist, comical romp through evolution's weirdest solutions to—appropriately enough—the hazards that evolution itself produces. Each original entry talks about a creature and its amazing adaptation, using Matt's signature blend of scientific accuracy and humor that has made his Wired column and accompanying web show so popular.  
  The creatures themselves are absolutely mind-blowing, with zombie ants mind-controlled by a fungus; beautiful salamanders that can regenerate any part of their bodies including their brains; the mantis shrimp, which fires its club-like appendage so fast that the surrounding water becomes as hot as the surface of the sun; the Antechinus, whose runaway testosterone levels cause them to have so much sex during their three-week mating session that they bleed internally, go blind, and drop dead; and many more.

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  Living Well with Parkinson's...

  Winifred Conkling, Michael J....

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  A complete guide to Parkinson’s from two people with the disease who cofounded a national support and advocacy organization. 
   
  In Living Well with Parkinson’s Disease, Gretchen Garie and Michael J. Church, a couple who both have Parkinson’s and live daily with the effects of the disease, thoroughly discuss diagnosis, treatment options, and the emotional consequences of this difficult illness. With a conversational, pragmatic, and personal tone, they offer advice on such topics as:How Parkinson’s disease affects relationshipsThe role of diet, supplements, and rest and relaxationStrategies for navigating professional life and the maze of the health-care systemHandling everyday challenges such as buttoning a shirt or rolling over in bedAnd more! 
   
  Compassionate and inspiring, Living Well with Parkinson’s Disease offers knowledge and wisdom from those who understand the challenges of dealing with Parkinson’s every day. 
   
  “[Gretchen and Michael’s] firsthand knowledge as patients, coupled with their years of experience as experts and advocates, allow them to offer a unique perspective. Using the information provided by Gretchen and Michael in this book, you, too, can live well with Parkinson’s disease.” —John D. Campbell, MD, neurologist and medical director for PASFL, the Parkinson’s Association of Southwest Florida

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  Humanimal - A Brief History of...

  Adam Rutherford

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  The bestselling author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived investigates what it means to be human—and animalEvolutionary theory has long established that humans are animals: Modern Homo sapiens are primates who share an ancestor with monkeys and other great apes. Our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee's. And yet we think of ourselves as exceptional. Are we?In this original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the "human animal." Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: In Australia, raptors have been observed starting fires to scatter prey; in Zambia, a chimp named Julie even started a "fashion" of wearing grass in one ear. We aren't the only species that communicates, makes tools, or has sex for reasons other than procreation. But we have developed a culture far more complex than any other we've observed. Why has that happened, and what does it say about us?The Book of Humans is a new evolutionary history—a synthesis of the latest research on genetics, sex, migration, and much more. It reveals what unequivocally makes us animals—and also why we are truly extraordinary.

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  Erosion - Essays of Undoing

  Terry Tempest Williams

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  This program is read by the author.Fierce, timely, and unsettling essays from an important and beloved writer and conservationist 
  Terry Tempest Williams is one of our most impassioned defenders of public lands. A naturalist, fervent activist, and stirring writer, she has spoken to us and for us in books like The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks and Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. In these new essays, Williams explores the concept of erosion: of the land, of the self, of belief, of fear. She wrangles with the paradox of desert lands and the truth of erosion: What is weathered, worn, and whittled away through wind, water, and time is as powerful as what remains. Our undoing is also our becoming. 
  She looks at the current state of American politics: the dire social and environmental implications of recent choices to gut Bears Ears National Monument, sacred lands to Native People of the American Southwest, and undermine the Endangered Species Act. She testifies that climate change is not an abstraction, citing the drought  outside her door and at times, within herself. Images of extraction and contamination haunt her: "oil rigs lighting up the horizon; trucks hauling nuclear waste on dirt roads now crisscrossing the desert like an exposed nervous system." But beautiful moments of relief and refuge, solace and spirituality come—in her conversations with Navajo elders, art, and, always, in the land itself. She asks, urgently: "Is Earth not enough? Can the desert be a prayer?"

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