Natural History
An inspiring, up-close portrait of tending to a honeybee hive--a year of living dangerously--watching and capturing the wondrous, complex universe of honeybees and learning an altogether different way of being in the world.
As strange, beautiful, and unexpected, as precise and exquisite in its movings as bees in a hive. I loved it.--Helen Macdonald, author of H Is for Hawk
A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings begins as the author is entering her thirties and feeling disconnected in her life. Uneasy about her future and struggling to settle into her new house in Oxford with its own small garden, she is brought back to a time of accompanying a friend in London--a beekeeper--on his hive visits. And as a gesture of good fortune for her new life, she is given a colony of honeybees. According to folklore, a colony, freely given, brings good luck, and Helen Jules embarks on a rewarding, perilous journey of becoming a beekeeper. Jukes writes about what it means to "keep" wild creatures; on how to live alongside beings whose laws and logic are so different from our own . . . She delves into the history of beekeeping and writes about discovering the ancient, haunting, sometimes disturbing relationship between keeper and bee, human and wild thing.A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings is a book of observation, of the irrepressible wildness of these fascinating creatures, of the ways they seem to evade our categories each time we attempt to define them. Are they wild or domestic? Individual or collective? Is honey an animal product or is it plant-based? As the author's colony grows, the questions that have, at first compelled her interest to fade away, and the inbetweenness, the unsettledness of honeybees call for a different kind of questioning, of consideration. A subtle yet urgent mediation on uncertainty and hope, on solitude and friendship, on feelings of restlessness and on home; on how we might better know ourselves. A book that shows us how to be alert to the large and small creatures that flit between and among us and that urge us to learn from this vital force so necessary to be continuation of life on planet Earth.
1st edition, published by the Bird Research Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, 1943. Illustrated w/paintings by Major Allan Brooks & Edward R. Kalmbach, photos by Frank Dufresne, Olaus J. Murie, & author, pen sketches by C.G. Mitchell, J.R. Moodey, & L.B. Towle. Scientific and anecdotal results of the Hooper Bay Expedition to study "the richest breeding ground of noncolonial Arctic birds that has ever been discovered...This expedition appears to be the largest party of bird students to penetrate the Arctic. There were five ornithologists, who were assisted by 50 families of bird-minded Eskimos. Data were secured on more than 1500 noncolony nests, and the home habits of 60 different boreal birds..." (flap). 40 plates.
Dust jacket in protective mylar cover; price clipped; very little shelf wear to top edges & corners; brown boards stamped w/gilt decoration & lettering on cover & spine; front endpapers illustrated w/photo; rear endpapers w/map of expedition; binding tight; text clean & bright. VG+/VG+
The second volume in the multimillion copy bestselling series
Millions of readers have delighted in the wonderful storytelling and everyday miracles of James Herriot in the over thirty years since his delightful animal stories were first introduced to the world. Now in a new edition for the first time in a decade, All Things Bright and Beautiful is the beloved sequel to Herriot's first collection, All Creatures Great and Small, and picks up as Herriot, now newly married, journeys among the remote hillside farms and valley towns of the Yorkshire Dales, caring for their inhabitants---both two- and four-legged. Throughout, Herriot's deep compassion, humor, and love of life shine out as we laugh, cry, and delight in his portraits of his many, varied animal patients and their equally varied owners.
On a clear morning in July 1804, Alexander Hamilton stepped onto a boat at the edge of the Hudson River. He was bound for a New Jersey dueling ground to settle his bitter dispute with Aaron Burr. Hamilton took just two men with him: his "second" for the duel, and Dr. David Hosack.
As historian Victoria Johnson reveals in her groundbreaking biography, Hosack was one of the few points the duelists did agree on. Summoned that morning because of his role as the beloved Hamilton family doctor, he was also a close friend of Burr. A brilliant surgeon and a world-class botanist, Hosack--who until now has been lost in the fog of history--was a pioneering thinker who shaped a young nation.
Born in New York City, he was educated in Europe and returned to America inspired by his newfound knowledge. He assembled a plant collection so spectacular and diverse that it amazes botanists today, conducted some of the first pharmaceutical research in the United States, and introduced new surgeries to America. His tireless work championing public health and science earned him national fame and praise from the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander von Humboldt, and the Marquis de Lafayette.
One goal drove Hosack above all others: to build the Republic's first botanical garden. Despite innumerable obstacles and near-constant resistance, Hosack triumphed when, by 1810, his Elgin Botanic Garden at last crowned twenty acres of Manhattan farmland. "Where others saw real estate and power, Hosack saw the landscape as a pharmacopoeia able to bring medicine into the modern age" (Eric W. Sanderson, author of Mannahatta). Today what remains of America's first botanical garden lies in the heart of midtown, buried beneath Rockefeller Center.
Whether collecting specimens along the banks of the Hudson River, lecturing before a class of rapt medical students, or breaking the fever of a young Philip Hamilton, David Hosack was an American visionary who has been too long forgotten. Alongside other towering figures of the post-Revolutionary generation, he took the reins of a nation. In unearthing the dramatic story of his life, Johnson offers a lush depiction of the man who gave a new voice to the powers and perils of nature.
From the time they lived on the island of Corfu, Gerald Durrell's family hoped he'd outgrow his love of animals. Instead he became a zoologist and worldwide conservation hero.
In 1945, young zoologist, Gerald Durrell, finally came to work at his first actual zoo; Whipsnade Zoo--then a new concept in open-range animal exhibits--where Durrell joined in as a student keeper with Albert the lion, Babs the polar bear, and a baby deer among his first charges. In this entertaining history, he recaptures all the passion that permeated those early years, while conveying his insight into and affection for four-footed creatures. The book is full of larger-than-life animal characters: the bear who sang operatic arias with one paw clasped to his breast, his bosom friend Billy the goat, playful zebras, and a host of equally endearing and memorable critters. This is Durrell at his best. Fans of the PBS Masterpiece series, The Durrells in Corfu, know Gerald Durrell as a young boy with endless curiosity about animals. This is where that interest led. Durrell's great life work, the Wildlife Preservation Trust International, was still ahead in his future. Beasts in My Belfry is a wonderfully entertaining memoir for anyone who loves animals and a life lived with great purpose.
Anglers and flytiers have been after Harry Darbee for years to write a book—a book, one of them requested, "full of memories and hopes, stories and trout talk, with some-thing of that hallowed mist that hovers around the Willowemoc and the Beaverkill." Finally, here it is! Not only does Darbee evoke the full cast of characters who earned for his native rivers their reputation as the cradle of American fly fishing, he also reveals the tricks and techniques that have made him and his wife, Elsie, two of the world's greatest flytiers. In Catskill Flytier, we meet Herman Christian, Edward R. Hewitt, and Roy Steenrod, who passed on the teachings of the legendary Theodore Gordon; the other pros who made their livelihood as flytiers in the Catskill style; the millionaire fishing-club members who became Darbee customers; the poachers who came by night—and some in broad daylight—to take the big trout out of the club waters; the conservationists who fought and are fighting to save the fish.
Signed first edition in DJ protector; dj has some chips along top and bottom edges; light soiling; brown cloth over tan boards; front endpapers lightly foxed; text clean; binding tight. VG/G
There is no harbinger of spring like a field or garden filled with bright yellow daffodils. But the world of the daffodil is much more than just its place in the march of the seasons. It's a plant whose history starts with the tombs of the Pharaohs, through pre-Darwin evolutionary theory and Cornwall's burgeoning bulb business, and leads to the current explosion of varieties from plant breeders seeking new colors, fragrances, and forms.
Daffodil reveals a global plant infatuation that has led to more than 25,000 cultivars available in nearly every shade of yellow (and now pink, orange, and white). Noel Kingsbury tells the tale through an engaging narrative history and plant portraits that highlight more than 200 varieties. Jo Whitworth's revealing photography shows a side of the daffodil rarely seen. Plant lovers will relish the stories and gardeners will cherish the cultivation notes, plant descriptions, and recommendations.
"There's been no real way for ordinary people to get an understanding of what they can do and what impact it can have. There remains no single, comprehensive, reliable compendium of carbon-reduction solutions across sectors. At least until now. . . . The public is hungry for this kind of practical wisdom." --David Roberts, Vox
"This is the ideal environmental sciences textbook--only it is too interesting and inspiring to be called a textbook." --Peter Kareiva, Director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here--some are well known; some you may have never heard of. They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth's warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline. These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being--giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world.
