100 books like Watching Giants

WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION
WINNER OF THE NIB LITERARY AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
HIGHLY COMMENDED IN THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON GLOBAL CONSERVATION

A SUNDAY INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR

'There is a kind of hauntedness in wild animals today: a spectre related to environmental change ... Our fear is that the unseen spirits that move in them are ours. Once more, animals are a moral force.'

When Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beach in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of… show more.

In the late nineteenth century, humans came at long last to a devastating realisation: their rapidly industrialising and globalising societies were driving scores of animal species to extinction. In Beloved Beasts, acclaimed science journalist Michelle Nijhuis traces the history of the movement to protect and conserve other forms of life. From early battles to save charismatic species such as the American bison and bald eagle to today's global effort to defend life on a larger scale, Nijhuis's "spirited and engaging" account documents "the changes of heart that changed history" (Dan Cryer, Boston Globe).

With "urgency, passion, and wit" (Michael Berry,… show more.

A must-read book about endangered wildlife.

Hunters poach adult sun bears for body parts which are thought to have medicinal properties. Orphaned cubs are kept illegally as pets. Natural habitat is disappearing fast.

In this inspirational story, Malaysian ecologist Dr Wong Siew Te, or ‘papa bear’, tries to save the ‘forgotten bear’ from extinction. His quest takes him around the world, and in 2017 he is named a CNN Wildlife Hero - proving one person can make a difference.

Australian author Dr Sarah Pye takes readers on a journey of discovery, introducing individuals sun bears she meets: Natalie who learns… show more.

'Conservation in the 21st century needs to be different and this book is a good indicator of why' Bulletin of British Ecological Society. Against Extinction tells the history of wildlife conservation from its roots in the 19th century, through the foundation of the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire in London in 1903 to the huge and diverse international movement of the present day. It vividly portrays conservation's legacy of big game hunting, the battles for the establishment of national parks, the global importance of species conservation and debates over the sustainable use of and… show more.

For more than a hundred million years, sea turtles have been swimming in the world's oceans. These magnificent, long-lived creatures spend their lives in the water, coming ashore to lay their eggs. Upon hatching, the baby turtles leave the nest and enter a dangerous world of storms and predators. The females will return to the same beach to lay their own eggs when they reach maturity a decade later. Today, there are seven species of sea turtle: the grass-eating green turtle; the sea sponge-eating hawksbill; the olive ridley; the Kemp's ridley, which is the smallest species; the loggerhead; the flatback… show more.

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 London's Natural History Museum to adult encounters with the wild animals themselves. Whales have a mythical quality - they seem to elide with dark fantasies of sea-serpents and antediluvian monsters that swim in our collective unconscious.

In 'Leviathan', Philip Hoare seeks to locate and identify this obsession. What impelled Melville to write 'Moby-Dick'? After… show more.

The blue whale holds the title of largest creature that has ever lived, and it may also be the most mysterious. The biggest blue whales can outweigh every player in Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League combined. Their mouths can gulp more than thirteen thousand gallons of seawater. A newborn can be over twenty feet long and gain nearly twenty tons in seven months—about eight pounds per hour. Blue whales emit more powerful sounds than any other animal on earth, though many of their vocalizations are beyond the range of human hearing.
Yet nearly everything that we have… show more.

Frank Stewart, an observer, writer, storyteller, and lover of whales gathers the most compelling contemporary essays on cetaceans in the first anthology to bring together many of the foremost  marine scientists and nature writers, including Diane Ackerman, Barry Lopez, Farley Mowat, Faith McNulty, and Jonathan White.   

The essays are organized in five sections that celebrates our ongoing fascination with these fragile giants.

contains essays inspired by being in the presence of whales,

concentrates on whale vocalizations,

are compelling accounts of personal observations of whale behavior,

A giant whale trapped in nets and ropes. Can she be helped?

A humpback whale migrating south along the California coast becomes tangled in a fishing trawler’s ropes and nets. As she struggles to free herself, the ropes twist more tightly around her body, digging into her skin. The whale fights until she is too tired to continue. What happens next will astound and inspire.

Based on true events, this is a story of interspecies cooperation and the importance of human responsibility to protect the earth and its many inhabitants.

Wendell Minor’s breathtaking paintings illustrate the majesty of the gentle… show more.

"It appears to be the only individual emitting a call at this frequency and hence, has been described as the world's loneliest whale."―Wikipedia

So here's how it all starts: James, a high school freshman, is worried that the young humpback whale he tracks online has separated from its pod. So naturally he emails Darren, the twentysomething would-be filmmaker who volunteered in James's special education program back in middle school. Of course, Darren is useless on the subject of whales, but he's got nothing but time, given that the only girl he could ever love dumped him. And fetching lattes for… show more.