Nature and the natural world: general interest Books

Book SynopsisIn Champion Trees of Arkansas, Linda Williams Palmer explores the state’s largest trees of their species, registered with the Arkansas Forestry Commission as “champions.” Through her beautiful colored-pencil drawings, each magnificent tree is interpreted through the lens of season, location, history, and human connection.Readers will get to know the cherrybark oak, rendered in fall colors, an avatar for the passing of seasons. The sugar maple, with its bare limbs and weather-beaten trunk, stands sentry over the headstones in a confederate cemetery. The 350-year-old white oak was once dubbed the Council Oak by Native Americans, and the post oak, cared for by generations of the same family, has its own story to tell.Palmer travelled from Delta swamps to Ozark and Ouachita mountain ridges over a seven-year period to see and document the champions and to talk with property owners and others willing to share the stories of how these trees are beloved and protected by the community, and often entwined with its history. Champion Trees of Arkansas is sure to inspire art and nature lovers everywhere.Trade Review“Linda Williams Palmer takes us with her to experience not just magnificent champion trees, but also the wonderful culture and people of Arkansas. From the giant Cypress in the swamps of east Arkansas to the towering Loblolly and Shortleaf Pines in the sandy coastal plain of south Arkansas to the colorful Sugar Maple in northwest Arkansas, Palmer’s drawings, photos, and stories illustrate the beauty of individuals. . . . our trees and our proud families. Her pencil strokes record our natural and native beauty in an amazing book!”—Joe Fox, Arkansas State Forester

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Book SynopsisLovers of all nature, Greg Parsons and Kate Watson are particularly fascinated with waterfalls. This new edition contains dozens of new waterfalls and provides extensive trail and road updates to existing ones. Waterfalls in every New England state are described according to type, height, trail length, and difficulty. Also included in this edition for the first time are color photographs, GPS coordinates for both the trailhead and the waterfall, and the size of the watershed area. With easy- to- follow maps and appendices of the best swimming holes and day trips, New England Waterfalls delivers a wealth of information for seekers of these regional treasures.

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Book SynopsisSucculents have become some of the most popular houseplants, and with good reason: they’re easy to grow…most of the time. But what happens when a plant outgrows its pot? Did you know succulents can get sunburned? How do you turn one plant into more plants? In Succulents at Home, expert gardener John Tullock addresses these questions and many more. Here, readers will learn to make the most of their plants from the how and why of soil and container choice to step-by-step instructions for repotting, propagating new succulents, and creating arrangements like terrariums and wreaths. The book is complete with a catalog of 75 species—flower-shaped echeverias, pointy haworthias, flowering kalanchoes, round mammillaria cacti, and more—which explains special care instructions for each variety. Tullock’s friendly voice and years of experience, and more than 100 color photographs, make this a must-have guide for fool-proof succulent gardening. And with a focus on growing succulents to enjoy indoors, this is a book for plant lovers in all regions and climates.

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Book SynopsisCurated by The New York Times best-selling author Jennifer McCartney, this collection of poems—discovered at a cat café in Milan, Italy—showcases the breathtaking skill, witty intelligence and breadth of knowledge possessed by the cat mind. McCartney knew she’d found something special as she translated the feline riffs on famous poems, beat poetry, rhyming verse, haikus and limericks. From musings on a tardy dinner (“Feed Me”) to a trip to the vet (“A Cat’s Revenge”), the “clueless yammering” of sparrows in a birdbath to the pleasures of an empty box, these are special additions to the genre. Soon, in fact, the scribe was inspired to add some work of her own, as well as charming line drawings and photographs. This slim volume will entice anyone enamoured of poesy and the fine arts—particularly cat lovers.

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Book Synopsis Fall under the spell of Florida's natural environmentIn this captivating collection, Florida's most notable authors, poets, and environmentalists take readers on a journey through the natural wonders of the state. Continuing in the legacy of the beloved classic The Wild Heart of Florida, this book features thirty-four pieces by a new slate of well-known and emerging writers.In these pages, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Groff describes the beauty of Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. Environmental writer Cynthia Barnett listens to seashells on Sanibel Island. Legendary journalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas records the sights and sounds of the Everglades in the 1920s. Miccosukee elder Buffalo Tiger relates traditional stories of his community's deep relationship with the land. Presidential inaugural poet Richard Blanco muses on the shifting vista of the ocean in "Some Days the Sea."These writers and many others recount memories of how their lives have been enriched by the state's varied and brilliant landscapes. Some tell of encounters with alligators, pythons, manatees, turtles, and otters, while others marvel at the unique character of flowing springs and piney scrub. Together, they highlight the need to protect pristine ecosystems and restore ones that have been damaged due to development. The Wilder Heart of Florida will inspire readers to explore and celebrate the Florida wilderness.Table of Contents Foreword Introduction —Jack E. Davis and Leslie K. Poole Part I. Beckonings Seduction in Key West — Susan Lilley The Story under the Story — Lauren Groff Our Land — Buffalo Tiger Soldier's Creek Trail — Terry Ann Thaxton Part II. Revelations Innocence Found — Bill Maxwell The Seine — Jack E. Davis My First Audubon Trip Hasn't Ended Yet . . . — Charles Lee Florida Boy — David McCally The River That Raised Me — Gabbie Buendia The Breathers, St. Mark's Lighthouse — Rick Campbell Part III. Animals Birds and Refuge — Frederick R. Davis The Quiet Song of Sanibel Island — Cynthia Barnett The Habits of Alligators — Loren G. "Totch" Brown Gator! — Lee Irby Feast of Pythons (Homage to Harry Crews) — Isaac Eger One Manatee, Two Nations — Anmari Alvarez-Alemán Woodpeckers and Wildness: The Disney Wilderness Preserve — Leslie K. Poole Sighting by the St. Johns — Russ Kesler Part IV. Water Up the Okalawaha: A Sail into Fairy-Land — Harriet Beecher Stowe Musings — Margaret Ross Tolbert The Pulse of Paynes Prairie — Lars Andersen From Springs Heartland to Wasteland . . . and Back? — Lucinda Faulkner Merritt Wilderness from the Water — Claire Strom The Rhythms of the Lagoon — Clay Henderson Raw Water — Gianna Russo Part V. Terra Firma Excerpts from The Galley — Marjory Stoneman Douglas The Natural Aesthetic of the Naked God — Bruce Stephenson Don't Mourn the Orange — Mark Jerome Walters Seasons of Love — Erika Henderson Biscayne National Monument: Preserving Our Precious Bays — Nathaniel Pryor ReedPart VI. At the Heart Some Day the Sea — Richard Blanco From A Seminole Legend: The Life of Betty Mae Tiger Jumper — Betty Mae Tiger Jumper and Patsy West A Plea for Wider Justice — Marjory Stoneman Douglas Florida Is a Pretty Girl —Frances Susanna Nevill Acknowledgments Contributors Credits

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Book SynopsisIn Writing the New World, Mauro Caraccioli examines the natural history writings of early Spanish missionaries, using these texts to argue that colonial Latin America was fundamental in the development of modern political thought. Revealing their narrative context, religious ideals, and political implications, Caraccioli shows how these sixteenth-century works promoted a distinct genre of philosophical wonder in service of an emerging colonial social order.Caraccioli discusses narrative techniques employed by well-known figures such as Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Bartolomé de Las Casas as well as less-studied authors including Bernardino de Sahagún, Francisco Hernández, and José de Acosta. More than mere catalogues of the natural wonders of the New World, these writings advocate mining and molding untapped landscapes, detailing the possibilities for extracting not just resources from the land but also new moral values from indigenous communities. Analyzing the intersections between politics, science, and faith that surface in these accounts, Caraccioli shows how the portrayal of nature served the ends of imperial domination.Integrating the fields of political theory, environmental history, Latin American literature, and religious studies, this book showcases Spain's role in the intellectual formation of modernity and Latin America's place as the crucible for the Scientific Revolution. Its insights are also relevant to debates about the interplay between politics and environmental studies in the Global South today.This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of Virginia Tech.

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Book SynopsisIn Writing the New World, Mauro Caraccioli examines the natural history writings of early Spanish missionaries, using these texts to argue that colonial Latin America was fundamental in the development of modern political thought. Revealing their narrative context, religious ideals, and political implications, Caraccioli shows how these sixteenth-century works promoted a distinct genre of philosophical wonder in service of an emerging colonial social order.Caraccioli discusses narrative techniques employed by well-known figures such as Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Bartolomé de Las Casas as well as less-studied authors including Bernardino de Sahagún, Francisco Hernández, and José de Acosta. More than mere catalogues of the natural wonders of the New World, these writings advocate mining and molding untapped landscapes, detailing the possibilities for extracting not just resources from the land but also new moral values from indigenous communities. Analyzing the intersections between politics, science, and faith that surface in these accounts, Caraccioli shows how the portrayal of nature served the ends of imperial domination.Integrating the fields of political theory, environmental history, Latin American literature, and religious studies, this book showcases Spain's role in the intellectual formation of modernity and Latin America's place as the crucible for the Scientific Revolution. Its insights are also relevant to debates about the interplay between politics and environmental studies in the Global South today.This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of Virginia Tech.

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Book SynopsisWoven Shades of Green is an annotated selection of literature by authors who focus on the natural world and the beauty of Ireland. It begins with the Irish monks and their largely anonymous nature poetry, written at a time when Ireland was heavily forested. A section follows devoted to the changing Irish landscape, through both deforestation and famine, including the nature poetry of William Allingham, and James Clarence Mangan, essays from Thomas Gainford and William Thackerary, and novel excerpts from William Carleton and Emily Lawless. The anthology then turns to the nature literature of the Irish Literary Revival, including Yeats and Synge, and an excerpt from George Moore’s novel The Lake. Part four shifts to modern Irish nature poetry, beginning with Patrick Kavanaugh, and continuing with the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, and others. Finally, the anthology concludes with a section on various Irish naturalist writers, and the unique prose and philosophical nature writing of John Moriarty, followed by a comprehensive list of environmental organizations in Ireland, which seek to preserve the natural beauty of this unique country. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.Trade Review"Irish literature’s ubiquitous relationship to the environment offers a vast reservoir of meditations on humanity’s relationship with non-human natures. This can often prove daunting to both established scholars and novice readers. For all those who are interested in the intersectional concerns that arise from Irish literature’s evocations of the environment, Tim Wenzell’s timely anthology will prove to be especially invaluable. The book brings into sharp focus the unique ways in which Irish history merges with national and geopolitical ecologies, and how geographical questions are always conflated with geological ones.” -- Dr. Malcolm Sen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst"Time has shaped a distinctive history of Irish nature literature in a deeply gathered, insightful anthology....Itself a generous treasury of Irish nature poetry and prose, the book is ordered by historical responses to religion, romanticism, colonisation, catastrophe, nationalism and material success." * Irish Times *"Wenzell's annotated selection is timely, looking as it does at a genre that doesn't seem to have bitten in Ireland quite as hard as it has in other publishing territories, a symptom perhaps of a more complicated - and at times harrowing - relationship with the natural world." * Sunday Independent *"This anthology emphasizes the importance of the natural world of Ireland and the breadth of writing that has embraced it during many centuries." * Gale Literature Book Review Index *"Readers familiar with Irish literature and ecocriticism will find this volume filled with familiar faces and materials, as well as a few more obscure and exciting ones. This anthology offers scholars a series of substantial pieces from which to expand and further consider Irish nature writing and Irish approaches to the natural world." * Irish Studies Review *"The Best of the University Presses: 100 Books to Escape the News As Recommended by the UP Community" https://lithub.com/the-best-of-the-university-presses-a-reading-list/ * LitHub *"Woven Shades of Green...shows the great variety and depth of editor Tim Wenzell’s knowledge and insight on the topic across history. He possesses a keen sense for choosing not only the key authors and texts, but also often underappreciated writers or lesser known works by famous ones." * James Joyce Literary Supplement *"A generous and inclusive anthology, focusing mainly on poetry but open also to significant pieces of prose....The engagement by these writers shows a valuable addition to the literature of the natural world." * New Hibernia Review *"Irish literature’s ubiquitous relationship to the environment offers a vast reservoir of meditations on humanity’s relationship with non-human natures. This can often prove daunting to both established scholars and novice readers. For all those who are interested in the intersectional concerns that arise from Irish literature’s evocations of the environment, Tim Wenzell’s timely anthology will prove to be especially invaluable. The book brings into sharp focus the unique ways in which Irish history merges with national and geopolitical ecologies, and how geographical questions are always conflated with geological ones.” -- Dr. Malcolm Sen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst"Time has shaped a distinctive history of Irish nature literature in a deeply gathered, insightful anthology....Itself a generous treasury of Irish nature poetry and prose, the book is ordered by historical responses to religion, romanticism, colonisation, catastrophe, nationalism and material success." * Irish Times *"Wenzell's annotated selection is timely, looking as it does at a genre that doesn't seem to have bitten in Ireland quite as hard as it has in other publishing territories, a symptom perhaps of a more complicated - and at times harrowing - relationship with the natural world." * Sunday Independent *"This anthology emphasizes the importance of the natural world of Ireland and the breadth of writing that has embraced it during many centuries." * Gale Literature Book Review Index *"Readers familiar with Irish literature and ecocriticism will find this volume filled with familiar faces and materials, as well as a few more obscure and exciting ones. This anthology offers scholars a series of substantial pieces from which to expand and further consider Irish nature writing and Irish approaches to the natural world." * Irish Studies Review *"The Best of the University Presses: 100 Books to Escape the News As Recommended by the UP Community" https://lithub.com/the-best-of-the-university-presses-a-reading-list/ * LitHub *"Woven Shades of Green...shows the great variety and depth of editor Tim Wenzell’s knowledge and insight on the topic across history. He possesses a keen sense for choosing not only the key authors and texts, but also often underappreciated writers or lesser known works by famous ones." * James Joyce Literary Supplement *"A generous and inclusive anthology, focusing mainly on poetry but open also to significant pieces of prose....The engagement by these writers shows a valuable addition to the literature of the natural world." * New Hibernia Review *Table of Contents Foreword by John Wilson Foster Preface Part I Early Irish Nature Poetry IntroductionThe MysteryDeer’s Cry St. Columcille of IonaColumcille Fecit Caelius SeduliusInvocation Anonymous Early Irish Nature PoetryThe Blackbird by Belfast LoughThe ScribeThe White LakeThe LarkThe Hermit’s SongKing and HermitSong of the SeaSummer Has ComeSong of SummerSummer is GoneA Song of WinterArranBuile Suibhne Part II Nature Writing and the Changing Irish Landscape Introduction Thomas Gainsford A Description of Ireland William AllinghamWishingThe FairiesThe Lover and BirdsAmong the HeatherIn a Spring GroveThe Ruined Chapel William Hamilton DrummondThe Giant’s Causeway, Book First James Clarence ManganThe Dawning of the DayThe Fair Hills of Eire, O!The Lovely Land: On a Landscape Painted by Maclise William Makepeace Thackeray From Irish Sketchbook William Carleton From The Black Prophet Emily Lawless From Hurrish: A Study Part III Nature and the Irish Literary Revival Introduction Katharine TynanThe Children of LirHigh SummerIndian SummerNymphsSt. Francis to the BirdsThe Birds’ BargainThe GardenThe Wind that Shakes the Barley AE (George Russell)By the Margin of the Great DeepOversoulThe Great BreathThe Voice of the WatersA New WorldA Vision of BeautyCarrowmoreCreationThe Winds of AngusThe Nuts of KnowledgeChildren of LirConnla’s Well From The Candle of Vision William Butler YeatsCoole Park, 1929Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931Who Goes with Fergus?Down by the Salley GardensIn the Seven WoodsThe Shadowy Waters (Introductory Lines)The Cat and the MoonThe Fairy PedantThe Lake Isle of InnisfreeThe Madness of King GollThe Song of Wandering Aengus ...The Stolen Child ...The Two Trees ...The White Birds ...The Wild Swans at Coole ... Eva Gore-BoothThe Dreamer ...Re-Incarnation ...Secret Waters ...The Little Waves of BreffnyThe Weaver John Millington SyngeIn KerryTo the Oaks of GlencreePreludeIn GlencullenOn an Island From The Aran Islands Riders to the Sea George Moore Preface and Chapter 1 from The Lake Padraic ColumA DroverA Cradle SongAcross the DoorThe Crane ...Dublin Roads ..River Mates ... Part IV Modern Irish Nature Poetry Introduction ... Patrick Kavanaugh ..PoplarsLilacs in the CityOctober Canal Bank WalkHaving to Live in the CountryInniskeen Road: July Evening On an Apple-Ripe September MorningPrimroseWet Evening in April Louis MacNeiceThe Sunlight on the Garden ..Wolves ...Tree Party Seamus Heaney ..Death of a NaturalistThe Salmon Fisher to the Fisherman LimboSt. Kevin and the Blackbird . Eavan BolandThe Lost LandThe RiverMountain TimeThis MomentOde to SuburbiaEscape ...A Sparrow Hawk in the Suburbs Moya CannonBees under SnowEavesdroppingTwo Ivory SwansWinter View from Binn BriocainPrimaveraThe Tube-Case MakersCrannogHazelnuts John MontagueAll Legendary ObstaclesThe Wild Dog RoseThe Trout Michael LongleyThe OspreyBadgerHedgehogKingfisherRobinOut of the SeaHer Mime of the Lame SeagullCarrigskeewaunSaint Francis to the Birds Derek MahonThe SeasonsAchillAphrodite’s PoolThe Mayo TaoPenhurst PlaceThe WoodsThe Dream Play “A Hermit”Leaves Sean LysaghtGolden EagleThe Clare Island SurveyGoldcrest From Bird Sweeney Desmond EganThe Great BlasketSunday EveningMeadowsweetSnow Snow Snow SnowA Pigeon DeadEnvoi Mary O’MalleyAbsentThe Man of AranPorpoisesThe Price of Silk is Paid in GoldThe StormLiaden with a Mortgage Briefly Tastes the Stars Rosemarie RowleyOsborn O h - Aimbirgin; A Cry from the Heart of a Poet—Morning in BearaThe Blackbird of Derry of the CairnIn Praise of the Hill Between of HowthBlind Seamus McCourt: Welcome to the Bird’Kitty Dwyer Part V The Literature of Irish Naturalists Introduction John Tyndall Belfast Address Robert Lloyd Praeger From The Way That I Went Michael Viney From A Year’s Turning From The Irish Times, “Another Life” Tim Robinson From Connemara: Listening to the Wind, “Preface” From Connemara: Listening to the Wind, “The Boneyard” John Moriarty From Invoking Ireland Appendix: Environmental Organizations in Ireland Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWoven Shades of Green is an annotated selection of literature by authors who focus on the natural world and the beauty of Ireland. It begins with the Irish monks and their largely anonymous nature poetry, written at a time when Ireland was heavily forested. A section follows devoted to the changing Irish landscape, through both deforestation and famine, including the nature poetry of William Allingham, and James Clarence Mangan, essays from Thomas Gainford and William Thackerary, and novel excerpts from William Carleton and Emily Lawless. The anthology then turns to the nature literature of the Irish Literary Revival, including Yeats and Synge, and an excerpt from George Moore’s novel The Lake. Part four shifts to modern Irish nature poetry, beginning with Patrick Kavanaugh, and continuing with the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, and others. Finally, the anthology concludes with a section on various Irish naturalist writers, and the unique prose and philosophical nature writing of John Moriarty, followed by a comprehensive list of environmental organizations in Ireland, which seek to preserve the natural beauty of this unique country. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.Trade Review"Irish literature’s ubiquitous relationship to the environment offers a vast reservoir of meditations on humanity’s relationship with non-human natures. This can often prove daunting to both established scholars and novice readers. For all those who are interested in the intersectional concerns that arise from Irish literature’s evocations of the environment, Tim Wenzell’s timely anthology will prove to be especially invaluable. The book brings into sharp focus the unique ways in which Irish history merges with national and geopolitical ecologies, and how geographical questions are always conflated with geological ones.” -- Dr. Malcolm Sen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst"Time has shaped a distinctive history of Irish nature literature in a deeply gathered, insightful anthology....Itself a generous treasury of Irish nature poetry and prose, the book is ordered by historical responses to religion, romanticism, colonisation, catastrophe, nationalism and material success." * Irish Times *"Wenzell's annotated selection is timely, looking as it does at a genre that doesn't seem to have bitten in Ireland quite as hard as it has in other publishing territories, a symptom perhaps of a more complicated - and at times harrowing - relationship with the natural world." * Sunday Independent *"This anthology emphasizes the importance of the natural world of Ireland and the breadth of writing that has embraced it during many centuries." * Gale Literature Book Review Index *"Readers familiar with Irish literature and ecocriticism will find this volume filled with familiar faces and materials, as well as a few more obscure and exciting ones. This anthology offers scholars a series of substantial pieces from which to expand and further consider Irish nature writing and Irish approaches to the natural world." * Irish Studies Review *"The Best of the University Presses: 100 Books to Escape the News As Recommended by the UP Community" https://lithub.com/the-best-of-the-university-presses-a-reading-list/ * LitHub *"Woven Shades of Green...shows the great variety and depth of editor Tim Wenzell’s knowledge and insight on the topic across history. He possesses a keen sense for choosing not only the key authors and texts, but also often underappreciated writers or lesser known works by famous ones." * James Joyce Literary Supplement *"A generous and inclusive anthology, focusing mainly on poetry but open also to significant pieces of prose....The engagement by these writers shows a valuable addition to the literature of the natural world." * New Hibernia Review *"Irish literature’s ubiquitous relationship to the environment offers a vast reservoir of meditations on humanity’s relationship with non-human natures. This can often prove daunting to both established scholars and novice readers. For all those who are interested in the intersectional concerns that arise from Irish literature’s evocations of the environment, Tim Wenzell’s timely anthology will prove to be especially invaluable. The book brings into sharp focus the unique ways in which Irish history merges with national and geopolitical ecologies, and how geographical questions are always conflated with geological ones.” -- Dr. Malcolm Sen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst"Time has shaped a distinctive history of Irish nature literature in a deeply gathered, insightful anthology....Itself a generous treasury of Irish nature poetry and prose, the book is ordered by historical responses to religion, romanticism, colonisation, catastrophe, nationalism and material success." * Irish Times *"Wenzell's annotated selection is timely, looking as it does at a genre that doesn't seem to have bitten in Ireland quite as hard as it has in other publishing territories, a symptom perhaps of a more complicated - and at times harrowing - relationship with the natural world." * Sunday Independent *"This anthology emphasizes the importance of the natural world of Ireland and the breadth of writing that has embraced it during many centuries." * Gale Literature Book Review Index *"Readers familiar with Irish literature and ecocriticism will find this volume filled with familiar faces and materials, as well as a few more obscure and exciting ones. This anthology offers scholars a series of substantial pieces from which to expand and further consider Irish nature writing and Irish approaches to the natural world." * Irish Studies Review *"The Best of the University Presses: 100 Books to Escape the News As Recommended by the UP Community" https://lithub.com/the-best-of-the-university-presses-a-reading-list/ * LitHub *"Woven Shades of Green...shows the great variety and depth of editor Tim Wenzell’s knowledge and insight on the topic across history. He possesses a keen sense for choosing not only the key authors and texts, but also often underappreciated writers or lesser known works by famous ones." * James Joyce Literary Supplement *"A generous and inclusive anthology, focusing mainly on poetry but open also to significant pieces of prose....The engagement by these writers shows a valuable addition to the literature of the natural world." * New Hibernia Review *Table of Contents Foreword by John Wilson Foster Preface Part I Early Irish Nature Poetry IntroductionThe MysteryDeer’s Cry St. Columcille of IonaColumcille Fecit Caelius SeduliusInvocation Anonymous Early Irish Nature PoetryThe Blackbird by Belfast LoughThe ScribeThe White LakeThe LarkThe Hermit’s SongKing and HermitSong of the SeaSummer Has ComeSong of SummerSummer is GoneA Song of WinterArranBuile Suibhne Part II Nature Writing and the Changing Irish Landscape Introduction Thomas Gainsford A Description of Ireland William AllinghamWishingThe FairiesThe Lover and BirdsAmong the HeatherIn a Spring GroveThe Ruined Chapel William Hamilton DrummondThe Giant’s Causeway, Book First James Clarence ManganThe Dawning of the DayThe Fair Hills of Eire, O!The Lovely Land: On a Landscape Painted by Maclise William Makepeace Thackeray From Irish Sketchbook William Carleton From The Black Prophet Emily Lawless From Hurrish: A Study Part III Nature and the Irish Literary Revival Introduction Katharine TynanThe Children of LirHigh SummerIndian SummerNymphsSt. Francis to the BirdsThe Birds’ BargainThe GardenThe Wind that Shakes the Barley AE (George Russell)By the Margin of the Great DeepOversoulThe Great BreathThe Voice of the WatersA New WorldA Vision of BeautyCarrowmoreCreationThe Winds of AngusThe Nuts of KnowledgeChildren of LirConnla’s Well From The Candle of Vision William Butler YeatsCoole Park, 1929Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931Who Goes with Fergus?Down by the Salley GardensIn the Seven WoodsThe Shadowy Waters (Introductory Lines)The Cat and the MoonThe Fairy PedantThe Lake Isle of InnisfreeThe Madness of King GollThe Song of Wandering Aengus ...The Stolen Child ...The Two Trees ...The White Birds ...The Wild Swans at Coole ... Eva Gore-BoothThe Dreamer ...Re-Incarnation ...Secret Waters ...The Little Waves of BreffnyThe Weaver John Millington SyngeIn KerryTo the Oaks of GlencreePreludeIn GlencullenOn an Island From The Aran Islands Riders to the Sea George Moore Preface and Chapter 1 from The Lake Padraic ColumA DroverA Cradle SongAcross the DoorThe Crane ...Dublin Roads ..River Mates ... Part IV Modern Irish Nature Poetry Introduction ... Patrick Kavanaugh ..PoplarsLilacs in the CityOctober Canal Bank WalkHaving to Live in the CountryInniskeen Road: July Evening On an Apple-Ripe September MorningPrimroseWet Evening in April Louis MacNeiceThe Sunlight on the Garden ..Wolves ...Tree Party Seamus Heaney ..Death of a NaturalistThe Salmon Fisher to the Fisherman LimboSt. Kevin and the Blackbird . Eavan BolandThe Lost LandThe RiverMountain TimeThis MomentOde to SuburbiaEscape ...A Sparrow Hawk in the Suburbs Moya CannonBees under SnowEavesdroppingTwo Ivory SwansWinter View from Binn BriocainPrimaveraThe Tube-Case MakersCrannogHazelnuts John MontagueAll Legendary ObstaclesThe Wild Dog RoseThe Trout Michael LongleyThe OspreyBadgerHedgehogKingfisherRobinOut of the SeaHer Mime of the Lame SeagullCarrigskeewaunSaint Francis to the Birds Derek MahonThe SeasonsAchillAphrodite’s PoolThe Mayo TaoPenhurst PlaceThe WoodsThe Dream Play “A Hermit”Leaves Sean LysaghtGolden EagleThe Clare Island SurveyGoldcrest From Bird Sweeney Desmond EganThe Great BlasketSunday EveningMeadowsweetSnow Snow Snow SnowA Pigeon DeadEnvoi Mary O’MalleyAbsentThe Man of AranPorpoisesThe Price of Silk is Paid in GoldThe StormLiaden with a Mortgage Briefly Tastes the Stars Rosemarie RowleyOsborn O h - Aimbirgin; A Cry from the Heart of a Poet—Morning in BearaThe Blackbird of Derry of the CairnIn Praise of the Hill Between of HowthBlind Seamus McCourt: Welcome to the Bird’Kitty Dwyer Part V The Literature of Irish Naturalists Introduction John Tyndall Belfast Address Robert Lloyd Praeger From The Way That I Went Michael Viney From A Year’s Turning From The Irish Times, “Another Life” Tim Robinson From Connemara: Listening to the Wind, “Preface” From Connemara: Listening to the Wind, “The Boneyard” John Moriarty From Invoking Ireland Appendix: Environmental Organizations in Ireland Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA personal and engaging tribute to nature from a world-famous theoretical physicist. Marcelo Gleiser has had a passion for science and fishing since he was a boy growing up on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. As a world-famous theoretical physicist with hundreds of scientific articles and several books of popular science to his credit, he felt it was time to once again connect with nature in less theoretical ways. After seeing a fly-fishing class on the Dartmouth College green, he decided to learn to fly-fish, a hobby, he says, that teaches humility. In The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected, Gleiser travels the world to scientific conferences, fishing wherever he goes. At each stop, he ponders the myriad ways physics informs the act of fishing; how, in its turn, fishing serves as a lens into nature's inner workings; and how science engages with questions of meaning and spirituality, inspiring a sense of mystery and awe of the not yet known. Personal and engaging, The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected is a scientist's tribute to nature, an affirmation of humanity's deep connection with and debt to Earth, and an exploration of the meaning of existence, from atom to trout to cosmos. This softcover edition features a new essay by Gleiser on how we need a profound change of worldview if we are to have a vibrant future for our species in this fragile environment. He describes how this book was an incubator for his current thinking.Trade Review“You will not learn how to fly fish from this book. You may decide to try it out. Or you may feel inclined to go on your own spiritual journey and reconnect with nature.” * The Citizen (Vermont) *“The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected is an elegantly written, introspective, and thought-provoking meditation on growing up as someone curious about the universe. It’s a wonderful introduction to the human side of science and the scientific side of being human.” -- Sean Carroll, author of The Big PictureTable of ContentsPrologue 1 Cumbria, Lake District, UK 2 Sao Jose Dos Ausentes, Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil 3 Sansepolcro, Tuscany, Italy 4 Laxa River, Myvatnssveit, Iceland Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisA new edition of an evergreen back-to-nature book in the tradition of Thoreau. For nearly twenty-five years, poet Baron Wormser and his family lived in a house in Maine with no electricity or running water. They grew much of their own food, carried water by hand, and read by the light of kerosene lamps. They considered themselves part of the “back to the land” movement, but their choice to live off the grid was neither a statement nor a protest: they simply had built their house too far from the road and could not afford to bring in power lines. Over the years, they settled into a life that centered on what Thoreau would have called “the essential facts.” In this graceful meditation, Wormser similarly spurns ideology in favor of observation, exploration, and reflection. “When we look for one thread of motive,” he writes, “we are, in all likelihood, deceiving ourselves.” His refusal to be satisfied with the obvious explanation, the single thread of motive, makes him a keen and sympathetic observer of his neighbors and community, a perceptive reader of poetry and literature, and an honest and unselfconscious analyst of his own responses to the natural world. The result is a series of candid personal essays on community and isolation, nature, civilization, and poetry. Lovely and rich, The Road Washes Out in Spring is an immersive read. A new preface by the author rounds out this new edition. Trade Review“It’s a particularly poetic attention to detail that makes this book an especially memorable read. . . . ‘No one can count all the microcosms at work inside the macrocosms that are the living, breathing world,’ Wormser writes late in the book. That could serve as an apt description of the task he’s set for himself here—this is a book that both evokes a life and is full of life. It’s a difficult book to read without longing for a home with a root cellar and a view of tall trees—power and plumbing optional.” * Portland Press Herald *“All in all, this is the best book about rural New England life since Jane Brox’s Here and Nowhere Else. Its scope is narrow, but its reach is vast. Its short but wide-ranging essays seem like the dozens of jars of canned tomatoes Wormser and his wife put up each year to provide the base of their winter meals, each one carefully, thoughtfully, and lovingly prepared. The order in which they are taken off the shelves does not really matter, but it is evident that each is part of the same impulse of mind and heart and body, and each in return nourishes all three. As such, the book asks to be read slowly, savored, because, as Wormser says of the entire enterprise of living off-grid, ‘There was no sum. Only infinite entries.’” * Boston Globe *“His ruminations on crafting poems and thoughtful considerations of the value of literature will be of great interest to readers and fellow writers. Wormser counters any comparisons to Thoreau, and, in fact, has a far greater sense of humor than the iconic backwoodsmen, but his endearing memoir about living simply, yet richly, in woods he clearly loves certainly does extend the tradition Thoreau exemplifies.” * Booklist *“What separates this memoir from the often clichéd back-to-the-land life story is that the author’s choices are always seen through the lens of language, especially poetry. As he describes the characters who reside in his small community in Maine, the demands of keeping up with kerosene lamps and wild gardens, the dashed hopes for the community library lost to fire, the wear and tear of time, roads, wells, and woods—he never loses the context of literary history. Wormser’s authorial consciousness is permeated with Frost, Keats, Shelley, and the force of Romanticism—the individual’s journey toward and examination of what life ought to be in light of what is.” * ForeWord *“Intelligent and engaging, following no chronology, [The Road Washes Out in Spring] rambles and wanders its way in an almost Byronic fashion, slowly and modestly revealing the making of a poet.” * Down East *

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Book SynopsisHow can an animal even be this d*mn cute?This adorable gift book is the perfect gift for the animal lover in your life. Packed with sweary captions and fun f*cking facts, this laugh out loud package will help you get out all that so-cute-I-can't-handle-it aggression! Get ready to tell adorable hedgehogs to take a f*cking hike and snoozing sloths to stop that cute sh*t already!

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Book SynopsisOn a second wave of anti-colonial revolutions. State and Capital reign over the Age of Sorrow. We face inequality, pandemics, ethnocide, climate crisis, and mass extinction. Our desire for security and power governs us as State. Our desire for possessions governs us as Capital. Our desires imprison and rule us beings as Unbeing. Yet, from Nagaland to New Zealand, Bhutan to Bolivia, a second wave of anti-colonial revolutions has begun. Arising from assemblies of humans and other-than-humans, these revolutions replace possessive individualism with non-exploitative interdependence. Naga elders, Bhutanese herders and other indigenous communities, feminists, poets, seers, yaks, cranes, vultures, and fungi haunt this pamphlet. The original Subaltern Studies narrated how Indian peasant communities destroyed the British empire. Subaltern Studies 2.0 prophesies the multi-being demos and liberates Being from Unbeing. Re-kin, Re-nomad, Re-animate, Re-wild! The Animist Revolution has come. Table of Contentsi. Who Speaks?ii. War of Unbeing against Beingiii. A New Anti-Colonial Struggleiv. The Age of Sorrowv. The Evil Twins: Sovereignty and Propertyvi. The Subjection of Beingvii. Once When there was No State, No Capitalviii. The Monstrosity of State and Capitalix. Capital Colonizes Beingx. The Age of Deathxi. The Rise and Fall of Subaltern Studiesxii. The Failures of Global History and of Anthropologyxiii. To Arms: A New Academia for a Renewed Warxiv. Enough with Welfare-State Capitalismxv. Enough with Monstrous Abstractions!xvi. Where Marx Went Wrong!xvii. The Degeneration of Speechxviii. The Poetry of Revolutionxix. Enough of “Postmodern” Suspicion of Being! xx. The Road Back to Beingxxi. Dismantle State, Overthrow Capital!xxii. For Permanent Revolution, Permanent Community!xxiii. Enough with Atomized Individualism!xxiv. Not Universal Class, but Communities in Solidarity!xxv. Being Shines in Subaltern Consciousnessxxvi. Against Possessive Man, Being!xxvii. Difference-into-Unity!xxviii. Being a World for Othersxxix. Animals: Primal Instructors of Humansxxx. The Light of Being-Consciousnessxxxi. Once When Animals Could Speakxxxii. Animal Democracy – The World’s Oldest Politiesxxxiii. The First Imperialism: Human Colonization of Animal Politiesxxxiv. Decolonize Animal Polities!xxxv. Multi-Being Demos, Constitution to Comexxxvi. Return, Ancient Constitution – What Was, Shall Again Be!xxxvii. Fungal Organization – Being inside Beings is the Being within Mexxxviii. Fungal Democracy – Fungal Internationalismxxxix. Rooted Interdependence – Ancient Being, Return, Restore! xl. Beings in Assembly – Multi-Being Demosxli. The Vanquishing of Unbeingxlii. Beings Turn the Wheel of Lawxliii. The Constitution of the Cosmosxliv. Turn I: Rekinxlv. Turn II: Renomadxlvi. Turn III: Reanimatexlvii. Turn IV: Rewildxlviii. Being TriumphantXlix. Exhortation: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: The Next Steps: A Prefacel. Exhortation: Marisol de la Cadena: The Gift of the Anthropo-not-seenli. Exhortation: Thom van Dooren: Animal Lessonslii. Exhortation: Suraj Yengde: Supreme Subalterns

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Book SynopsisIn Memory of a Banyan Tree is a collection of poems relating to nature, ecology, and ecopoetics, selected from the expanse of Rothenberg's writings over the past thirty-five years. Rothenberg's many years as a horticulturist and his engagement in the environmental movement inform his work. These poems are a watershed account of an intimate relationship with the outside world.

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Book Synopsis*Part of the 5-Volume Set 2022 Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal Winner: Ecology & Environment and Special Honors as Best of Anthology Volume 2 of the Kinship series revolves around the question of place-based relations: To what extent does crafting a deeper connection with the Earth’s bioregions reinvigorate a sense of kinship with the place-based beings, systems, and communities that mutually shape one another? We live in an astounding world of relations. We share these ties that bind with our fellow humans—and we share these relations with nonhuman beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you breathe, this community of life is our kin—and, for many cultures around the world, being human is based upon this extended sense of kinship. Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. The five Kinship volumes—Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice—offer essays, interviews, poetry, and stories of solidarity, highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings. More than 70 contributors—including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Richard Powers, David Abram, J. Drew Lanham, and Sharon Blackie—invite readers into cosmologies, narratives, and everyday interactions that embrace a more-than-human world as worthy of our response and responsibility. Given the place-based circumstances of human evolution and culture, global consciousness may be too broad a scale of care. “Place,” Volume 2 of the Kinship series, addresses the bioregional, multispecies communities and landscapes within which we dwell. The essayists and poets in this volume take us around the world to a variety of distinctive places—from ethnobiologist Gary Paul Nabhan’s beloved and beleaguered sacred U.S.-Mexico borderlands, to Pacific islander and poet Craig Santos Perez’s ancestral shores, to writer Lisa María Madera’s “vibrant flow of kinship” in the equatorial Andes expressed in Pacha Mama’s constitutional rights in Ecuador. As Chippewa scholar-activist Melissa Nelson observes about kinning with place in her conversation with John Hausdoerffer: “Whether a desert mesa, a forested mountain, a windswept plain, or a crowded city—those places also participate in this serious play with raven cries, northern winds, car traffic, or coyote howls.” This volume reveals the ways in which playing in, tending to, and caring for place wraps us into a world of kinship. Proceeds from sales of Kinship benefit the nonprofit, non-partisan Center for Humans and Nature, which partners with some of the brightest minds to explore human responsibilities to each other and the more-than-human world. The Center brings together philosophers, ecologists, artists, political scientists, anthropologists, poets and economists, among others, to think creatively about a resilient future for the whole community of life.Trade Review“This collection is a passionate call to turn towards the living Earth with reverence and respect, and in so doing to cultivate new and old forms of curiosity, of understanding, and of responsibility. Across five captivating volumes, Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations brings together a rich diversity of voices and perspectives. Contributions range in form from poetry to interviews and essays, drawing on and engaging with the insights of Indigenous stories, philosophy, the natural sciences, and much more. Ultimately, this is a collection that does much more than simply describe the webs of relationship that are our world of kin. At the same time, it invites and at times pulls the reader into a sense of the fundamental sharedness of all life and our profound obligations, perhaps now more than ever, to hold open room for others to be and to become in their own unique and precious ways.”—Thom van Dooren, author of The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds“Essential reading about the question of our time: how to belong. A chorus of beautiful, wise, grieving, exulting, and generative voices, guiding us into true ‘family values’ for a wild living Earth. These collections offer rare and rich insight into how to find, honor, and heal the bonds of blood, place, time, and ethics that knit us to all other beings.”—David George Haskell, author of The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees"Sometimes when we are working with a document, when it’s growing and changing, we call it “live.” Likewise, this book is live. It’s full of life. It’s living inside you as you read it and you are living inside it. It’s changing you and you’re changing it. May this book be a living document that guides us toward love and care for all kin."—Janisse Ray, author of Wild Spectacle"The Kinship series of books is an ensemble of outstanding essays that reveal the truth that reality is rooted in relationships. After reading these marvellous essays, it becomes crystal clear that there is no reality outside relationships. These books shatter the old story of separation between humans and Nature and explode the belief that nature is a machine and the planet Earth is a dead rock. Here is the new story of the living Earth and a celebration of deep connectivity of life; human as well as more-than-human life. These are inspiring and enlightening essays. They will change your perception of Nature. I recommend these books wholeheartedly!"—Satish Kumar, Founder, Schumacher College, Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist“What a joyful series this is, this family of books, crafted with love, clarity, and compassion by a family of poets, scholars, and sages. Together the volumes form a five-part harmony, converging beautifully around notions of kinship and kinning. The authors ask, how do we rightly relate? How may we learn to live well with our kin? Can we listen with sensitivity to the voices and languages of others, the beings with fur, claws, wings, scales, and fins with whom we share the mountains, rivers, seas, grasslands, and forests, places that ring with spirit and meaning, too, who are family, too? The chapters are stories as much as studies, narratives born from experience, wisdom, and observations over many generations. I can’t wait to share this family with my students and colleagues in conservation and anthropology, and with my friends and kin everywhere.”—Dr. Amanda Stronza, Anthropologist and Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University“Kinship is essential reading. Five books of elemental grace and charm, beginning with a spider's web. Each strand glistens in the sunlight, dreaming, catch and release, a journey through the multiverse. Each gathering of words, a page, a tribe, a story of who we are, who we have been, and who we've yet to become, shiny, bright, new, and very old. The DNA of rock and stone, of all our relations, the chemistry of breathing, letting go, and Love. Again, again, and again.”—John Francis, PhD, author of Planetwalker: 17 Years of Silence, 22 Years of Walking “At a time when divisive politics and human-first ideologies dominate public discourse, Kinship provides a deeply-moving, soul-rejuvenating, and course-correcting primer for recognizing and building relationships among all living things. Here readers will find solace in essays and poems about what we’re losing, as well as inspiration for how to live well with other humans—and with our other-than-human kin. But Kinship is more than instructive. Taken together, these exquisite volumes are a balm for the soul.”—Dr. Amy Brady, Executive Director of Orion magazine"Kinship is the type of series I would want to gift to my wild, untamed, and unschooled children, for from its pages springs an education at the end of homogenous time, a crack in the tarmac of ascension, an insurgency of the hitherto invisible. At a time when the human is no longer tenable as a category unto itself, we will need the prophetic voices of these poets, philosophers, mothers, fathers, scientists, thinkers, public intellectuals, artists, and awestruck fugitives to kindle a politics of humility, to help us fall down to earth from our gilded perches, to help us stray from the threatening familiarity of our own image. It is time to meet the others we imagined we left behind: this constellation of stars will guide us."—Bayo Akomolafe, Ph.D., author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home “The Kinship series upends colonial paradigms around humans and our relationship with more-than-human nature. These paradigms have driven mainstream environmental movements to engage in myopic efforts that at times have exacerbated ecological imbalances. Through stories, essays, art, poetry, and more, contributors chip away at the layers that bind our collective colonial ethos. Rather than owning nature, we are urged to think about our kinship with all that is nonhuman. Rather than controlling our environments using methods rooted in human exceptionalism (i.e., we know best), we are urged to learn from our kin. Rather than “using” land, water, and wildlife as “natural resources,” we are urged to be in reciprocity and right relationship with our kin. Rather than labeling birds, rocks, and rivers as “it,” we are urged to think of them as persons who have their own rights. Rather than being static, we are urged to be kinetic (Kin-etic?). Decolonization begins with unlearning, and this is a good place to begin.”—Aparna Rajagopal (she/her), founding partner of the Avarna Group and cofounder of PGM ONE Summit"The wonderful essays gathered here will stir minds and open hearts with the reminder that kinship is about how all things are connected, and that these relationships are best when acknowledged, attended to, and above all, savored."—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix: How Being in Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

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Book Synopsis*Part of the 5-Volume Set 2022 Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal Winner: Ecology & Environment and Special Honors as Best of Anthology Volume 3 of the Kinship series revolves around the question of interspecies relations: How do relations between and among different species foster a sense of responsibility and belonging in us? We live in an astounding world of relations. We share these ties that bind with our fellow humans—and we share these relations with nonhuman beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you breathe, this community of life is our kin—and, for many cultures around the world, being human is based upon this extended sense of kinship. Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. The five Kinship volumes—Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice—offer essays, interviews, poetry, and stories of solidarity, highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings. More than 70 contributors—including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Richard Powers, David Abram, J. Drew Lanham, and Sharon Blackie—invite readers into cosmologies, narratives, and everyday interactions that embrace a more-than-human world as worthy of our response and responsibility. How do cultural traditions, narratives, and mythologies shape the ways we relate, or not, to other beings as kin? “Partners,” Volume 3 of the Kinship series, looks to the intimate relationships of respect and reverence we share with nonhuman species. The essayists and poets in this volume explore the stunning diversity of our relations to nonhuman persons—from biologist Merlin Sheldrake’s reflections on microscopic fungal networks, to writer Julian Hoffman’s moving stories about elephant emotions and communication, to Indigenous seed activist Rowen White’s deep care for plant relatives and ancestors. Our relationships to other creatures are not merely important; they make us possible. As poet Brenda Cárdenas, inspired by her cultural connections to the monarch butterfly, notes in this volume: “We are— / one life passing through the prism / of all others, gathering color and song.” Proceeds from sales of Kinship benefit the nonprofit, non-partisan Center for Humans and Nature, which partners with some of the brightest minds to explore human responsibilities to each other and the more-than-human world. The Center brings together philosophers, ecologists, artists, political scientists, anthropologists, poets and economists, among others, to think creatively about a resilient future for the whole community of life.Trade Review“This collection is a passionate call to turn towards the living Earth with reverence and respect, and in so doing to cultivate new and old forms of curiosity, of understanding, and of responsibility. Across five captivating volumes, Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations brings together a rich diversity of voices and perspectives. Contributions range in form from poetry to interviews and essays, drawing on and engaging with the insights of Indigenous stories, philosophy, the natural sciences, and much more. Ultimately, this is a collection that does much more than simply describe the webs of relationship that are our world of kin. At the same time, it invites and at times pulls the reader into a sense of the fundamental sharedness of all life and our profound obligations, perhaps now more than ever, to hold open room for others to be and to become in their own unique and precious ways.”—Thom van Dooren, author of The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds“Essential reading about the question of our time: how to belong. A chorus of beautiful, wise, grieving, exulting, and generative voices, guiding us into true ‘family values’ for a wild living Earth. These collections offer rare and rich insight into how to find, honor, and heal the bonds of blood, place, time, and ethics that knit us to all other beings.”—David George Haskell, author of The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees"Sometimes when we are working with a document, when it’s growing and changing, we call it “live.” Likewise, this book is live. It’s full of life. It’s living inside you as you read it and you are living inside it. It’s changing you and you’re changing it. May this book be a living document that guides us toward love and care for all kin."—Janisse Ray, author of Wild Spectacle"The Kinship series of books is an ensemble of outstanding essays that reveal the truth that reality is rooted in relationships. After reading these marvellous essays, it becomes crystal clear that there is no reality outside relationships. These books shatter the old story of separation between humans and Nature and explode the belief that nature is a machine and the planet Earth is a dead rock. Here is the new story of the living Earth and a celebration of deep connectivity of life; human as well as more-than-human life. These are inspiring and enlightening essays. They will change your perception of Nature. I recommend these books wholeheartedly!"—Satish Kumar, Founder, Schumacher College, Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist“What a joyful series this is, this family of books, crafted with love, clarity, and compassion by a family of poets, scholars, and sages. Together the volumes form a five-part harmony, converging beautifully around notions of kinship and kinning. The authors ask, how do we rightly relate? How may we learn to live well with our kin? Can we listen with sensitivity to the voices and languages of others, the beings with fur, claws, wings, scales, and fins with whom we share the mountains, rivers, seas, grasslands, and forests, places that ring with spirit and meaning, too, who are family, too? The chapters are stories as much as studies, narratives born from experience, wisdom, and observations over many generations. I can’t wait to share this family with my students and colleagues in conservation and anthropology, and with my friends and kin everywhere.”—Dr. Amanda Stronza, Anthropologist and Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University“Kinship is essential reading. Five books of elemental grace and charm, beginning with a spider's web. Each strand glistens in the sunlight, dreaming, catch and release, a journey through the multiverse. Each gathering of words, a page, a tribe, a story of who we are, who we have been, and who we've yet to become, shiny, bright, new, and very old. The DNA of rock and stone, of all our relations, the chemistry of breathing, letting go, and Love. Again, again, and again.”—John Francis, PhD, author of Planetwalker: 17 Years of Silence, 22 Years of Walking “At a time when divisive politics and human-first ideologies dominate public discourse, Kinship provides a deeply-moving, soul-rejuvenating, and course-correcting primer for recognizing and building relationships among all living things. Here readers will find solace in essays and poems about what we’re losing, as well as inspiration for how to live well with other humans—and with our other-than-human kin. But Kinship is more than instructive. Taken together, these exquisite volumes are a balm for the soul.”—Dr. Amy Brady, Executive Director of Orion magazine"Kinship is the type of series I would want to gift to my wild, untamed, and unschooled children, for from its pages springs an education at the end of homogenous time, a crack in the tarmac of ascension, an insurgency of the hitherto invisible. At a time when the human is no longer tenable as a category unto itself, we will need the prophetic voices of these poets, philosophers, mothers, fathers, scientists, thinkers, public intellectuals, artists, and awestruck fugitives to kindle a politics of humility, to help us fall down to earth from our gilded perches, to help us stray from the threatening familiarity of our own image. It is time to meet the others we imagined we left behind: this constellation of stars will guide us."—Bayo Akomolafe, Ph.D., author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home “The Kinship series upends colonial paradigms around humans and our relationship with more-than-human nature. These paradigms have driven mainstream environmental movements to engage in myopic efforts that at times have exacerbated ecological imbalances. Through stories, essays, art, poetry, and more, contributors chip away at the layers that bind our collective colonial ethos. Rather than owning nature, we are urged to think about our kinship with all that is nonhuman. Rather than controlling our environments using methods rooted in human exceptionalism (i.e., we know best), we are urged to learn from our kin. Rather than “using” land, water, and wildlife as “natural resources,” we are urged to be in reciprocity and right relationship with our kin. Rather than labeling birds, rocks, and rivers as “it,” we are urged to think of them as persons who have their own rights. Rather than being static, we are urged to be kinetic (Kin-etic?). Decolonization begins with unlearning, and this is a good place to begin.”—Aparna Rajagopal (she/her), founding partner of the Avarna Group and cofounder of PGM ONE Summit"The wonderful essays gathered here will stir minds and open hearts with the reminder that kinship is about how all things are connected, and that these relationships are best when acknowledged, attended to, and above all, savored."—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix: How Being in Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

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Book Synopsis*Part of the 5-Volume Set 2022 Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal Winner: Ecology & Environment and Special Honors as Best of Anthology Volume 4 of the Kinship series revolves around the question of interpersonal relations: Which experiences expand our understanding of being human in relation to other-than-human beings? We live in an astounding world of relations. We share these ties that bind with our fellow humans—and we share these relations with nonhuman beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you breathe, this community of life is our kin—and, for many cultures around the world, being human is based upon this extended sense of kinship. Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. The five Kinship volumes—Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice—offer essays, interviews, poetry, and stories of solidarity, highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings. More than 70 contributors—including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Richard Powers, David Abram, J. Drew Lanham, and Sharon Blackie—invite readers into cosmologies, narratives, and everyday interactions that embrace a more-than-human world as worthy of our response and responsibility. Kinship spans the cosmos, but it is perhaps most life changing when experienced directly and personally. “Persons,” Volume 4 of the Kinship series, attends to the personal—our unique experiences with particular creatures and landscapes. This includes nonhuman kin that become our allies, familiars, and teachers as we navigate a “world as full of persons, human and otherwise, all more-or-less close kin, all deserving respect,” as religious studies scholar Graham Harvey puts it. The essayists and poets in the volume share a wide variety of kinship-based experiences—from Australian ecophilosopher Freya Mathews’s perspective on climate-related devastation on her country’s koalas, to English professor and forest therapy guide Kimberly Ruffin’s reclamation of her “inner animal,” to German biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber’s absorption with and by lichen. Our kinships are interpersonal, and being “pried open with curiosity,” as poet and hip-hop emcee Manon Voice notes in this volume, “Stir the first of many magicks.” Proceeds from sales of Kinship benefit the nonprofit, non-partisan Center for Humans and Nature, which partners with some of the brightest minds to explore human responsibilities to each other and the more-than-human world. The Center brings together philosophers, ecologists, artists, political scientists, anthropologists, poets and economists, among others, to think creatively about a resilient future for the whole community of life.Trade Review“This collection is a passionate call to turn towards the living Earth with reverence and respect, and in so doing to cultivate new and old forms of curiosity, of understanding, and of responsibility. Across five captivating volumes, Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations brings together a rich diversity of voices and perspectives. Contributions range in form from poetry to interviews and essays, drawing on and engaging with the insights of Indigenous stories, philosophy, the natural sciences, and much more. Ultimately, this is a collection that does much more than simply describe the webs of relationship that are our world of kin. At the same time, it invites and at times pulls the reader into a sense of the fundamental sharedness of all life and our profound obligations, perhaps now more than ever, to hold open room for others to be and to become in their own unique and precious ways.”—Thom van Dooren, author of The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds“Essential reading about the question of our time: how to belong. A chorus of beautiful, wise, grieving, exulting, and generative voices, guiding us into true ‘family values’ for a wild living Earth. These collections offer rare and rich insight into how to find, honor, and heal the bonds of blood, place, time, and ethics that knit us to all other beings.”—David George Haskell, author of The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees"Sometimes when we are working with a document, when it’s growing and changing, we call it “live.” Likewise, this book is live. It’s full of life. It’s living inside you as you read it and you are living inside it. It’s changing you and you’re changing it. May this book be a living document that guides us toward love and care for all kin."—Janisse Ray, author of Wild Spectacle"The Kinship series of books is an ensemble of outstanding essays that reveal the truth that reality is rooted in relationships. After reading these marvellous essays, it becomes crystal clear that there is no reality outside relationships. These books shatter the old story of separation between humans and Nature and explode the belief that nature is a machine and the planet Earth is a dead rock. Here is the new story of the living Earth and a celebration of deep connectivity of life; human as well as more-than-human life. These are inspiring and enlightening essays. They will change your perception of Nature. I recommend these books wholeheartedly!"—Satish Kumar, Founder, Schumacher College, Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist“What a joyful series this is, this family of books, crafted with love, clarity, and compassion by a family of poets, scholars, and sages. Together the volumes form a five-part harmony, converging beautifully around notions of kinship and kinning. The authors ask, how do we rightly relate? How may we learn to live well with our kin? Can we listen with sensitivity to the voices and languages of others, the beings with fur, claws, wings, scales, and fins with whom we share the mountains, rivers, seas, grasslands, and forests, places that ring with spirit and meaning, too, who are family, too? The chapters are stories as much as studies, narratives born from experience, wisdom, and observations over many generations. I can’t wait to share this family with my students and colleagues in conservation and anthropology, and with my friends and kin everywhere.”—Dr. Amanda Stronza, Anthropologist and Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University“Kinship is essential reading. Five books of elemental grace and charm, beginning with a spider's web. Each strand glistens in the sunlight, dreaming, catch and release, a journey through the multiverse. Each gathering of words, a page, a tribe, a story of who we are, who we have been, and who we've yet to become, shiny, bright, new, and very old. The DNA of rock and stone, of all our relations, the chemistry of breathing, letting go, and Love. Again, again, and again.”—John Francis, PhD, author of Planetwalker: 17 Years of Silence, 22 Years of Walking “At a time when divisive politics and human-first ideologies dominate public discourse, Kinship provides a deeply-moving, soul-rejuvenating, and course-correcting primer for recognizing and building relationships among all living things. Here readers will find solace in essays and poems about what we’re losing, as well as inspiration for how to live well with other humans—and with our other-than-human kin. But Kinship is more than instructive. Taken together, these exquisite volumes are a balm for the soul.”—Dr. Amy Brady, Executive Director of Orion magazine"Kinship is the type of series I would want to gift to my wild, untamed, and unschooled children, for from its pages springs an education at the end of homogenous time, a crack in the tarmac of ascension, an insurgency of the hitherto invisible. At a time when the human is no longer tenable as a category unto itself, we will need the prophetic voices of these poets, philosophers, mothers, fathers, scientists, thinkers, public intellectuals, artists, and awestruck fugitives to kindle a politics of humility, to help us fall down to earth from our gilded perches, to help us stray from the threatening familiarity of our own image. It is time to meet the others we imagined we left behind: this constellation of stars will guide us."—Bayo Akomolafe, Ph.D., author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home “The Kinship series upends colonial paradigms around humans and our relationship with more-than-human nature. These paradigms have driven mainstream environmental movements to engage in myopic efforts that at times have exacerbated ecological imbalances. Through stories, essays, art, poetry, and more, contributors chip away at the layers that bind our collective colonial ethos. Rather than owning nature, we are urged to think about our kinship with all that is nonhuman. Rather than controlling our environments using methods rooted in human exceptionalism (i.e., we know best), we are urged to learn from our kin. Rather than “using” land, water, and wildlife as “natural resources,” we are urged to be in reciprocity and right relationship with our kin. Rather than labeling birds, rocks, and rivers as “it,” we are urged to think of them as persons who have their own rights. Rather than being static, we are urged to be kinetic (Kin-etic?). Decolonization begins with unlearning, and this is a good place to begin.”—Aparna Rajagopal (she/her), founding partner of the Avarna Group and cofounder of PGM ONE Summit"The wonderful essays gathered here will stir minds and open hearts with the reminder that kinship is about how all things are connected, and that these relationships are best when acknowledged, attended to, and above all, savored."—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix: How Being in Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

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Book Synopsis*Part of the 5-Volume Set 2022 Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal Winner: Ecology & Environment and Special Honors as Best of Anthology Volume 5 of the Kinship series revolves around the question of practice: What are the practical, everyday, and lifelong ways we become kin? We live in an astounding world of relations. We share these ties that bind with our fellow humans—and we share these relations with nonhuman beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you breathe, this community of life is our kin—and, for many cultures around the world, being human is based upon this extended sense of kinship. Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. These five Kinship volumes—Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice—offer essays, interviews, poetry, and stories of solidarity, highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings. More than 70 contributors—including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Richard Powers, David Abram, J. Drew Lanham, and Sharon Blackie—invite readers into cosmologies, narratives, and everyday interactions that embrace a more-than-human world as worthy of our response and responsibility. These diverse voices render a wide range of possibilities for becoming better kin. From the perspective of kinship as a recognition of nonhuman personhood, of kincentric ethics, and of kinship as a verb involving active and ongoing participation, how are we to live? “Practice,” Volume 5 of the Kinship series, turns to the relations that we nurture and cultivate as part of our lived ethics. The essayists and poets in this volume explore how we make kin and strengthen kin relationships through respectful participation—from creative writer and dance teacher Maya Ward’s weave of landscape, story, song, and body, to Lakota peace activist Tiokasin Ghosthorse’s reflections on language as a key way of knowing and practicing kinship, to cultural geographer Amba Sepie’s wrestling with how to become kin when ancestral connections have frayed. The volume concludes with an amazing and spirited conversation between John Hausdoerffer, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Sharon Blackie, Enrique Salmon, Orrin Williams, and Maria Isabel Morales on the breadth and qualities of kinship practices. Proceeds from sales of Kinship benefit the nonprofit, non-partisan Center for Humans and Nature, which partners with some of the brightest minds to explore human responsibilities to each other and the more-than-human world. The Center brings together philosophers, ecologists, artists, political scientists, anthropologists, poets and economists, among others, to think creatively about a resilient future for the whole community of life.Trade Review“This collection is a passionate call to turn towards the living Earth with reverence and respect, and in so doing to cultivate new and old forms of curiosity, of understanding, and of responsibility. Across five captivating volumes, Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations brings together a rich diversity of voices and perspectives. Contributions range in form from poetry to interviews and essays, drawing on and engaging with the insights of Indigenous stories, philosophy, the natural sciences, and much more. Ultimately, this is a collection that does much more than simply describe the webs of relationship that are our world of kin. At the same time, it invites and at times pulls the reader into a sense of the fundamental sharedness of all life and our profound obligations, perhaps now more than ever, to hold open room for others to be and to become in their own unique and precious ways.”—Thom van Dooren, author of The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds“Essential reading about the question of our time: how to belong. A chorus of beautiful, wise, grieving, exulting, and generative voices, guiding us into true ‘family values’ for a wild living Earth. These collections offer rare and rich insight into how to find, honor, and heal the bonds of blood, place, time, and ethics that knit us to all other beings.”—David George Haskell, author of The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees"Sometimes when we are working with a document, when it’s growing and changing, we call it “live.” Likewise, this book is live. It’s full of life. It’s living inside you as you read it and you are living inside it. It’s changing you and you’re changing it. May this book be a living document that guides us toward love and care for all kin."—Janisse Ray, author of Wild Spectacle"The Kinship series of books is an ensemble of outstanding essays that reveal the truth that reality is rooted in relationships. After reading these marvellous essays, it becomes crystal clear that there is no reality outside relationships. These books shatter the old story of separation between humans and Nature and explode the belief that nature is a machine and the planet Earth is a dead rock. Here is the new story of the living Earth and a celebration of deep connectivity of life; human as well as more-than-human life. These are inspiring and enlightening essays. They will change your perception of Nature. I recommend these books wholeheartedly!"—Satish Kumar, Founder, Schumacher College, Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist“What a joyful series this is, this family of books, crafted with love, clarity, and compassion by a family of poets, scholars, and sages. Together the volumes form a five-part harmony, converging beautifully around notions of kinship and kinning. The authors ask, how do we rightly relate? How may we learn to live well with our kin? Can we listen with sensitivity to the voices and languages of others, the beings with fur, claws, wings, scales, and fins with whom we share the mountains, rivers, seas, grasslands, and forests, places that ring with spirit and meaning, too, who are family, too? The chapters are stories as much as studies, narratives born from experience, wisdom, and observations over many generations. I can’t wait to share this family with my students and colleagues in conservation and anthropology, and with my friends and kin everywhere.”—Dr. Amanda Stronza, Anthropologist and Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University“Kinship is essential reading. Five books of elemental grace and charm, beginning with a spider's web. Each strand glistens in the sunlight, dreaming, catch and release, a journey through the multiverse. Each gathering of words, a page, a tribe, a story of who we are, who we have been, and who we've yet to become, shiny, bright, new, and very old. The DNA of rock and stone, of all our relations, the chemistry of breathing, letting go, and Love. Again, again, and again.”—John Francis, PhD, author of Planetwalker: 17 Years of Silence, 22 Years of Walking “At a time when divisive politics and human-first ideologies dominate public discourse, Kinship provides a deeply-moving, soul-rejuvenating, and course-correcting primer for recognizing and building relationships among all living things. Here readers will find solace in essays and poems about what we’re losing, as well as inspiration for how to live well with other humans—and with our other-than-human kin. But Kinship is more than instructive. Taken together, these exquisite volumes are a balm for the soul.”—Dr. Amy Brady, Executive Director of Orion magazine"Kinship is the type of series I would want to gift to my wild, untamed, and unschooled children, for from its pages springs an education at the end of homogenous time, a crack in the tarmac of ascension, an insurgency of the hitherto invisible. At a time when the human is no longer tenable as a category unto itself, we will need the prophetic voices of these poets, philosophers, mothers, fathers, scientists, thinkers, public intellectuals, artists, and awestruck fugitives to kindle a politics of humility, to help us fall down to earth from our gilded perches, to help us stray from the threatening familiarity of our own image. It is time to meet the others we imagined we left behind: this constellation of stars will guide us."—Bayo Akomolafe, Ph.D., author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home “The Kinship series upends colonial paradigms around humans and our relationship with more-than-human nature. These paradigms have driven mainstream environmental movements to engage in myopic efforts that at times have exacerbated ecological imbalances. Through stories, essays, art, poetry, and more, contributors chip away at the layers that bind our collective colonial ethos. Rather than owning nature, we are urged to think about our kinship with all that is nonhuman. Rather than controlling our environments using methods rooted in human exceptionalism (i.e., we know best), we are urged to learn from our kin. Rather than “using” land, water, and wildlife as “natural resources,” we are urged to be in reciprocity and right relationship with our kin. Rather than labeling birds, rocks, and rivers as “it,” we are urged to think of them as persons who have their own rights. Rather than being static, we are urged to be kinetic (Kin-etic?). Decolonization begins with unlearning, and this is a good place to begin.”—Aparna Rajagopal (she/her), founding partner of the Avarna Group and cofounder of PGM ONE Summit"The wonderful essays gathered here will stir minds and open hearts with the reminder that kinship is about how all things are connected, and that these relationships are best when acknowledged, attended to, and above all, savored."—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix: How Being in Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

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Book SynopsisThrough the pages of Casting Back Peter McMullan takes the reader from his youthful Irish beginnings in the 1940s to his time as a young journalist in Northern Ireland during the mid-1950s, through the 1960s and into today’s western Canada and a totally different sport fishing environment.Pike and bream, roach, tench and perch were his original targets – what British and Irish anglers call “coarse” fish. Then, with experience and the passage of time, came brown trout and Atlantic salmon – the more highly regarded “game” fish – as angling with lures and sometimes even “garden olives” gave way to dressed silk flies and fine handmade rods crafted from split cane. Moving from Northern Ireland to British Columbia in the 1970s brought an entirely new dimension to McMullan’s fishing life, as there were now Pacific salmon and legendary steelhead to be caught in stunning rivers too numerous to name.The author’s recollections range from stories of being that boarding school boy who would slip away from his still-sleeping dormitory before dawn to fish for tench, to the time when an Irish pig stole his salmon, to an encounter with a black bear in British Columbia that just might have been a serious threat. Pivot from there to reflections on the lives of commercial fishers of herring in the Irish Sea and trout in Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles, and finally to the ruminations of a now very experienced angler fortunate enough to travel twice to New Zealand to seek out big trout.There is one more tale that just had to be included, and for the very first time it can be told. A yarn involving a nine-weight fly rod, a police bomb squad and one of the biggest international events to be staged in Canada in recent years. Definitely hard to believe, but all too true.

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Book SynopsisThe compelling story of one family's life among the rugged landscapes of the Coast Mountains, converting youthful ideals, raw land and a passion for the outdoors into a practical off-grid homestead.Rob Wood grew up in a village on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, where he eventually developed an obsessive preoccupation with rock climbing. After studying architecture for five years at the Architectural Association School in London, England, and becoming an architect, he made his way to Montreal, then to Winnipeg and ended up in Calgary. During his time in Canada, Rob became a pioneer of ice climbing and posted numerous first ascents in the Rockies.Eventually, life in corporate Alberta proved unfulfilling and Rob realized that he needed to find a place where he could reconnect with nature, which brought him to the remote reaches of Canada's West Coast. Settling on Maurelle Island, he and his wife built an off-the-grid homestead and focused on alternative communities and developing a small house-design practice specializing in organic and wholesome building techniques.At Home in Nature is a gentle and philosophical memoir that focuses on living a life deeply rooted in the natural world, where citizens are connected to the planet and individuals work together to help, enhance and make the world a better and sustainable place.

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Book SynopsisDrawn from 55 years of excessive obsession with trout, water, streams, and flies, this collection of essays from Canada's most widely read fly-fishing author since Roderick Haig-Brown reveals the depth of engagement that this sport engenders. Poised and polished words reveal the flaws and virtues of humanity, the strength of Mother Nature, the beautiful mystery that is a wild trout, and the obsessed's inexplicable need to outsmart a creature with a brain the size of a pea.Fly fishing is considered perhaps the most reflective and graceful of outdoor pursuits, and author Jim McLennan agrees for the most part. Trout Tracks includes pieces on fly-fishing people and fly-fishing places, plus stories of quiet successes and loud failures, in sum revealing the soul of the quiet sport.You won't learn from this book how to cast farther or tie a knot faster, but if you've ever fly fished or if you want to you'll smile and understand more clearly the seduction of wild trout in wild places.

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Book SynopsisA unique look at the cultural, environmental, historical, literary, metaphorical, and political role of the wolf.Echo Loba, Loba Echo is a story about the metaphor of the wolf and how this is echoed in the lives and minds of people. A metaphor that embodies worldviews colliding, and the collision, the fallout, we live with still. It is a story about wolves? own cultures, survival stories, acts of rebellion, and vital roles in maintaining healthy territories. And it is also a story about what we have been told to forget, or never even know, and what wolves show us about ourselves.Through essay and poetry, the metaphor of the wolf, and loba ? for she-wolf ? is examined the way one might observe the light off a prism, in multi-dimensional ways. The associations are many and diametrically varied. Wolf as scapegoat, villain, outcast, blamed for human violence. Wolf as warrior, guide, mother to stray or orphaned children as well as her own pups. The Ojibwe word for wolf is ma?iingan: the one sent here by that all-loving spirit to show us the way. Wolf (Latin: lupus), which is another word for whore (lupa), for woman. Wolf, another word for backcountry. Yet the choice is not an easy duality, not simply between the notion of wolf as heroine or wolf as devil.

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Book SynopsisIn Casting Quiet Waters, some of North America's most respected literary writers take us on a fishing trip and use that as an opportunity to explore issues of the human condition. A little more than five centuries ago an odd English nun named Dame Juliana Berners ("The Prioress of St. Albans") wrote the first book about fishing. Her obscure but legendary tome, a Treatysse of Fyshynge wyth an Angle, is as much a work of philosophy as a how-to manual, and in it she prescribes fishing as "a cure for domestic calamatie." This anthology responds to her advice. A dozen of North America's top writers embark on individual fishing trips and see if limpid water and the silence of wild places will help them reflect on their own lives and calamities. The exploratory process of writing is not so different from the process of trawling the unknown invisible world beneath the surface of a river or lake. The angler and writer both toss lines, chase shadows, and spend countless hours pondering what might have been if they'd handled that last opportunity with more gentleness and skill.

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Book Synopsis“What [Ekelund is] addressing is the intention to walk one’s way to meaning: the walk as spiritual exercise, a kind of vision quest... A key strategy for finding ourselves, then, is to first get lost.”—The New York Times Book ReviewAn ode to paths and the journeys we take through nature, as told by a gifted writer who stopped driving and rediscovered the joys of traveling by foot.Torbjørn Ekelund started to walk—everywhere—after an epilepsy diagnosis affected his ability to drive. The more he ventured out, the more he came to love the act of walking, and an interest in paths emerged. In this poignant, meandering book, Ekelund interweaves the literature and history of paths with his own stories from the trail. As he walks with shoes on and barefoot, through forest creeks and across urban streets, he contemplates the early tracks made by ancient snails and traces the wanderings of Romantic poets, amongst other musings. If we still “understand ourselves in relation to the landscape,” Ekelund asks, then what do we lose in an era of car travel and navigation apps? And what will we gain from taking to paths once again?“A charming read, celebrating the relationship between humans and their bodies, their landscapes, and one another.”—The Washington PostThis book was made possible in part thanks to generous support from NORLA.Trade Review“What [Ekelund]'s addressing is the intention to walk one’s way to meaning: the walk as spiritual exercise, a kind of vision quest in which the answers we arrive at are less important than the impulse to seek them.”—David Ulin, New York Times“A charming read, celebrating the relationship between humans and their bodies, their landscapes, and one another.”—Washington Post“This lovely book taps into something primeval in us all.”—Star Tribune“[R]ethinking the social, historical, and spiritual needs that are met by putting one foot in front of the other.”—Outside Magazine“[Urges] a return to our ambulatory origins…[N]ever low on zeal.”—Wall Street Journal“[Ekelund] invites his readers to join him on his chosen path, a path that involves regular walking with careful mindfulness. This is an invitation we should all accept.”—The Vancouver Sun“A deeply fascinating meditation on the paths we take through our environment and our lives.”— Erling Kagge, author of Silence: In the Age of Noise and Walking: One Step at a Time“A quiet, reflective read.”—Booklist“An easygoing, gently unfolding memoir, it soothes in difficult times.”—Gail Perry, Winnipeg Free Press

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Book SynopsisWritten amid wildfires and atmospheric rivers, The Middle *extends Stephen Collis's investigation of threatened climate futures into a poetics of displacement and wandering. The fulcrum of a trilogy begun with *A History of the Theories of Rain, The Middle *hikes the shifting treelines of our warming world to reflect on the way all life is on the move. Focusing on the human-plant relationship, each of *The Middle's linked sequences employs various forms of citational practice, rooted in the idea of a poetic commons, a kind of literary seed dispersal where words are blown, carried, and scattered from one textual field to another, akin to all the plants and animals in motion on our dangerously heating planet.

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Book SynopsisAn engaging, informative, and visually stunning tour of the numerous native, introduced, and ornamental tree species found in Vancouvers Stanley Park, combining a wealth of botanical knowledge with a fascinating social history of the citys most celebrated landmark. Measuring 405 hectares (1,001 acres) in the heart of downtown Vancouver, Stanley Park is home to more than 180,000 trees. Ranging from centuries-old Douglas firs to ornamental Japanese cherry trees, the trees of Stanley Park have come to symbolize the ancient roots and diverse nature of the city itself. For years, Nina Shoroplova has wandered through Vancouvers urban forest and marvelled at the multitude of tree species that flourish there. In Legacy of Trees, Shoroplova tours Stanley Parks seawall and beaches, wetlands and trails, pathways and lawns in every season and every type of weather, revealing the history and botanical properties of each tree species. Unlike many urban parks, which are entirely cultivated, the area now called Stanley Park was an ancient forest before Canadas third-largest city grew around it. Tracing the parks Indigenous roots through its colonial history to its present incarnation as the jewel of Vancouver, visited by eight million locals and tourists annually, Legacy of Trees is a beautiful tribute to the trees that shape Stanley Parks evolving narrative.

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Book SynopsisArborophobia, the latest collection by award-winning poet Nancy Holmes, is a poetic spiritual reckoning. Its elegies, litanies, and indictments concern wonder, guilt, and grief about the journey of human life and the state of the natural world. When a child attempts suicide and western North America burns and the creep of mortality closes in, is spiritual and emotional solace possible or even desirable? Answers abound in measured, texturally intimate, and often surprising ways. The title sequence, named for a word that means “hatred of trees,” sassily blurs the boundaries between human beings and Ponderosa pines, reminding us how fragile our conceptual frameworks really are. Another sequence responds to Julian of Norwich’s writing and call “to practise the art / of letting things happen.” Saints’ lives interlace with our quotidian experience, smudging connections between the spiritual and the earthly. Taking a hard look at what we have done to this beautiful planet and to those we love, Arborophobia is a companion for all who grapple with the problem of hope in times of crisis.Trade ReviewArborophobia, the latest collection by award-winning poet Nancy Holmes, is a poetic spiritual reckoning. Its elegies, litanies, and indictments concern wonder, guilt, and grief about the journey of human life and the state of the natural world. -- 49th Shelf, February 28, 2022#8 on the Calgary Herald Non-fiction bestsellers list, May 2, 2022"Arborophobia is made up of a series of narrative, meditative lyric on trees and dementia, loss and falling, mothers and motherhood, grief and erosion. Holmes writes of breakings, and of breaking apart, from climate to forests to the human ability to endure.... Through long, narrative stretches, she offers poems as companion pieces to climate anxiety, personal loss and the uncertainty of where we sit as a species, thanks in large part due to an array of choices both historic and ongoing." rob mclennan, April 27, 2022 [https://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2022/04/nancy-holmes-arborophobia.html]"'The slow unzipping/ Of the body from time:/ I didn’t notice.' Nancy Holmes brings us beautifully observed instances of the natural world, a huge breadth of imagery, and documentation of an intense engagement with the living world. There is wit, and colour, swagger, and texture all played out along these lines, which move and live, brimming with invention." Jury comments, SCWES Book Awards for BC Authors"... Nancy Holmes’ brilliant newest collection, Arborophobia, ... [explores] in some deeply philosophical ways the relationship between the natural and spiritual selves and the manifold ways in which one may negotiate the complexities of living a life bound up in both." Neil Querengesser, Canadian Literature, September 1, 2023 [Full review at https://canlit.ca/article/poetry-for-our-time/]Table of ContentsI Orb 2 The Tribes of Grass 3 The Milk Chute, an Ode 6 Spring Shave 7 Lunolio 10 Anemone in Cyprus 12 Saint Lucy 13 Newborn II Arborophobia 16 Ponderosa Pine 16 I. Gotcha 24 II. Qualms III Stain 32 Early Spring Elegy 33 Mother Julian Imagines One Drop of Christ’s Blood As the Scale of a Herring 34 Being Upright 36 The Time Being 48 Saint Veronica 49 WTF—The Anthropocene? 50 The Animals in That Backyard 52 Before the Flood 54 Dementia, the Queen 56 Meat 57 Pitted 58 Saint Ursula IV Julian 60 A Cloth in the Wind, or Being with Julian of Norwich Contents V Path 76 Saint Cainnech 77 Ways and Means 78 How I Came Back to the Morning 80 The Way We Are Made Of 81 Paths Taken 85 Notes 87 Acknowledgements"

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Book SynopsisA revised, updated edition to this gorgeous field guide, the most comprehensive ever published on the spectacular and breathtaking flora of this region.

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Book SynopsisThe poems in Catastrophe Theories reflect an increasingly unstable, surreal, and catastrophic world. Written over the past decade, the poems in Mari-Lou Rowley's oracular work capture the zeitgeist of the moment. A world where human folly and frailty compete with corpocracy and technological determinism against the stubborn magnificence of the natural world. Yet, these poems are neither prescriptive nor hopeless. Exploring the lives and concepts of mathematicians such as Euclid, Hypatia, Alan Turing, and René Thom, along with dream imagery and her love of science and nature, Rowley toys with perception, fractures reality into kaleidoscopic visions, then brings the reader back to small, everyday moments of truth or joy. As her speaker says, "Rejoice or regret. You decide."

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Book SynopsisThis Here Paradise begins with an epigraph from the work of Welsh poet, Menna Elfyn: "your language a hymn/ lost in the multitude,/ requiem for a world/ that's forgetting how to be". As if in response to this "forgetting," Wharton's poems move from the personal to cross a panorama of hopeful attentiveness. Clear images combine with a distinctive sense of rhythm and music to shape a collection both straight-ahead readable and carefully thoughtful, serious and playful. There is a recognition that paradise includes both highs and lows. The presumptive duality of these two conditions suggests a tension that resolves through the book's five sections, as Wharton opens a suitcase of birds and watches them soar over a landscape alive with radiant, open waters.

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Book SynopsisFinalist, New Brunswick Book Award for Non-FictionFrom the first sentence, "I come from a long line of river people," to the last, "Bad luck to kill a moose bird," Wayne Curtis signals that this book occupies the territory of a classic, a lyrical memoir of a river and those who submit to its call.New Brunswick's Miramichi River is one of the most entrancing salmon rivers in the world. In Fishing the High Country, Curtis has created what can only be described as a river masterpiece, a lyrical record of time and place, of those who are drawn to its side and those who cast their lines into its waters.Drawing on his experience of life along the river — as a boy, as a young man, and as a river guide among guides, Wayne Curtis crafts the compelling memoir of this place, a high country where he spins his tales, casts his flies, and fishes the river and woods for his stories. The Miramichi vibrates in Curtis's bones. His cast of characters are earthy, whimsical, and wise. His eye for the telling detail and his rooted understanding of lives lived humbly will captivate readers with its near mystical blend of the mysteries of fly fishing and the affections of the heart.Trade Review"This gripping and beautiful book takes us deep into the forests and river valleys of one of our finest backwoods cultures. One trip to the Miramichi and you'll never forget its people and places. If you haven't stood alongside that river, Wayne Curtis's wise and gentle writing will make you want to go." -- Jake MacDonald"A story of love and passion. Wayne Curtis led me through rivers and people of memory, stirring strong sentiments in every chapter. This is a book for angling addicts who cast lines on any patch of water in reality and in dreams. It will be my go-to book any time I need my angling emotions stroked." -- Katharine Mott"What a joy this book is, full of affection for and a wise reflection on the river people, their angling guests, and the waters they shared in New Brunswick's high country, which Curtis has made his own. 'I can feel every word the great river laid upon us,' he writes and, in this memoir, Curtis gives us back those deep and shining words as a great and lasting gift." -- Harry Thurston

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Book SynopsisWinner, New Brunswick Book Award (Non-Fiction) Longlisted, Miramichi Reader's "The Very Best!" Book Awards (Non-Fiction)A CBC New Brunswick Book List SelectionAn Atlantic Books Today Must-Have New Brunswick Books of 2020 SelectionThe Restigouche River flows through the remote border region between the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick, its magically transparent waters, soaring forest hillsides, and population of Atlantic salmon creating one of the most storied wild spaces on the continent. In Restigouche, writer Philip Lee follows ancient portage routes into the headwaters of the river, travelling by canoe to explore the extraordinary history of the river and the people of the valley. They include the Mi’gmaq, who have lived in the Restigouche valley for thousands of years; the descendants of French Acadian, Irish, and Scottish settlers; and some of the wealthiest people in the world who for more than a century have used the river as an exclusive wilderness retreat.The people of the Restigouche have long been both divided and united by a remarkable river that each day continues to assert itself, despite local and global industrial forces that now threaten its natural systems and the survival of the salmon. In the deep pools and rushing waters of the Restigouche, in this place apart in a rapidly changing natural world, Lee finds a story of hope about how to safeguard wild spaces and why doing so is the most urgent question of our time.Trade Review"From its geological origins, to the importance of this vast watershed to First Nations and early settlers alike, Philip Lee’s latest book, Restigouche: The Long Run of the Wild River, covers much ground, or more accurately water." -- Martin Silverstone * Atlantic Salmon Journal *"Restigouche is a paean for the river that flows for 200 kilometres through the remote border region between New Brunswick and Quebec, a river with beautifully transparent waters, forest hillsides and Atlantic salmon, and for the people who have lived beside and from the river for thousands of years." -- Chris Smith * Winnipeg Free Press *"In Restigouche, Philip Lee offers a rich and immersive travel memoir full of adventure, as well as the history of place and its people, a philosophical and ecological treatise, and a plea, if not a lament, for the natural world and all the living beings that depend on it. One man’s love and exploration of this one river offer the reader a glimpse of what’s possible when we pay due respect and attention to the world’s wild places, not to mention to the people who dwell there, and what calamity awaits when, as happens all too often, greed and decadence get the upper hand." -- Naomi K. Lewis“Told with a journalist's objectivity and a poet's sensibility, Lee’s Restigouche is an extraordinary work of research and finely-crafted writing that should be revisited and widely shared.” -- Wanda Baxter * Miramichi Reader's “Revisiting Restigouche” *

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Book SynopsisAn Atlantic Bestseller"A nature lover’s delight." — Chronicle HeraldNo one has done more to bring New Brunswick’s waterfalls to popular attention than Nicholas Guitard. He has sought out and documented hundreds of waterfalls, first on his website and then in a bestselling trail guide.Now ten years after the publication of the first edition, Guitard has a newly updated guide. From well-known favourites like Hays Falls and the "Grand Canyon of New Brunswick" at Walton Glen Gorge to previously unpublished waterfalls like Cigar Falls in Dalhousie, the second edition of Waterfalls of New Brunswick features 60 new waterfalls — all with full-colour maps and Guitard’s sumptuous photographs. You’ll want to get out and explore!Trade Review"A nature lover's delight." -- Chronicle Herald

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Book SynopsisThe author of Alder Music, Gary Saunders returns with an evocative, lyrical, and immersive collection of personal essays on our relationship with nature and with each other.In nine sections, Earthkeeping ruminates on the necessity of love and earthkeeping, on forage fish and robinsongs, and on the stewardship of our ecological landscape. Offering an antidote to the world’s anxiety about climate change, plastic pollution, and biodiversity loss, Saunders writes with a deep connection to the natural world and his signature humane zest for life. Lovingly illustrated with Saunders’s own drawings, the result is a joyful, personal, and deeply attentive stroll through an enchanted land of blue and green.Trade Review“The essays in Earthkeeping by naturalist-painter-writer Gary Saunders sum up his rich life in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia from the days of poverty-tinged fly-tying to the cod moratorium, as well as the seal glut, bumblebees and hornets, rural houses and characters, and the unparalleled close-up observation of a dragonfly eating a moosefly. The depth and cumulative value of these essays lies in Saunders’s habit of skilled and repetitive observation. A prophetic afterword echoes his hope for earth’s continuance as a sanctuary for life. This is a book for all of us, how we have lived and where we are going.” -- Annie Proulx, author of Barskins“Secretly we cherish “a moment when Nature’s beauty first smote us.” Gary Saunders reflects upon and investigates his relationship with the natural world, guiding himself to preserve his spiritual and conscious relationship with the world around him while still articulating his own irresponsibilities. Not without warnings, Earthkeeping reveals a kind wisdom and poet’s eye that I revelled in.” -- Boyd Chubbs, author of The Electric City“In Earthkeeping: Love Notes for Tough Times, writer Gary Saunders offers up a series of essays designed as a balm for the general ecological anxiety that is building in most of us, in step with the climate crisis. Saunders’ voice is wary but not panicked. With curiosity, care and humour he tackles the small stories — of roadside flowers, attempted turtle rescues and the merits (or lack thereof) of growing cattle corn — and although the collection creates an ethos for a way of thinking and feeling about the larger world.” -- Erica Butler * Atlantic Books Today *

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Book Synopsis“Few fish have captured the souls and minds of men and women quite like wild Atlantic salmon.” — Bill Taylor, President, Atlantic Salmon FederationCelebrating 75 years of conservation, the Atlantic Salmon Treasury works as a “best of” for the influential Atlantic Salmon Journal. This fascinating volume includes a curated selection of articles and essays by some of North America’s best writers on the art and lore of the wild Atlantic salmon. Beginning in 1948, the Atlantic Salmon Journal began publishing information and conservation material about the “king of fish.” In 1975, it released a Treasury from its first 25 years. This new edition takes up where the earlier volume ended, tracing the rise of salmon angling as a sport and into the era of conservation and the catch-and-release movement. The result is a journey through time with acclaimed writers such as Harry Bruce, Joan Wulff, Wilfred Carter, Thomas McGuane. Trade Review"Few fish have captured the souls and minds of men and women quite like wild Atlantic salmon." -- Bill Taylor, President, Atlantic Salmon Federation

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Book SynopsisUnderstanding the relationships between humans and animals is essential to a full understanding of both our present and our shared past. Across the humanities and social sciences, researchers have embraced the 'animal turn,' a multispecies approach to scholarship, with historians at the forefront of new research in human-animal studies that blends traditional research methods with interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks that decenter humans in historical narratives. These exciting approaches come with core methodological challenges for scholars seeking to better understand the past from non-anthropocentric perspectives.Whether in a large public archive, a small private collection, or the oral histories of living memories, stories of animals are mediated by the humans who have inscribed the records and organized archival collections. In oral histories, the place of animals in the past are further refracted by the frailty of human memory and recollection. Only traces remain for researchers to read and interpret.Bringing together seventeen original essays by a leading group of international scholars, Traces of the Animal Past showcases the innovative methods historians use to unearth and explain how animals fit into our collective histories. Situating the historian within the narrative, bringing transparency to methodological processes, and reflecting on the processes and procedures of current research, this book presents new approaches and new directions for a maturing field of historical inquiry.

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Book SynopsisUnderstanding the relationships between humans and animals is essential to a full understanding of both our present and our shared past. Across the humanities and social sciences, researchers have embraced the 'animal turn,' a multispecies approach to scholarship, with historians at the forefront of new research in human-animal studies that blends traditional research methods with interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks that decenter humans in historical narratives. These exciting approaches come with core methodological challenges for scholars seeking to better understand the past from non-anthropocentric perspectives.Whether in a large public archive, a small private collection, or the oral histories of living memories, stories of animals are mediated by the humans who have inscribed the records and organized archival collections. In oral histories, the place of animals in the past are further refracted by the frailty of human memory and recollection. Only traces remain for researchers to read and interpret.Bringing together seventeen original essays by a leading group of international scholars, Traces of the Animal Past showcases the innovative methods historians use to unearth and explain how animals fit into our collective histories. Situating the historian within the narrative, bringing transparency to methodological processes, and reflecting on the processes and procedures of current research, this book presents new approaches and new directions for a maturing field of historical inquiry.

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Book Synopsis

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