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Lieutenant Hornblower (A Horatio Hornblower Tale of the Sea #2)
by C. S. ForesterThe Second Horatio Hornblower Tale of the SeaThe nineteenth century dawns and the Napoleonic Wars rage as Horatio Hornblower is ordered to the Caribbean and dangerous waters.New Lieutenant Hornblower's latest ship is HMS Renown, a sound vessel whose captain is unfortunately of rather unsound mind. When ordered to attack a Spanish anchorage, the chain of command breaks down and it requires all of Hornblower's seafaring cunning to avert disaster. As cannons pound and splinters fly aboard their beleaguered vessel, and the men are forced to engage at close quarters, the young lieutenant knows that to save his ship and crew he must prove himself a master of the high seas . . .This is the second of eleven books chronicling the adventures of C. S. Forester's inimitable nautical hero, Horatio Hornblower.Featuring an exclusive introduction by Bernard Cornwell, creator of Sharpe'One of the best. Everyone interested in war, or in human nature, should read this fascinating tale' The Times Literary Supplement
Mr Midshipman Hornblower (A Horatio Hornblower Tale of the Sea #1)
by C. S. ForesterThe first Horatio Hornblower Tale of the Sea1793, the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, and Midshipman Horatio Hornblower receives his first command . . .As a seventeen-year-old with a touch of sea sickness, young Horatio Hornblower hardly cuts a dash in His Majesty's navy. Yet from the moment he is ordered to board a French merchant ship in the Bay of Biscay and take command of crew and cargo, he proves his seafaring mettle on the waves. After a character-forming duel, several deadly chases and some dramatic captures and escapes, the young Hornblower is soon forged into a formidable man of the sea.This is the first of eleven books chronicling the nautical adventures of C. S. Forester's inimitable hero, Horatio Hornblower.Featuring an exclusive introduction by Bernard Cornwell, creator of Sharpe'Absolutely compelling. One of the great masters of narrative' San Francisco Chronicle
Born Wild: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Passion for Lions and for Africa.
by Tony FitzjohnBorn Wild is a story of passion, adventure and skulduggery on the frontline of African conservation. Following Tony Fitzjohn's journey from London bad boy to African wildlife warrior, the heart of the story is a series of love affairs with the world's most beautiful and endangered creatures - affairs that so often end in pain, for to succeed in re-introducing a lion or leopard to the wild is to be deprived of their companionship. Tony tells of his twenty years in Kenya with George Adamson of Born Free fame - a time of discovery, isolation and frequent danger living far from civilisation. And when he was prevented from re-introducing any more animals into the wild and made unwelcome in the country he loved, Tony had to start anew in Tanzania.
Nature: Addresses, And Lectures
by Ralph EmersonOriginally published anonymously, Nature was the first modern essay to recommend the appreciation of the outdoors as an all-encompassing positive force. Emerson’s writings were recognized as uniquely American in style and content, and launched the idea of going for a walk as a new way of looking at the world. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
by Henry ThoreauThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic existences of 'quiet desperation' for a simple life within their means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.
An African Love Story: Love, Life and Elephants
by Dame Daphne SheldrickDaphne Sheldrick's best-selling love story of romance, life and elephants, An African Love Story: Love, Life and Elephants is an incredible story from Africa's greatest living conservationist.A typical day for Daphne involves rescuing baby elephants from poachers; finding homes for orphan elephants, all the while campaigning the ever-present threat of poaching for the ivory trade.An African Love Story is the incredible memoir of her life. It tells two stories - one is the extraordinary love story which blossomed when Daphne fell head over heels with Tsavo Game Park and its famous warden, David Sheldrick. The second is the love story of how Daphne and David, who devoted their lives to saving elephant orphans, at first losing every infant under the age of two until Daphne at last managed to devise the first-ever milk formula which would keep them alive. 'Compulsively readable', Mail on Sunday'An enchanting memoir', TelegraphDaphne Sheldrick has spent her entire life in Kenya. For over 25 years, she and her husband, David, the famous founder of the the giant Tsavo National Park, raised and rehabilitated back into the wild orphans of misfortune from many different wild species. These included elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, zebra, eland, kudu, impala, warthogs and many other smaller animals. In 2006 she was made Dame Commander of the British Empire by the Queen.
Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance (City Lights Open Media Ser.)
by Noam ChomskyIn Making the Future, Noam Chomsky takes on a wide range of hot-button issues including the ongoing financial crisis, Obama's presidency, the limits of the two-party system, nuclear Iran, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, corporate power, and the future of American politics. Laced throughout his critiques are expressions of commitment to democracy and the power of popular struggles. 'Progressive legislation and social welfare,' writes Chomsky, 'have been won by popular struggles, not gifts from above. Those struggles follow a cycle of success and setback. They must be waged every day, not just once every four years, always with the goal of creating a genuinely responsive democratic society, from the voting booth to the workplace.'Making the Future offers fierce, accessible, timely, gloves-off political writing by one of the world's foremost intellectual and political dissidents.
The Art of Camping: The History and Practice of Sleeping Under the Stars
by Matthew De AbaituaCould there be another way of life? Can I survive with less stuff? Should I run for the hills?These are all good questions that people have asked before, throughout history, and which have inspired people to set up camp. But now camping is part of the drive for self-sufficiency, a reaction against mass tourism, a chance to connect with the land, to experience a community, to leave no trace . . . From packing to pitching, with hikes into the deep history of the subject and encounters with the great campers and camping movements of the past, this is the only book you'll need to pack when you next head off to sleep under the stars.IF THERE IS ONE THING THAT CAMPERS LIKE MORE THAN CAMPING, IT'S DREAMING ABOUT THEIR NEXT TRIP
Ten Billion
by Stephen Emmott'I think we're fucked' Stephen EmmottTen Billion is a book about us.It's a book about you, your children, your parents, your friends. It's about every one of us. It's about our failure: failure as individuals, the failure of business, and the failure of our politicians.It is about an unprecedented planetary emergency.It's about the future of us.
The Art of Flight
by Fredrik SjöbergAccidental Journeys with the Bestselling Author of The Fly TrapStories just begin. We rarely know where and almost never why. It doesn't matter. Nothing is certain any longer. I just want to shut my eyes, point at random and say, as a sort of experiment, that once, when I was sixteen years old, I spent a whole night singing romantic songs in the top of a pine tree. That's where it may have started.Fredrik Sjöberg continues his exploration of the pleasures and trials of those who spend their time tracing the smallest details of the natural world in these two tales of ambition, fear and hapless romance. Calling on his childhood memories and experience as a hoverfly collector, and following the trail of long forgotten entomologists before him who left their native Sweden for the national parks of the United States, Sjöberg contemplates the richness of life and the strange paths it leads us on.
A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic
by Peter Wadhams'Utterly extraordinary ... the starkest book I've read on the impacts of accelerating climate change for a very long time ... if we're not listening to the likes of Peter Wadhams, then we too are in denial' Jonathon PorrittMost of the scientific establishment predict that the North Pole will be free of ice around the middle of this century. As Peter Wadhams, the world's leading expert on sea ice, demonstrates in this book, even this assessment of the future is optimistic.Wadhams has visited the Polar Regions more often than any other living scientist - 50 times since he was on the first ship to circumnavigate the Americas in 1970 - and has a uniquely authoritative perspective on the changes they have undergone and where those changes will lead. From his observations and the latest scientific research, he describes how dramatically sea ice has diminished over the past three decades, to the point at which, by the time this book is published, the Arctic may be free of ice for the first time in 10,000 years.Wadhams shows how sea ice is the 'canary in the mine' of planetary climate change. He describes how it forms and the vital role it plays in reflecting solar heat back into space and providing an 'air conditioning' system for the planet. He shows how a series of rapid feedbacks in the Arctic region are accelerating change there more rapidly than almost all scientists - and political authorities - have previously realised, and the dangers of further acceleration are very real.A Farewell to Ice is a report from the frontline of planetary change in the Arctic and Antarctic by a leading authority, presenting incontrovertible scientific data, but always in clear language which the layman can easily understand. It is one of the most important books published in recent years about the existential challenge which human civilization now faces.
Hopes and Prospects
by Noam ChomskyHopes and Prospects is Noam Chomsky's indispensable analysis of the world at present and a roadmap for the futureIn Hopes and Prospects, Noam Chomsky examines the challenges of our early twenty-first century. He explores obstacles and threats such as the widening gap between North and South America, US exceptionalism (which continues under Obama), the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US-Israeli assault on Gaza and the recent financial bailouts. He sees hope for the future and opportunities to move forward, however - in the democratic wave in Latin America and in the global solidarity movements which suggest 'real progress towards freedom and justice'.Hopes and Prospects is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the primary challenges facing the human race in the coming years.'A treasure-trove of truths that shouldn't be left buried in our sandpit of propaganda and lies' Johann Hari, Independent'Noam Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . he may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet today' The New York Times Book Review'The west's most prominent critic of US imperialism . . . the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar' GuardianNoam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political books, including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Interventions, Perilous Power, What We Say Goes, Imperial Ambitions, Making the Future, How the World Works, and Hopes and Prospects all of which are published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. He is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, and is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.
The Wood (Penguin English Journeys)
by John Stewart CollisAn academic and writer, during the Second World War John Stewart Collis was put to agricultural work. Clearing and thinning an Ash wood, he found a meditative peace and an earnest pleasure in the use of axe and bill-hook. The Wood contains his beautiful, thoughtful writing on the joys of nature and of a life of activity, how a love of the sun affects a man, and the progression of nature that sees each plant - hawthorn, honeysuckle, larch, elder - have its hour.Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too.It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).
Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction
by Chris D. ThomasIt is accepted wisdom today that human beings have irrevocably damaged the natural world. Yet what if this narrative obscures a more hopeful truth?In Inheritors of the Earth, renowned ecologist and environmentalist Chris D. Thomas overturns the accepted story, revealing how nature is fighting back.Many animals and plants actually benefit from our presence, raising biological diversity in most parts of the world and increasing the rate at which new species are formed, perhaps to the highest level in Earth's history. From Costa Rican tropical forests to the thoroughly transformed British landscape, nature is coping surprisingly well in the human epoch.Chris Thomas takes us on a gripping round-the-world journey to meet the enterprising creatures that are thriving in the Anthropocene, from York's ochre-coloured comma butterfly to hybrid bison in North America, scarlet-beaked pukekos in New Zealand, and Asian palms forming thickets in the European Alps. In so doing, he questions our irrational persecution of so-called 'invasive species', and shows us that we should not treat the Earth as a faded masterpiece that we need to restore. After all, if life can recover from the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, might it not be able to survive the onslaughts of a technological ape?Combining a naturalist's eye for wildlife with an ecologist's wide lens, Chris Thomas forces us to re-examine humanity's relationship with nature, and reminds us that the story of life is the story of change.
Ecology of Wisdom: Writings By Arne Naess (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Arne Næss'The smaller we come to feel ourselves compared with the mountain, the nearer we come to participating in its greatness.'Philosopher, mountaineer, activist and visionary, Arne Naess's belief that all living things have value made him one of the most inspirational figures in the environmental movement. Drawing on his years spent in an isolated hut high in the Norwegian mountains, and on influences as diverse as Gandhi's nonviolent action and Spinoza's all-encompassing worldview, this selection of the best of his writings is filled with wit, charisma and intense connection with nature. Emphasizing joy, cooperation and 'beautiful actions', they create a philosophy of life from a man who never lost his sense of wonder at the world. 'Arne Naess's ideas ... inspired environmentalists and Green political activists around the world' The New York Times
A Shepherd's Life: Impressions Of The South Wiltshire Downs
by W. H. HudsonConsidered a classic at the time of its publication in 1910, A Shepherd's Life is a rare account of the lives of those who lived on and worked the land in nineteenth-century rural Britain. A masterful work of prose, W. H. Hudson focuses on the story of one man, a Wiltshire shepherd named Caleb Bawcombe, whose tales of sheep dogs, farmer's wives, poachers and local fairs become a sublime account of a way of life that has largely disappeared from these shores.
The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry
by Wendell Berry'He is unlike anybody else writing today ... After Donald Trump's election, we urgently need to rediscover the best of radical America. An essential part of that story is Wendell Berry. Few of us can live, or even aspire to, his kind of life. But nobody can risk ignoring him' Andrew Marr'Wendell Berry is the most important writer and thinker that you have (probably) never heard of. He is an American sage' -James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd's Life Wendell Berry is 'something of an anachronism'. He began his life as the old times and the last of the old-time people were dying out, and continues to this day in the old ways: a team of work horses and a pencil are his preferred working tools. The writings gathered in The World-Ending Fire are the unique product of a life spent farming the fields of rural Kentucky with mules and horses, and of the rich, intimate knowledge of the land cultivated by this work. These are essays written in defiance of the false call to progress, and in defence of the local landscapes that provide our cultural heritage, our history, our home.In a time when our relationship to the natural world is ruled by the violence and greed of unbridled consumerism, Wendell Berry speaks out to defend the land we live on. With grace and conviction, he shows that we simply cannot afford to succumb to the mass-produced madness that drives our global economy. The natural world will not withstand it.Yet he also shares with us a vision of consolation and of hope. We may be locked in an uneven struggle, but we can and must begin to treat our land, our neighbours, and ourselves with respect and care. We must, as Berry urges, abandon arrogance and stand in awe.
Lottie Dolls: Lottie Solves a Mystery (Lottie)
by Lucie Braveheart Lottie Dolls Faye Yong Helen SmithMeet Lottie. She's a little girl just like you - she loves adventures, mysteries and her little puppy, Biscuit.When Lottie finds an old book all about beasts of the world in her attic, she can tell it's going to be the start of a brilliant adventure! All she needs is a beast of her own to track . . . and she doesn't have to wait long. There are strange rustlings and footprints in the Branksea Island woods! Lottie and her friends Mia and Finn set themselves the task of tracking down the Beast of Branksea. But what exactly is this mysterious creature? And can the trio find it before Mia's older brother Sammi ruins the whole adventure?
15 Million Degrees: A Journey to the Centre of the Sun
by Professor Lucie Green110 times wider than Earth; 15 million degrees at its core; an atmosphere so huge that Earth is actually within it: come and meet the star of our solar systemLight takes eight minutes to reach Earth from the surface of the Sun. But its journey within the Sun takes hundreds of thousands of years. What is going on in there? What are light and heat? How does the Sun produce them and how on earth did scientists discover this? In this astonishing and enlightening adventure, you'll travel millions of miles from inside the Sun to its surface and to Earth, where the light at the end of its journey is allowing you to read right now. You'll discover how the Sun works (including what it sounds like), the latest research in solar physics and how a solar storm could threaten everything we know. And you'll meet the groundbreaking scientists, including the author, who pieced this extraordinary story together.
Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J. M. W. Turner
by Franny MoyleThe man behind the paintings: the extraordinary life of J. M. W Turner, one of Britain's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated artistsJ. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise, and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life.A near mythical figure in his own lifetime, Franny Moyle tells the story of the man who was considered visionary at best and ludicrous at worst. A resolute adventurer, he found new ways of revealing Britain to the British, astounding his audience with his invention and intelligence. Set against the backdrop of the finest homes in Britain, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, this is an astonishing portrait of one of the most important figures in Western art and a vivid evocation of Britain and Europe in flux.
Power Systems: Conversations with David Barsamian on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
by Noam ChomskyPower Systems is a searing collection of new insights from the mind of Noam Chomsky, the world's most prolific public intellectual and author of the best-selling Failed States, Hopes and Prospects and Occupy. In this new collection of conversations, conducted from 2010 to 2012, Noam Chomsky explores the most immediate and urgent concerns: the future of democracy in the Arab world, the implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the 'class war' fought by U.S. business interests against working people and the poor, the breakdown of mainstream political institutions and the rise of the far right.The latest volume from a long-established, trusted partnership, this collection shows once again that no interlocutor engages with Chomsky more effectively than David Barsamian. These interviews will inspire a new generation of readers, as well as longtime Chomsky fans eager for his latest thinking on the many crises we now confront, both at home and abroad. They confirm that Chomsky is an unparalleled resource for anyone seeking to understand our world today.Praise for Noam Chomsky:'One of the finest minds of the twentieth century' New Yorker'Noam Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . he may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet today' New York Times Book Review'Will there ever again be a public intellectual who commands the attention of so many across the planet?' New Statesman'The west's most prominent critic of US imperialism . . . the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar' GuardianNoam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political books, including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Interventions, What We Say Goes, Hopes and Prospects and, most recently, Occupy, all of which are published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. He is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, and is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics.David Barsamian is the award-winning founder and director of Alternative Radio. He has authored several books of interviews with leading political thinkers. www.alternativeradio.org
Big Pig, Little Pig: A Year on a Smallholding in South-West France
by Jacqueline YallopAs heard on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week'A delightful and entertaining memoir' Woman and HomeWhen Jacqueline moves to south-west France with her husband, she embraces rural village life and buys two pigs to rear for slaughter. But as she gets to know the animals better, her English sentimentality threatens to get in the way and she begins to wonder if she can actually bring herself to kill them. This is a memoir about that fateful decision, but it's also about the ethics of meat eating in the modern age, and whether we should know, respect and even love the animals we eat. At its heart, this book is a love story, exploring the increasing attachment of the author for her particular pigs, and celebrating the enduring closeness of humans and pigs over the centuries.
The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World’s Rarest Species
by Carlos MagdalenaPassionate, forthright and enthusiastic, Carlos Magdalena is a world-renowned horticulturist - known both for his charisma and his conservation work.The Plant Messiah follows Carlos' dreams and disappointments; from his days as a school boy in the death throes of General Franco's Fascist dictatorship, to his advent as The Plant Messiah at the forefront of conservation, backed by the reputation and resources of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and enthused by the potential that lies beyond. The book discloses for the first time the details behind his 'codebreaking' exploits and the secret stories behind his work; his genius, lateral thinking and steadfast belief that everything is possible.
Optimism Over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, And Social Change
by Noam Chomsky C J PolychroniouAn essential overview of the problems of our world today -- and how we should prepare for tomorrow -- from the world's leading public intellectualWe have two choices. We can be pessimistic, give up, and help ensure that the worst will happen. Or we can be optimistic, grasp the opportunities that surely exist, and maybe help make the world a better place. Not much of a choice.From peerless political thinker Noam Chomsky comes an exploration of rising neoliberalism, the refugee crisis in Europe, the Black Lives Matter movement, the dysfunctional US electoral system, and the prospects and challenges of building a movement for radical change.Including four up-to-the-minute interviews on the 2016 American election campaign and global resistance to Trump, this Penguin Special is a concise introduction to Chomsky's ideas and his take on the state of the world today.
Using Detection Dogs to Monitor Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Protect Aquatic Resources
by Ngaio L. RichardsThis book is about the varied range of emerging applications using specially trained detection dogs to monitor and protect aquatic ecosystems, animals, plants and related resources. Featuring contributions from those at the forefront of converging disciplines ranging from canine training, ecological and biological monitoring, water resource management, law enforcement, and eco-toxicology, it addresses everyone already immersed in these or related fields, and anyone seeking to gain a broader understanding of them. Chapters cover several common themes including monitoring presence/absence through biological and ecological surveys; maintaining and evaluating water quality; law enforcement and anti-poaching initiatives; public education, awareness and compliance; standards and best practices; optimal uses of dogs in relation to and in conjunction with other available tools and pragmatic considerations for selecting and working with dogs and handlers. The aim of the book is to stimulate new ideas, promote the sharing and dissemination of information and findings - and, ideally, to catalyze new and innovative partnerships, to strengthen the preservation and conservation of our aquatic heritage.