Showing titles in Animals

For over half a century, landmark natural history series Living World has provided an inspiring introduction to the flora and fauna of Great Britain and beyond. Filmed on location at key ecological sites, it sees BBC wildlife presenters joined by guest experts for enthusiastic discussions and close encounters with our native wildlife. These classic archive programmes have all been specially selected by Chris Packham, who introduces each episode and gives us an overview of the places, people and species featured on the show.

When Linda Kohanov wrote The Tao of Equus over twenty years ago, she posed questions that few were asking: Do horses make choices? How do they seem to know what people are thinking and feeling? Are horses spiritual beings? What do they have to teach people? Why are women so attracted to horses? The answers, detailed in this extraordinary chronicle that synthesizes science, behavioral research, and personal insight, transformed how we think about one of humanity's oldest companions and established Kohanov at the vanguard of the emerging field of animal-assisted learning/therapy.

'Reading Hannah’s story, compellingly told, you will fall in love with these increasingly endangered birds, true masters of the sky.’ Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE The inspirational story of a bird lover who became a nature-warrior in a David v Goliath battle to save swifts from extinction. Nature...

Across the world, invasive species pose a danger to ecosystems. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity ranks them as a major threat to biodiversity on par with habitat loss, climate change, and pollution. Tackling this isn't easy, and no one knows this better than Hugh Warwick, a conservationist who loathes the idea of killing, harming, or even eating animals. Yet as an ecologist, he is acutely aware of the need, at times, to kill invasive species whose presence harms the wider environment.

Shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Book Shop Literary Prize 'This is one of those special books . . . Even if it were only a book about eels, it would be wonderful.' Sunday Times ‘What a joy! Patrick Svensson’s sinuous weaving of natural history, philosophy...

Read by the author, Neil Shea 'Magnificent and moving. Shea writes with the magic of an aurora illuminating how life is rapidly changing across the cold expanses of the Arctic' - Steve Brusatte, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs 'Enchanting and fascinating...

Ages before the dawn of modern medicine, wild animals were harnessing the power of nature's pharmacy to heal themselves. Doctors by Nature reveals what researchers are now learning about the medical wonders of the animal world. In this visionary book, Jaap de Roode argues that we have underestimated the healing potential of nature for too long and shows how the study of self-medicating animals could impact the practice of human medicine.

In this entertaining memoir, Rick McIntyre recounts his life spent amongst wild nature while working in the National Parks Service as a park ranger and shares the wisdom he has gained from spending nearly every day of his adult life in the presence of wolves.

Crows have long been the subject of folklore, likely because they’re strikingly similar to humans, leading lives rich in personality, intelligence, and relationships. In this episode, we fly the streets of Seattle with a crow as she grooms her mate, delivers what appears to be a gift, and finally commutes miles away from her territory to gather and chat with thousands of other crows before it’s time to roost for the night.

'You could call him Paddington,' Adam said, casually, 'Don't name him! I said, as if this was self-evident. Names turn situations into responsibilities. When Mirelle Radley set off for Peru with her cousin Adam, hoping to heal her broken heart, she didn't expect to meet someone who would change...

Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt is on a mission. Some say it's a brave exploration, others shake their heads in disbelief. His goal? To compare the impacts of stinging insects on humans, mainly using himself as the gauge. In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects, seeing the world through their eyes as well as his own.

Venomologist Bryan Grieg Fry has one of the most dangerous jobs on Earth: He works with its deadliest creatures. He’s been bitten by 26 venomous snakes, been stung by three stingrays, and survived a near-fatal scorpion sting while deep in the Amazon jungle. He’s received more than 400 stitches and broken 23 bones. But when you research only the venom you yourself have collected, the adventures never stop. Bryan recounts his lifelong passion for studying the world’s most venomous creatures in this outlandish, captivating memoir, where he and danger are never far apart.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2023* ‘This book soars… Parikian is a nature writer at the top of his game.’ Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs This is the miracle of flight as you’ve never seen it before: the evolutionary story of life on...

The story of a man’s obsession with whales, which takes him on a personal, historical and biographical journey – from his childhood to his fascination with Moby-Dick and his excursions whale-watching. All his life, Philip Hoare has been obsessed by whales, from the gigantic skeletons in...

In The Swallow, Stephen Moss documents a year of observing the swallow close to home and in the field to shed light on the secret life of this extraordinary bird. We trace the swallow's life cycle and journey, and the key part the swallow plays in our traditional and popular culture.

'Jackie Higgins’s lyrical, literate style will charm you while her book stuns your imagination with strange, other-worldly truths' Richard Dawkins Sentient assembles a menagerie of zoological creatures – from land, air, sea and all four corners of the globe – to understand what it means to...

Beginning with Yuka, a 39,000-year-old mummified woolly mammoth recently found in the Siberian permafrost, each of the 16 essays in Animals Strike Curious Poses investigates a different famous animal named and immortalized by humans. Modeled loosely after a medieval bestiary, these witty, playful, whip-smart essays traverse history, myth, science, and more, bringing each beast vibrantly to life.

Birds, Beasts and Bedlam recounts the adventures of farmer-turned-rewilder Derek Gow, who is saving Britain’s much-loved but dangerously threatened species, from the water vole to beaver, wildcat to white stork, and tree frog to glow worm. Derek tells us all about the realities of rewilding: how he reared delicate roe deer and a sofa-loving wild boar piglet, moved a raging bison bull across the country, got bitten by a Scottish wildcat, returned honking skeins of graylag geese to the land and water that was once theirs, and restored the white stork to the Knepp Estate. 

From the #1 international bestselling author of The Revenant – the book that inspired the award-winning movie – comes the remarkable true story of the worst mining disaster in American history. In 1917, the lives of a company of miners changed forever when the underground labyrinth of...

Michael McCarthy, one of Britain's leading writers on the environment, proposes this joy as a defence of a natural world which is ever more threatened and which, he argues, is inadequately served by the two defences put forward hitherto: sustainable development and the recognition of ecosystem services. Drawing on a wealth of memorable experiences from a lifetime of watching and thinking about wildlife and natural landscapes, McCarthy presents a new way of looking at the world.