Here are 100 books that Mrs Moreau's Warbler fans have personally recommended if you like
Mrs Moreau's Warbler.
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I’ve always been fascinated by the names of people and things. Why do we use the names we do? What do they mean? Who made them up? Is there power in knowing something’s name? I later discovered that all these questions are very old—the idea that names have power goes back at least to ancient Egypt. When I became a biology professor, I found that my students and colleagues mostly didn’t know or care why animals and plants have the Latin names they do. But those names are fascinating, and there are stories to uncover whenever we tug on a name’s meaning like a loose thread.
I know, another “children’s book”—but another with plenty to say to me as an adult (and later books in the series are more obviously oriented to older readers). The adventures of the young man Sparrowhawk at a wizarding school dive deeply into the power of names and naming. (Earthsea predates by 30 years that other boy-coming-of-age-at-wizard-school book.)
I love the richly detailed fantasy world, with a society that’s like ours but also not, and the wise but real characters with human failings they struggle to overcome. Along the way, there are lots of interesting ideas about language. I still get lost in the world of Earthsea, as I do in a few other books.
The first book of Earthsea in a beautiful hardback edition. Complete the collection with The Tombs of Atuan, The Furthest Shore and Tehanu
With illustrations from Charles Vess
'[This] trilogy made me look at the world in a new way, imbued everything with a magic that was so much deeper than the magic I'd encountered before then. This was a magic of words, a magic of true speaking' Neil Gaiman
'Drink this magic up. Drown in it. Dream it' David Mitchell
Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth.
I’ve always been fascinated by the names of people and things. Why do we use the names we do? What do they mean? Who made them up? Is there power in knowing something’s name? I later discovered that all these questions are very old—the idea that names have power goes back at least to ancient Egypt. When I became a biology professor, I found that my students and colleagues mostly didn’t know or care why animals and plants have the Latin names they do. But those names are fascinating, and there are stories to uncover whenever we tug on a name’s meaning like a loose thread.
I loved the Alice books as a child and even more as an adult. As a child, I loved their absurdist humor; the situations Alice gets into are ridiculous, and the ways she gets out are even more so. As an adult, I love that the absurdist humor asks really interesting questions about language and naming and self, our ideas of time and space, and social conventions and who’s in charge of them.
All this with hilariously eccentric characters and nonsense poetry that isn’t quite nonsense! To top it off, reading Alice as an adult is a trip because so many books, movies, songs, and other creative pieces have referenced events or language from the Alice books. What fun!
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat. 'We're all mad here.'
The 'Alice' books are two of the most translated, most quoted, and best-known books in the world, but what exactly are they? Apparently delightful, innocent fantasies for children, they are also complex textures of mathematical, linguistic, and philosophical jokes. Alice's encounters with the White Rabbit, the Cheshire-Cat, the King and Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and many other extraordinary characters have made them masterpieces of carefree nonsense, yet they also appeal to adults…
I’ve always been fascinated by the names of people and things. Why do we use the names we do? What do they mean? Who made them up? Is there power in knowing something’s name? I later discovered that all these questions are very old—the idea that names have power goes back at least to ancient Egypt. When I became a biology professor, I found that my students and colleagues mostly didn’t know or care why animals and plants have the Latin names they do. But those names are fascinating, and there are stories to uncover whenever we tug on a name’s meaning like a loose thread.
I’ll admit that I’m fiercely jealous of this book’s title, which is clever and à propos (but now, thanks to Wright, it’s taken). But the book is also delightful.
It’s a history of scientific naming, more or less, but Wright has a ton of fun with that. He asks how plants were named in ancient Assyria and Greece, winds his way through the Middle Ages, and continues to the present day. Does that sound dry? It isn’t—I chortled at the discussion of rude Latin names (Geastrum fornicatum, anyone?), and giggled at Wright’s appropriately disrespectful take on the modern profusion of “species concepts” (“You will be delighted to hear that I will not be describing the remaining twenty-five concepts.”).
I learned a bunch and had fun doing it, and that’s a big win.
'Who would have thought that a book about Latin names could be quite so compelling!' Alan Titchmarsh
'Nature writing at its best: insightful, entertaining and often very funny' British Wildlife
Latin names - frequently unpronounceable, all too often wrong and always a tiny puzzle to unravel - have been annoying the layman since they first became formalised as scientific terms in the eighteenth century.
Why on earth has the entirely land-loving Eastern Mole been named Scalopus aquaticus, or the Oxford Ragwort been called Senecio squalidus - 'dirty old man'? What were naturalists thinking when they called a beetle Agra katewinsletae,…
I’ve always been fascinated by the names of people and things. Why do we use the names we do? What do they mean? Who made them up? Is there power in knowing something’s name? I later discovered that all these questions are very old—the idea that names have power goes back at least to ancient Egypt. When I became a biology professor, I found that my students and colleagues mostly didn’t know or care why animals and plants have the Latin names they do. But those names are fascinating, and there are stories to uncover whenever we tug on a name’s meaning like a loose thread.
I love Bill Bryson’s dry and wry sense of humor, his sharp eye for the preposterous, and his fascination with detail. In his better-known books, it’s travel, but this fits my fascination with language and naming because it tells the story of English.
Well, stories of English, anyway—it’s not a scholarly history (which I’d also enjoy) but more a collection of anecdotes to illustrate some of the quirks of the language. It’s fun and easy reading, and some things piqued my curiosity enough that I dug in further with more authoritative books.
“Vastly informative and vastly entertaining…A scholarly and fascinating book.” —Los Angeles Times
With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language.
From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can’t), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world’s largest growth industries.
I am the oldest child, and former teacher turned technology innovator. As the only girl, growing up with three brothers gave me the tenacity to overcome limiting beliefs. Information technology has helped me create an environment where I can help a lot of people. At the end of the day, what I love most is helping someone turn an idea into a tangible solution while motivating team members to see the beauty and joy in this type of service.
Anne makes me feel normal when I immobilize my writing by fearing that no one will like it or, worse yet, that no one will even care to read it. When I am pulled off my joy of writing, I re-read this book and find my joy again.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come. Anne Lamott is "a warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writer’s world and its treacherous swamps" (Los Angeles Times).
“Superb writing advice…. Hilarious, helpful, and provocative.” —The New York Times Book Review
For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom…
I started watching animals as soon as I could walk. That eventually led to a PhD in animal behavior and a career in animal protection. I now focus my energies on writing books that seek to improve our understanding of, and most importantly our relations with, other animals. I've written four previous books:Pleasurable Kingdom, Second Nature, The Exultant Ark, and What a Fish Knows (a New York Times best-seller now available in fifteen languages). I live in Belleville, Ontario where I enjoy biking, baking, birding, Bach, and trying to understand the neighborhood squirrels.
This beautifully illustrated, comprehensive book is a must-have for bird enthusiasts. It is not only a useful guide to identifying birds, but also an illuminating source on little-known aspects of bird behavior.
“Undoubtedly the finest guide to North American birds.”—Guy McCaskie, Birding
The publication of The Sibley Guide to Birds, First Edition quickly established David Allen Sibley as the author and illustrator of the nation’s supreme and most comprehensive guide to birds. Used by millions of birders from novices to the most expert, The Sibley Guide became the standard by which natural history guides are measured. The highly anticipated second edition builds on this foundation of excellence, offering massively expanded and updated information, new paintings, new and rare species, and a new, elegant design.
The second edition of this handsome, flexibound volume…
I started watching animals as soon as I could walk. That eventually led to a PhD in animal behavior and a career in animal protection. I now focus my energies on writing books that seek to improve our understanding of, and most importantly our relations with, other animals. I've written four previous books:Pleasurable Kingdom, Second Nature, The Exultant Ark, and What a Fish Knows (a New York Times best-seller now available in fifteen languages). I live in Belleville, Ontario where I enjoy biking, baking, birding, Bach, and trying to understand the neighborhood squirrels.
A British musicologist opens the windows to her country home and lets wild birds come in and nest there. This unique study allows her (and us) to observe these feathered sprites up close and personal. Many befriend their human hostess, with remarkable revelations.
I started watching animals as soon as I could walk. That eventually led to a PhD in animal behavior and a career in animal protection. I now focus my energies on writing books that seek to improve our understanding of, and most importantly our relations with, other animals. I've written four previous books:Pleasurable Kingdom, Second Nature, The Exultant Ark, and What a Fish Knows (a New York Times best-seller now available in fifteen languages). I live in Belleville, Ontario where I enjoy biking, baking, birding, Bach, and trying to understand the neighborhood squirrels.
True to form, Montgomery advances our understanding of birds through stories and adventures from the field. An accessible book from a celebrated writer whose love of animals is infectious.
I never had a particular interest in birds until I heard about David Wingate and the cahow; I’m just a reporter who was smitten by a compelling story. I often write about science and the environment, as well as travel and other topics, for publications including the Boston Globe, Archaeology, and Harvard Medicine, and while working on Rare Birds I got hooked on these extraordinary creatures and the iconoclastic obsessives who have become their stewards in the Anthropocene era. You don’t have to care about birds to love their stories — but in the end, you will.
Packing a huge amount of research onto every page, Strycker, who in his 2015 big year logged a record-setting 6,042 bird species, engagingly analyzes the biology and behavior of penguins, magpies, hummingbirds, albatrosses, and more to explore how the lives of birds are simultaneously incredibly alien to and indelibly intertwined with those of humans in activities and emotions as diverse as altruism, dancing, seduction, and fear. His insights, delivered with a light touch, may well change the worldview of those who think that humans are somehow more worthy than any other animal on the planet.
"[Strycker] thinks like a biologist but writes like a poet." -- Wall Street Journal
An entertaining and profound look at the lives of birds, illuminating their surprising world—and deep connection with humanity.
Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself.
The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the…
I’m an investigative journalist and social historian who’s obsessed with ‘invisible’ women of the 19th and early 20th century, bringing their stories to life in highly readable narrative non-fiction. I love the detective work involved in resurrecting ordinary women’s lives: shop girls, milliners, campaigning housewives, servants. . . The stories I’ve uncovered are gripping, often shocking and frequently poignant – but also celebrate women’s determination, solidarity and capacity for reinvention. Each of my two books took me on a long research journey deep into the archives: The Housekeeper’s Tale – the Women Who Really Ran the English Country House, and Etta Lemon – The Woman Who Saved the Birds.
Here’s how an intense, almost obsessive focus on wildlife can bring solace from chaos and alienation. Young bird-lover Hannah Bourne-Taylor moves to Ghana as a ‘trailing spouse,’ and it’s the fauna that keeps her going as she struggles to rebuild her identity. Two stray dogs leap into her life; a pangolin needs saving from someone’s dinner table. But it’s the act of saving a swift and a mannikin finch, nurturing and releasing the birds back into the wild, that provides the key to this closely observed, touching story. At first, the finch doesn’t want to re-wild – and Hannah realizes with a shock that she’s humanized it. Explores interesting dilemmas about intervening on nature’s behalf, and whether one act of compassion can really make a difference. A book full of hope.
Read the powerful account of one woman's fight to reshape her identity through connection with nature when all normality has fallen away.
When lifelong bird-lover Hannah Bourne-Taylor moved with her husband to Ghana seven years ago she couldn't have anticipated how her life would be forever changed by her unexpected encounters with nature and the subsequent bonds she formed.
Plucked from the comfort and predictability of her life before, Hannah struggled to establish herself in her new environment, striving to belong in the rural grasslands far away from home.
In this challenging situation, she was forced to turn inwards and…
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