Nature

In this groundbreaking and meticulously field-tested guide, the rich variety of Sierra life—trees, wildflowers, ferns, fungi, lichens, fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, and insects—comes alive.

"There are lots of Sierra field guides, some specialized, some general, but this is the best both for beauty and usefulness." —Kim Stanley Robinson

Easy-to-use features include:

• Intuitive organization, color tabs, and simple keys
• Similar-looking species side by side
• Over 2,800 full-color illustrations
• Range maps of species that are otherwise difficult to distinguish
• Index of common and scientific names
• Lightweight and compact—ideal for backpacking

Impressively detailed and comprehensive, the guide includes:

• More than 1,700 species
• Descriptions of behavior, adaptations, and interactions between species
• Species and topics not found in most guides, including aquatic life, spiders and webs, plankton, plant galls, bark beetle galleries, animal tracks and evidence, seasonal star charts, weather patterns, and cloud formations

Inhabiting a landscape, walking a landscape, writing a place and time.

Linda Cracknell is a writer of place and nature who believes in being alert, observing, and writing from the particulars of each experience. Engaging bodily with her writing, she is someone for whom getting mud on her boots, sleeping high up in the hills, or being slapped by salt water can all be part of her process. She follows Susan Sontag's advice to “Love words, agonize over sentences and pay attention to the world.”

In this varied collection of essays, Linda backpacks on a small island that is connected to the mainland at low tide, musing on the nineteenth-century Scottish writer whose character was shipwrecked there. She hikes the wooded mountain trail close to her home in winter snow—a place she is intimately familiar with in all weathers and seasons—and she retraces the steps of a multiday hike made almost seven decades after her parents trod the route together. She explores her inspirations, in nature and from other artists and their work.

Reading this collection will open your eyes to the world around you and how you can observe, take note, and later commit those notes and memories to written pieces that will evoke the place and time.

Social changes through urban gardening and farming

Gardens are often spaces of hope, expected to solve many problems in a city including food insecurity and climate resilience. In fact, there has been a historical trend of urban gardening gaining popularity during times of crisis. Gardens of Hope is the story of urban gardening in New Orleans in the decade after Hurricane Katrina. Yuki Kato highlights the impact urban gardens have on communities after disasters and the efforts of well-intended individuals envisioning alternative futures in the form of urban farming.

Drawing on repeated interviews with residents who began cultivation projects in New Orleans between 2005 and 2015, Kato explains how good intentions and grit were not enough to implement or sustain urban gardeners’ visions for the post-disaster city’s future. Coining the term “prefigurative urbanism,” Kato illustrates how individuals tried to realize alternative ways of living and working in the city through pragmatism and innovation. Gardens of Hope asks key questions about what inspires and enables individuals to pursue prefigurative urbanism and about the potential and limitations of this form of civic engagement to bring about short- and long-term changes in cities undergoing transformation, from gentrification, post-pandemic recovery, to climate change.

United Methodist Women’s Reading Group Selection

“What can I do about the environment? What has God said about the environment?” Most books about climate change only address one of these questions. Those from a religious perspective do not address what individuals can do to help society transition from fossil fuels, other than changing personal behavior. Readers know instinctively that will not suffice, and so are left feeling the situation is hopeless. In contrast, books that primarily address environmental issues fail to reach people motivated more by faith than science, leaving out many who could constitute the tipping point for full American engagement on the issue.

Borrowing an approach from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership, which brought together both secular and religious arguments for ending segregation, this book addresses physical evidence of climate change while demonstrating through biblical teachings the religious imperative for preserving our inherited world. The compelling biblical case for creation care is grounded in environmental teachings Jesus knew, primarily in the Hebrew Scriptures. Topics addressed include air pollution, treatment of the land, preserving biological diversity, and treatment of animals, and each is connected to contemporary issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, care of the needy, the extinction of species, and factory farming.

Western culture is infatuated with the dream of going beyond, even as it is increasingly haunted by the specter of apocalypse: drought, famine, nuclear winter. How did we come to think of the planet and its limits as we do? This book reclaims, redefines, and makes an impassioned plea for limits—a notion central to environmentalism—clearing them from their association with Malthusianism and the ideology and politics that go along with it. Giorgos Kallis rereads reverend-economist Thomas Robert Malthus and his legacy, separating limits and scarcity, two notions that have long been conflated in both environmental and economic thought. Limits are not something out there, a property of nature to be deciphered by scientists, but a choice that confronts us, one that, paradoxically, is part and parcel of the pursuit of freedom. Taking us from ancient Greece to Malthus, from hunter-gatherers to the Romantics, from anarchist feminists to 1970s radical environmentalists, Limits shows us how an institutionalized culture of sharing can make possible the collective self-limitation we so urgently need.

A fascinating history of the carbon footprint of our concrete world—from ancient Roman architecture to urban cityscapes—and the trouble it spells for sustainability amidst rapid climate change

For readers of The Sixth Extinction and The Uninhabitable Earth, Concrete explores the history of a material that has been central to architecture and design for thousands of years—and what its future looks like in a world experiencing rapid climate change.

Imagine what the world would be like without concrete: there’d be no high-rises, no grand irrigation projects, no lettuce from southern climes in the winter, no multi-lane highways crisscrossing continents, a shortage of electricity, more mud in some places, more solitude in others. But because of the fossil fuels and other resources required to make concrete, there also would be less CO2 in the atmosphere and less dramatic climate change. In Concrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future, Soderstrom tells the story of concrete’s glorious past, extravagant present, and uncertain future with careful research, lively anecdotes, and thoughtful reflection. The framework for this exploration is one the Romans—famous for concrete structures that are still strong—would understand: the four elements of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.

Discover the geographic approach to conservation land management and landscape conservation. 

Geographic information system (GIS) technology offers a comprehensive tool for conservation professionals. A modern GIS gives users a real-time look at their data, locations, and their relationships. When applied to conservation, it reveals dependencies and challenges across multiple environments. Through maps and apps, conservation professionals can observe the field, analyze and organize their data, and collaborate with other organizations and the public on addressing threats and opportunities found. Preserving Our Planet: GIS for Conservation explores a collection of real-life stories about conservation organizations successfully using GIS to meet challenges to biodiversity preservation in our rapidly changing world.

The book also includes a section on next steps that provides ideas, strategies, tools, and actions to help you jump-start your own use of GIS for conservation. A collection of online resources, including additional stories, videos, new ideas and concepts, and downloadable tools and content, complements this book.

Edited by David Gadsden, director of conservation solutions at Esri, and Matt Artz, an Esri content strategist. 

Indigenous Peoples of the North American Plains were ecologists of the highest order— then the horse came and changed everything

Beaver, Bison, Horse is an interdisciplinary account of the ecological relationships the Indigenous nations of the Plains had to the beaver, bison, horse, and their habitat prior to contact. Morgan’s research shows an ecological understanding that sustained Indigenous peoples for thousands of years, with critical information on how the beaver manage water systems and protect communities from drought in the Northern Great Plains.

Morgan’s work is a game-changer.

For the first time in print, her important research now appears with a foreword by James Daschuk, bestselling and award-winning author of Clearing the Plains, and an afterword by Cristina Eisenberg, author of The Carnivore Way and The Wolf’s Tooth.

• A larger, more reader-friendly page format
• More than 110 color illustrations and maps
• An overview of major wildfires in California's history
• An updated and expanded discussion of the effect of climate change on fires in natural landscapes
• Tips on what to do before, during, and after fires
• Discussion of utility companies and massive power shutoffs

“Whether you are an experienced birder or just learning natural history, this book will deepen your sense of place and open insights to beauty, wonder, and connection to the natural world.”—John Muir Laws, author of The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada

The essential field guide to the birds of Egypt and the Middle East by a leading naturalist, stunningly illustrated with full-color photography

This compact, incisive photographic identification guide to 280 bird species in Egypt and the Middle East shows the region’s most commonly seen, unique, and endemic species, and is perfect for resident and visitor alike. Each bird species is illustrated with a high-quality full-color photograph, accompanied by a detailed description, which includes nomenclature, size, distribution, habits, and habitat. The user-friendly introduction covers biogeography, migration, bird topography, and a glossary. Also included is an all-important checklist of all of the birds of Egypt encompassing, for each species, its common and scientific name as well as its status in each country and its global International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status.

The Indomitable Spirit of K’wasi the Lion Cub May Forever Change Your Perspective on Life

“To millions of people in Miami and beyond, Ron Magill is the face and voice of all things’ wildlife.” ─Mireya Mayor, PhD and National Geographic Explorer

Editors' Pick
#1 Best Seller in Biology of Cats, Lions & Tigers

Discover the true and incredible survival story of K’wasi, the lion cub who overcame unimaginable odds           

Magnificently documented by wildlife expert Ron Magill. K’wasi’s story is told by world renowned wildlife photographer and Zoo Miami’s “Goodwill Ambassador”, Ron Magill who documented and photographed every stage of K’wasi’s remarkable roller coaster life. Join Ron and his half-a-century career as he helps us all understand the life lessons the animal kingdom has for us.

A survival story of grit and resilience. The story of K’wasi the lion cub is one of heartbreak and triumph. He was born to Asha at Zoo Miami in late 2013 and captured the heart of the nation as an incredibly cute lion cub. K’wasi was orphaned in March 2014 when his mother tragically died. K’wasi’s remarkable journey takes him from the untimely death of his mother to magnificent star of Lion Country Safari.

Animals have feelings too. Society has only recently accepted the incredible emotional intelligence of dogs, pigs, and chimpanzees. But through K’wasi’s remarkable story, Ron Magill details how evolved the animal kingdom truly is—lions in particular. Funny, engaging, touching, and thrilling, The Pride of a Lion teaches us about family, resilience, and the meaning of life.

Inside find:

• Gripping accounts of K'wasi's triumphs against extreme adversity
• Ron Magill's stunning wildlife photography capturing K'wasi's remarkable life
• Profound insights into the emotional intelligence and complex social dynamics of the lion kingdom

A fan of The Lion King, or liked The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life, The Soul of an Octopus, or The Good Good Pig? Then you'll love The Pride of a Lion.

*THE STUNNING COMPANION TO REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK THE COMFORT OF CROWS*

A beautifully illustrated journal to guide your observations of nature wherever you find it—in gardens and yards, city parks and vacant lots, or the sky—enhanced by inspiring prompts and the wisdom of beloved and bestselling author Margaret Renkl.

In The Comfort of Crows, Renkl’s account of a year in her Nashville backyard, readers encountered birds and wildflowers, foxes and stately oaks, and all the surprises and joys to be found if only we pay attention to the world around us. This journal will help you engage—closely and thoughtfully—with nearby nature. Renkl illuminates the turning days, weeks, and seasons, and offers prompts to help you chronicle and care for the rich life surrounding you: What do the bare branches of winter allow you to see? How does summer’s abundance provide for different wild animals—and can you find the abundance in your own life? What changes have you noticed in the natural habitats near you, not just from month to month, but from year to year?

Naturalist John Muir Laws has adapted his painted-from-life flower illustrations from The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada into a lightweight yet durable guidebook to the area's florae.

From sprawling fields of showy hillside poppies, lupines, and paintbrushes in the foothills to orchids, lilies, and primroses in the higher meadows of our national parks, the Sierra Nevada is one of the premier wildflower destinations in California. Sierra Wildflowers includes the most common species that you will encounter, with fully updated common and scientific names. Flowers are organized by color and shape, making identification easy for flower enthusiasts of all experience levels.

"A glittering gem of a book!"—Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus

Following dragonflies into the territory between nature and the human psyche

Two decades ago, naturalist and environmental writer Brooke Williams had a powerful dream about a dragonfly, a dream that cracked open his world by giving rise to a steady stream of dragonfly encounters in his waking life.

In the years since, he has delved deeply into the fascinating biology and natural history of dragonflies and made pilgrimages to see them (he now has 38 species on his life list) while also exploring their symbolic meaning and cross-cultural significance.

Encountering Dragonfly is his account—related in a series of odonate encounters—of being drawn into a different kind of relationship with the natural world.  By opening himself to the personal and mytho-poetic meanings of dragonfly, and patiently courting an understanding of these creatures that is built upon, but also transcends, a naturalist’s observation, Brooke has come to believe in the importance of ‘re-enchantment.’

Many scholars believe that for most of human history, we lived in an enchanted world in which myth and magic, ritual and stories and spirits informed every aspect of our lives. The enchantment ended with the Enlightenment and modernity, when reason and scientific discovery explained away the magic, commencing a commodification of nature that has flourished ever since.

Brooke’s personal re-enchantment has required of him a faith that material, biological reality isn’t the only reality; it recognizes symbols and archetypes as remnants of a different understanding, which may—as perhaps they always have—play a role in our long-term survival.

In many cultures, the dragonfly carries messages between the inner and outer world. For Brooke Williams the message of the dragonfly is to ask questions about synchronicity, awe and the collective unconscious, and how to engage with a world increasingly out of balance. What are the implications of following a path toward greater enchantment? In a time where engagement with the political and social realities of climate change and environmental degradation can’t possibly be valued highly enough, can we afford to choose such a path? Perhaps more to the point, can we afford not to?

Nothing fills us with a sense of wonder like fossils. What looks at first like a simple rock is in fact a clue that reveals the staggering diversity of ancient environments, the winding pathways of evolution, and the majesty of a vanished earth. But as much as one might daydream of digging a hole in the backyard and finding a Tyrannosaurus, only a few places contain these buried treasures, and when a scientist comes across a remnant of prehistoric life, great care must be taken. What do budding paleontologists need to know before starting their search?

In Fantastic Fossils, Donald R. Prothero offers an accessible, entertaining, and richly illustrated guide to the paleontologist’s journey. He details the best places to look for fossils, the art of how to find them, and how to classify the major types. Prothero provides expert wisdom about typical fossils that an average person can hope to collect and how to hunt fossils responsibly and ethically. He also explores the lessons that both common and rarer discoveries offer about paleontology and its history, as well as what fossils can tell us about past climates and present climate change. Captivating illustrations by the paleoartist Mary Persis Williams bring to life hundreds of important specimens. Offering valuable lessons for armchair enthusiasts and paleontology students alike, Fantastic Fossils is an essential companion for all readers who have ever dreamed of going in search of traces of a lost world.

An Indies Introduce Selection for Winter/Spring 2022

Kerri ní Dochartaigh was born in Derry, on the border of the North and South of Ireland, at the very height of the Troubles. She was brought up on a council estate on the wrong side of town—although for her family, and many others, there was no right side. One parent was Catholic, the other was Protestant. In the space of one year, they were forced out of two homes. When she was eleven, a homemade bomb was thrown through her bedroom window. Terror was in the very fabric of the city, and for families like ní Dochartaigh’s, the ones who fell between the cracks of identity, it seemed there was no escape.

In Thin Places, a luminous blend of memoir, history, and nature writing, ní Dochartaigh explores how nature kept her sane and helped her heal, how violence and poverty are never more than a stone’s throw from beauty and hope, and how we are, once again, allowing our borders to become hard and terror to creep back in. Ní Dochartaigh asks us to reclaim our landscape through language and study, and remember that the land we fight over is much more than lines on a map. It will always be ours, but—at the same time—it never really was.

The best of contemporary nature writing from the winners of the inaugural international Nature Chronicles Prize.

The Nature Chronicles Prize is a new biennial, international, English-language literary award founded to celebrate engaging, unique, essay-length nonfiction that responds to the time we are in and the world as it is. Conceived in 2020 to mark the global pandemic, the prize is also a memorial to Prudence Scott, a lifelong British nature diarist who died in 2019.

Contained within this volume are the outstanding nominated entries for the inaugural prize. These winning works express diverse responses to our planet and its life, and together embody the best of contemporary nature writing.

My First Summer in the Sierra is the incredible true story of John Muir’s iconic time spent working in the California mountain range of the Sierra Nevada’s. In this republished edition, read about his experience that shaped so much of environmental stewardship today.

In the summer of 1869, a young John Muir joined a crew of shepherds working in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Spending countless hours working with the group, Muir also worked tirelessly to advocate for the land’s protection. His efforts eventually transpired into the founding of Yosemite Valley as a national park, a landmark event in the history of United States environmentalism. A glimpse into Muir’s private journals, My First Summer in the Sierra is the remarkable retelling of his time there. Full of humorous anecdotes and insightful prose, John Muir personal narrative will likely inspire you to pack up your belongings and head for the mountains.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Protecting special places in danger of being changed forever requires urgent action. It’s time for bold conservation strategies to boost land protection around the world.

Bold conservation goals require strategic action. In Protecting the Places We Love: Conservation Strategies for Entrusted Lands and Parks, conservationist and geospatial designer Breece Robertson applies her conservation experience, real-world examples, and myriad resources to deliver a vision for success and clear guidance for conservation groups large and small to achieve their goals.

The goals of these strategies are familiar: support species, habitats, and natural resources and healthy, livable communities that are climate resilient and socially cohesive, all without high costs. Robertson's tools, many of them free, feel quickly accessible, effective, and adaptable to a new or existing conservation strategy. Readers finish this book feeling confident about integrating existing practices with geospatial data and modern applications.

With the smart analysis and targeted action explained in Protecting the Places We Love, readers will better identify places needing protection and better understand how to maximize partnerships, inspire, educate, and engage communities and donors, and produce better results.

See the vision and learn to:

• create maps that tell compelling stories to stakeholders and the public
• analyze park system equity and access and show the economic benefits
• map, model, and analyze land characteristics to enhance biodiversity, connectivity, and climate resilience
• use maps and data to gain insights for fundraising, program initiatives, policy, advocacy, finances, and marketing.  

Protecting the Places We Love is perfect for citizens, and for conservation advocates and professionals at small to medium-sized land trusts, conservation organizations, and park agencies. Examples from land protection organizations all over the globe provide field-tested approaches to improve strategic effectiveness. Robertson provides a vision, strategies, and resources that can take your conservation efforts to the next level.

GIS for Science, Volume 3: Maps for Saving the Planet, highlights real-world examples of scientists creating maps about saving life on Earth and preserving biodiversity.   

With Earth and the natural world at risk from various forces, geographic information system (GIS) mapping is essential for driving scientifically conscious decision-making about how to protect life on Earth. In volume 3 of GIS for Science, explore a collection of maps from scientists working to save the planet through documenting and protecting its biodiversity.  

In this volume, learn how GIS and data mapping are used in tandem with 

• global satellite observation
• forestry
• marine policy
• artificial intelligence
• conservation biology, and
• environmental education

to help preserve and chronicle life on Earth. This volume also spotlights important global action initiatives incorporating conservation, including Half-Earth, 30 x 30, AI for Earth, the Blue Nature Alliance, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. 

The stories presented in this third volume are ideal for the professional scientist and conservationist and anyone interested in the intersection of technology and the conservation of nature. The book’s contributors include scientists who are applying geographic data gathered from the full spectrum of remote sensing and on-site technologies. The maps and data are brought to life using ArcGIS® software and other spatial data science tools that support research, collaboration, spatial analysis, and science communication across many locations and within diverse communities. The stories shared in this book and its companion website present inspirational ideas so that GIS users and scientists can work toward preserving biodiversity and saving planet Earth before time runs out. 

Explores the contours of Latinx Catholic environmentalism

Home-based conservationist measures such as cultivating backyard gardens, avoiding consumerism, and limiting waste are widespread among Spanish-speaking Catholics across the United States. Yet these home-based conservationist practices are seldom recognized as “environmental” because they are enacted by working-class immigrant communities and do not conform to the expectations of mainstream environmentalism.

In Falling in Love with Nature, Amanda J. Baugh tells the story of American environmentalism through a focus on Spanish-speaking Catholics, shedding light on environmental actors who have been hidden in plain sight. While dominant narratives about environmental activism include minorities, primarily in the realm of environmental racism and injustice, Baugh demonstrates that minority communities are not merely victims of environmental problems. They can be active agents who express love for nature based on inherited family traditions and close relationships with the land. Baugh shows that Spanish-speaking Catholics have values that have been overlooked in global discourses, grassroots movements, and the highest echelons of the US Catholic Church. By drawing attention to the environmental knowledge that is already abundant within Spanish-speaking Catholic communities, Falling in Love with Nature challenges readers to rethink their assumptions about who can be an environmental leader and what counts as environmentalism.

Examines how cultural narratives of time are intimately connected to the challenges and disruptions of ecological time

The environmental crisis is, in many ways, a crisis of time. From the distress cries of birds that no longer know when to migrate, to the rapid dying of coral reefs, to the quickening pace of extreme weather events, the patterns and timekeeping of the natural world are falling apart. We have broken nature’s clocks.

Lying hidden at the root of this problem are the cultural narratives that shape our actions and horizons of thought, but as Paul Huebener shows, we can bring about change by developing a critical literacy of time. Moving from circadian rhythms and the revival of ancient frozen bacteria to camping advertisements and the politics of oil pipelines, Nature’s Broken Clocks turns to works of fiction and poetry, examining how cultural narratives of time are connected to the problems of ecological collapse and what we might do to fix them.

"Urgent and profound, Nature's Broken Clocks is essential reading for anyone interested in time and the environment." —Nicholas Bradley, author of Rain Shadow

“Nature's Broken Clocks will inspire readers to reflect deeply on our manipulations of time, and on the impact of our shifting temporal imaginations and practices on the ecosphere.” —Sarah Wylie Krotz, Assistant Professor, Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta

Lauded essayist takes to the high seas in hot pursuit of elusive birds, artistic ghosts, fathers and their memories, and above all, safe harbor.

"Among nature writers now working, Charles Hood is my favorite." —Jonathan Franzen

Charles Hood is on a boat, wearing at least two life jackets as he scans the sky for seabirds and plumbs the depths of his—and our—relationship with the vast Pacific Ocean. Winner of the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year for his collection of essays A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat: The Joys of Ugly Nature, Hood now brings his irrepressible curiosity to the lives of petrels, frigate birds, sea snakes, and flying fish. During our voyage, he resurrects Melville's journey on tempestuous seas to San Francisco, takes us into the storm-tossed minds and paintings of J. M. W. Turner and Winslow Homer, and surfaces the trauma—still reverberating—to ocean and family ecologies alike from World War II. As sharp and witty as ever, Hood also turns his scrutiny on a more personal history, navigating murky waters of harm and forgiveness, love and entrapment. Full of wonder, joy, and terror at the shared capacity of the ocean and the humans on its edges to nurture life and damage it irreparably, this book is a vessel, seaworthy and transportive.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE AND THE BOARDMAN TASKER AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE

With great lyricism, Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing and the developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her. Through the story of her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber, she shows us how placing hand and foot on rock becomes a profound new way into the landscape.

Anna takes us from the gritstone rocks of the Peak District and Yorkshire to the gabbro pinnacles of the Cuillin, the slate of North Wales and the high plateau of the Cairngorms. Each landscape, and each type of rock, brings its own challenges and invites us into the history of a place.

An expert on the buffalo tells the history of this keystone species through extensive research and beautiful photographs.

The mere mention of the buffalo instantly brings to mind the vast herds that once roamed the North American continent, and few wild animals captivate our imaginations as much as the buffalo do. Once numbering in the tens of millions, these magnificent creatures played a significant role in structuring the varied ecosystems they occupied. For at least 24,000 years, North American Indigenous Peoples depended upon them, and it was the abundance of buffalo that initially facilitated the dispersal of humankind across the continent.

With the arrival of Europeans and their rapacious capacity for wildlife destruction, the buffalo was all but exterminated. In a span of just thirty years during the mid-1800s, buffalo populations plummeted from more than 30 million to just twenty-three. And with them went all of the intricate food webs, the trophic cascades, and the inter-species relationships that had evolved over thousands of years.

Despite this brush with extinction, the buffalo survived, and isolated populations are slowly recovering. As this recovery proceeds, the relationships the animals once had with thousands of species are being re-established in a remarkable process of ecological healing. The intricacy of those restored relationships is the subject of this book.

Based on author Wes Olson’s thirty-five years of working intimately with bison—and featuring Johane Janelle’s stunning photography—The Ecological Buffalo is a story that takes the reader on a journey to understand the myriad connections this keystone species has with the Great Plains.

Argues for the cause of protecting native grasslands and reconciliation on the Great Plains

Towards a Prairie Atonement addresses the question of our relationship with the land by enlisting the help of a Metis Elder and revisiting the history of one corner of the Great Plains.

This book's lyrical blend of personal narrative, prairie history, imagery, and argument begins with the cause of protecting native grasslands on community pastures. As the narrative unfolds, however, Trevor Herriot, the award-winning author of Grass, Sky, Song and River in a Dry Land, finds himself recruited into the work of reconciliation.

Facing his own responsibility as a descendent of settlers, he connects today's ecological disarray to the legacy of Metis dispossession and the loss of their community lands. With Indigenous and settler people alienated from one another and from the grassland itself, hope and courage are in short supply. This book offers both by proposing an atonement that could again bring people and prairie together.

A richly illustrated birding guide to the nation’s first official wildlife refuge.

"Beautifully illustrated and written, this is a must-have for anyone who wants to better understand and appreciate our neighbors." —Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing

This charming full-color field guide introduces us to fifteen waterbirds easily found in the urban wildlife refuge of Lake Merritt. In his introduction, author-illustrator Alex Harris includes a history of the lake, providing context for a place that is alluring to humans and shorebirds alike. Each species profile of the lake’s feathered residents is accompanied by a beautiful, detailed watercolor that captures the bird’s distinctive coloring and sinuous physicality. The black-crowned night heron, Oakland’s official city bird, stares with its startling orange eyes, while the American coot flexes its fancy, flared feet. Along with straightforward notes on the identification of each bird, Harris features the voices of Oakland community members, sharing moments of delight from the birds’ most dedicated observers. A celebration of avian life and the human pleasure of witnessing it, Birds of Lake Merritt is an essential guide to the natural world in the heart of the city.

Turning a blind eye to the dangers of the wild can have deadly consequences.

Growing up on a northern trap line, Harold Johnson was taught to keep his distance from wolves. For decades, wolves did the same for humans. But now this seems to be changing.

In 2005, twenty-two-year-old Kenton Carnegie was killed in a wolf attack near his work camp. Part story, part forensic analysis, Cry Wolf examines this and other attacks, showing how we fail to take this apex predator seriously at our own peril.

Why do poets write about animals? What can poetry do for animals and what can animals do for poetry? In some cases, poetry inscribes meaning on animals, turning them into symbols or caricatures and bringing them into the confines of human culture. It also reveals and revels in the complexity of animals. Poetry, through its great variety and its inherently experimental nature, has embraced the multifaceted nature of animals to cross, blur, and reimagine the boundaries between human and animal.

In Poetry and Animals, Onno Oerlemans explores a broad range of English-language poetry about animals from the Middle Ages to the contemporary world. He presents a taxonomy of kinds of animal poems, breaking down the categories and binary oppositions at the root of human thinking about animals. The book considers several different types of poetry: allegorical poems, poems about “the animal” broadly conceived, poems about species of animal, poems about individual animals or the animal as individual, and poems about hybrids and hybridity. Through careful readings of dozens of poems that reveal generous and often sympathetic approaches to recognizing and valuing animals’ difference and similarity, Oerlemans demonstrates how the forms and modes of poetry can sensitize us to the moral standing of animals and give us new ways to think through the problems of the human-animal divide.