An island is about to be born-- one that in time will become the home of plants and animals that exist nowhere else on Earth. This book is the biography of a Galápagos island-- from birth, through adolescence, to adulthood, and beyond.

"In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing songbirds from the Empire State Building as they migrate...

Evolutionary theory in the theme that binds together these essays on such seemingly disparate topics as the feeding habits of flamingos, flowers and snails that change from male to female and sometimes back again, and the extinction from baseball of the .400 hitter.

"An exploration of the Grand Canyon on a grand scale, as only Jason Chin can illustrate and explain"-- Provided by publisher.

"Part of John Muir's appeal to modern readers is that he not only explored the American West and wrote about its beauties but also fought for their preservation. His successes dot the landscape and are evident in all the natural features that bear his name: forests, lakes, trails, and glaciers. Here collected are some of Muir's finest wilderness essays, ranging in subject matter from Alaska to Yellowstone, from Oregon to the High Sierra.This book...

Covering everything from Acadians to Yellow Fever, Bernard Romans exhaustively addressed daily life in Florida and minutely described its natural features-but he also did much more. He was copious in conveying the manners and customs of the native Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek Indians, including, despite their bad traits, one common outstanding virtue: hospitality. Romans also notes the habits and character of the colonists and comments on the prevalence...

"First published in 1949, Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac remains an enduring and beloved work of literature. It is also a foundational text in wildlife ecology, envisioning and embracing an ethic that treats land not as a commodity but as a community of soil, water, plants, and animals. Leopold's book has inspired, delighted, and sustained countless readers around the world. With an introduction by Barbara Kingsolver, this new edition seeks...

Simple text and photographs provide an introduction to minerals.

"Lively writing about science and nature depends less on the offering of good answers, I think, than on the offering of good questions," said David Quammen in the original introduction to Natural Acts. For more than two decades, he has stuck to that credo. In this updated version of Natural Acts, curiosity leads him from New Mexico to Romania, from the Congo to the Amazon, asking questions about mosquitoes (what are their redeeming merits?), dinosaurs...