Showing titles in Animals

Seashells, stretching from the deep past into the present day, are touchstones leading into fascinating realms of the natural world and cutting-edge science. In Spirals in Time, marine biologist Helen Scales shows how seashells have been sculpted by the fundamental rules of mathematics and evolution; how they gave us color, gems, food, and new medicines. Spirals in Time shows why nature matters and reveals the hidden wonders that you can hold in the palm of your hand.

Growing up in an ex-mining town in Nottinghamshire, Arthur Parkinson never wanted a dog, or a cat, or a pony - just hens. As a kid, he was known as 'chicken boy', a taunt Arthur now proudly reclaims with his crested coterie that includes countless hens, from Sheila the white Silkie to Clarissa the champagne-coloured Buff Cochin. A personal and humorous memoir of Arthur's life amongst his hens, this is an invitation to discover the joy that is only possible in the company of these intriguing creatures.

If you are at all interested in life on our planet, then you need to know about insects. They are the most successful group of animals ever to have lived on Earth. Making up three quarters of all animal species, insects conquered the planet long ago. They were among the very first animals to appear on land and were the first to take to the air. Their total biomass is at least 10 times that of all humans and our livestock combined.

Beasts in My Belfry is the wonderfully funny memoir about Gerald Durrell's time at Whipsnade Zoo and his experiences as a young zookeeper. Following the Second World War, Durrell joined Whipsnade Zoo as a junior keeper - an opportunity that fulfilled a lifelong dream. Thanks to Rupert Degas's brilliant voicing, which captures all of Durrell's charm and wit, the listener can enjoy being taken behind the scenes of one of the world's very first zoos. This is a delightful portrait of the animals who lived there and those who looked after them.

It's December 1997, and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote Russian village. The tiger isn't just killing people, it's annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. As the trackers sift through the gruesome remains of the victims, they discover that these attacks aren't random: the tiger is apparently engaged in a vendetta. Injured, starving, and extremely dangerous, the tiger must be found before it strikes again.

An international bestseller, the joys and challenges of a life dedicated to conservation are vividly described in The Elephants of Thula Thula by Françoise Malby-Anthony, owner of the Thula Thula reserve. 'Enthralling' - Daily Mail ‘Somehow, the elephants got into my soul, and it became my...

In A Yorkshire Vet Through the Seasons, Julian Norton, the star of Channel 5’s A Yorkshire Vet, recounts more inspirational tales from his life, the animals he has treated and the people he has met, as well as taking us through the seasons, showing the challenges that occur at the most unlikely times. Whether he's tending to a domestic pet at his practice in Thirsk or called out to an injured swan in the middle of a cold Yorkshire night, the animals always come first.

Coyote America is both an environmental and a deep natural history of the coyote. It traces both the five-million-year-long biological story of an animal that has become the "wolf" in our backyards and its cultural evolution from a preeminent spot in Native American religions to the hapless foil of the Road Runner. A deeply American tale, the story of the coyote in the American West and beyond is a sort of Manifest Destiny in reverse.

From the host of the Travel Channel’s “The Wild Within.” A hunt for the American buffalo—an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination. In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the...

Once again, John Gierach tells the world why the pastime of fly-fishing makes so much sense—except when it doesn't. In sparkling prose, with more than a touch of humor, he recalls the joys of landing that trout he's been watching for the last hour—and then losing an even fatter one a little later. Joy and frustration mix in Gierach's latest appreciation of the fly-fishing life as he takes us from his home waters on the Front Range of the Rockies in Colorado to fishing meccas all over North America.

Brought to you by Penguin. From the winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award comes an epic walk across the Alps in the footsteps of a wolf, throwing unique light on Europe's mountainous hinterlands at a moment of political and environmental change. In 2011, a young wolf named...

In the dark hours before dawn, in two separate locations miles apart, two grizzly bears attacked two young women sleeping at backcountry campsites. Julie Helgeson, nineteen, a seasonal park employee from Minnesota, was dragged from her sleeping bag near Granite Park Chalet and mauled while her companion survived. Michele Koons, also nineteen, was attacked at Trout Lake. She couldn't escape. Her sleeping bag zipper was stuck. The bear carried her into the night.

Bloomsbury presents The Great Auk: Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife by Tim Birkhead, read by John Sackville The life, death and afterlife of one of the true icons of extinction, the Great Auk The great auk was a flightless, goose-sized bird superbly adapted for life...

When Afia, a newborn Western Lowland Gorilla, is rejected by her mother Kera after a difficult birth, her human keepers start the challenging but rewarding experience of hand-rearing her themselves. Teaching her the ropes of life in the Gorilla House at Bristol Zoo is tricky enough. But providing 24/7 care for a baby gorilla means Alan must hand-rear Afia in his own home too, forging a remarkable emotional bond between them over the course of many sleepless nights.

The RSPB’s Book of the Season The distinctive white-tailed sea eagle was driven to extinction in Britain more than 200 years ago, but this immense predator is making a return to our skies, thanks to Roy Dennis, an ornithologist, conservationist and arguably the driving force behind the UK’s...

Optimistic field notes from the new normal for nature One thing has become clear this year - we need nature more than ever. And although the natural world has never been more under pressure, there are still reasons to be hopeful. Through personal stories, conservation breakthroughs and...

The war is over, the RAF uniform has been handed in and James Herriot goes back where he ought to be - at work in the dales around Darrowby. Much has changed, but the blunt-spoken Yorkshire folk and the host of four-legged patients are still the same. So is their vet, who doesn't yet know that literary success is just around the corner.

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Running Hare by John Lewis-Stempel, read by Bernard Hill. Traditional ploughland is disappearing. Seven cornfield flowers have become extinct in the last twenty years. Once abundant, the corn bunting and the lapwing are...

Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection – yet we know hardly anything...

'The most magical book about the African bush since Born Free' – Daily Mail 'A beautiful love story between humans and the majestic elephants' – Jo Malone, Daily Express Françoise Malby-Anthony never expected to find herself responsible for a herd of elephants with a troubled past. A chic...