Other books that might interest you

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  The Fresh and the Salt - The...

  Ann Lingard

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  “Beautiful, intensely visual prose, born from deep intimacy with subtle borderlands: land and sea, England and Scotland, people and environments.” —David Gange, author of The Frayed Atlantic Edge 
   
  Firths and estuaries are liminal places, where land meets sea and tides meet freshwater. Their unique ecosystems support a huge range of marine and other wildlife: human activity too is profoundly influenced by their waters and shores. 
   
  The Solway Firth—the crooked finger of water that both unites and divides Scotland and England—is a beautiful yet unpredictable place and one of the least-industrialized natural large estuaries in Europe. Its history, geology and turbulent character have long affected the way its inhabitants, both human and non-human, have learnt to live along and within its ever-changing margins. 
   
  “Lingard’s scientific knowledge of the area and its multitudinous inhabitants [is] delivered in riveting prose. This is deep and beautiful natural history writing.” —BBC Countryfile Magazine 
   
   
   
  “Like a hungry gull, Ann Lingard explores her beloved Solway shoreline for every living detail that catches her eye. In so doing she has created a portrait of this nation-cleaving water that is as broad and deep as the estuary itself.” —Mark Cocker, author of Birds & People 
   
  “A kaleidoscopic portrait of the borders of the land.” —Cumbria Life 
   
  “Lingard writes vividly about this estuary . . . an excellent point of reference for locals, visitors and for those simply intrigued by this lesser-known corner of Scotland.” —Scottish Field

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  Making Sense of Cancer - From...

  Jarle Breivik

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  Embark on a captivating journey that will fundamentally change how you see cancer—and perhaps life itself. Cancer is more than a disease. It is an integral part of who we are—complex biological and cultural beings with a limited life span. You will be surprised, challenged, and even amused by this eloquent synthesis of knowledge. Firmly rooted in science and the principles of evolution, this book is a must-read if you aim to understand cancer. 
  Jarle Breivik (MD, PhD, EdD) is a professor of medicine at the University of Oslo and a former Fulbright Scholar with a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania. He is internationally recognized for his research on the evolutionary dynamics of cancer. His thought-provoking analyses represented in The New York Times, Scientific American, PNAS, EMBO Reports, and Wired Magazine, and have stimulated a profound debate about cancer, research, and biotechnology. In this book, Dr. Breivik brings it all together in a captivating story about humanity. 
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  “This remarkable book is not simply about cancer. It is a beautiful story about what it means to be human. It took me places I had never thought of and ended on a cliff hanger about the future of our civilization. I eagerly await the follow-up.” 
  —RICHARD SMITH, former Editor-in-Chief, The BMJ (British Medical Journal) 
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  “This book grabbed me like a thriller! As a cancer patient, I have asked many questions. My father also had bladder cancer, and my brother died of leukemia. This book helped me understand and accept.” 
  —ELIN SCHIVE, cancer survivor 
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  “With his panoramic view of cancer, Breivik’s brilliant writing and thought-provoking reflections will captivate both laypeople and researchers. A must-read that skillfully connects the life sciences in an illuminating manner.” 
  —MANUEL PERUCHO, professor em., Sanford Burnham Prebys, and Institute of Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer.

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  Becoming Animal - An Earthly...

  David Abram

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  As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we've inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our muscled flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This book subverts that distance, drawing listeners ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth. The shapeshifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in Abram's investigation. He shows that from the awakened perspective of the human animal, awareness (or mind) is not an exclusive possession of our species but a lucid quality of the biosphere itself—a quality in which we, along with the oaks and the spiders, steadily participate. With the audacity of its vision and the luminosity of its prose, Becoming Animal sets a new benchmark for the human appraisal of our place in the whole.

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  Ufos:  Fact Or Fiction?

  M.D. John Mack

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  Mack presents evidence pro and con, and various speculative explanations of many aspects of the UFO abductions. Despite a lack of conclusive proof for or against the reality of abductions, Mack says, "If the mystery's there, we might as well embrace it rather than run from it."

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  The Spade as Mighty as the Sword...

  Daniel Smith

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  The little-known history of the “Garden Front”—Britain’s wildly successful vegetable-growing campaign during WWII: “A fascinating story.” —Northern Echo 
   
  After food rationing was introduced in 1940, and German U-boats began threatening merchant shipping bringing in essential foodstuffs, the Ministry of Agriculture decided something had to be done to make the kitchens of Britain more self-sufficient. 
   
  The result was an amazingly effective campaign—Dig for Victory—encouraging every man and woman to turn their garden, or even the grass verge in their street, over to cultivating vegetables. By 1942 half the population were taking part, and even the Royal Family had sacrificed their rose beds for growing onions. 
   
  Now, Daniel Smith tells the full story of this remarkable wartime episode when spades, forks, and bean canes became weapons the ordinary citizen could take up against the enemy. It had tangible benefits for the war effort in that shipping could be reallocated for munitions instead of food imports, as well as for the health of the nation in encouraging a diet of fresh fruit and veg. The campaign also created unexpected celebrities like C.H. Middleton, whose wartime BBC radio talks on gardening reached a vast audience, and even sowed the seeds for the modern allotment movement. 
   
  Ultimately it is a war story without fighting or killing, one that shows how even The Little Man with the Spade, in the words of the Minister for Agriculture at the time, did his bit for Victory. 
   
  “Engaging.” —The Sunday Times 
   
  “An inspirational account.” —Lancashire Evening Post

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  Death in a Small Package - A...

  Susan D. Jones

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  A look at the historical development of the lethal disease and its relationship with humanity. 
   
  A disease of soil, animals, and people, anthrax has threatened lives for at least two thousand years. Farmers have long recognized its lasting virulence, but in our time, anthrax has been associated with terrorism and warfare. What accounts for this frightening transformation? Death in a Small Package recounts how this ubiquitous agricultural disease came to be one of the deadliest and most feared biological weapons in the world. 
   
  Bacillus anthracis is lethal. Animals killed by the disease are buried deep underground, where anthrax spores remain viable for decades or even centuries and, if accidentally disturbed, can cause new infections. But anthrax can be deliberately aerosolized and used to kill—as it was in the United States in 2001. 
   
  Historian and veterinarian Susan D. Jones recounts the life story of anthrax through the biology of the bacillus; the political, economic, geographic, and scientific factors that affect anthrax prevalence; and the cultural beliefs about the disease that have shaped human responses to it. She explains how Bacillus anthracis became domesticated, discusses what researchers have learned from numerous outbreaks, and analyzes how the bacillus came to be weaponized and what this development means for the modern world. 
   
  Jones compellingly narrates the biography of this frightfully hardy disease from the ancient world through the present day. 
   
  “Death in a Small Package is interesting, well written, and accessible, presenting a worthwhile addition to the history of modern medicine and bacteriological science.” —Karen Brown, Isis

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