For most of my life I’ve been both a writer and a swimmer. I’ve engaged in both activities for many decades, but I’ve always kept the two entirely separate. Write about swimming? Why? What would I say? What was there to say about water and the act of moving through it? It seemed to me that it was a case of “you have to be there,” that writing about swimming would be too removed from the immediacy, the tactility, the floating state of mind. It was only when I discovered works by some truly great writers that I began to see that I could write about my own love of being in water, and how I might go about it.
Lynne Cox is one of the world’s most extraordinary distance swimmers, and she’s also a remarkable writer. In this, her first book, she writes about her emotional connection to water, her spiritual need to swim, as well as recounting the many challenges she faced in her successful crossing of the Bering Strait – not the least of which was the 38F water temperature. I was truly honored when Lynne agreed to write a testimonial for my book.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this extraordinary book, the world’s most extraordinary distance swimmer writes about her emotional and spiritual need to swim and about the almost mystical act of swimming itself.
Lynne Cox trained hard from age nine, working with an Olympic coach, swimming five to twelve miles each day in the Pacific. At age eleven, she swam even when hail made the water “like cold tapioca pudding” and was told she would one day swim the English Channel. Four years later—not yet out of high school—she broke the men’s and women’s world records for the Channel swim. In 1987,…
I have been fortunate to be able to turn my childhood birdwatching into a career in ornithology. Scientists are sometimes accused of being cold and heartless, but most of the ornithologists I know are driven by a passion to protect and understand birds. At school, I only really liked biology and art. I hated history, but later in life I discovered the vast riches embedded in the history of ornithology and I am fascinated by how we know what we know about birds. This in turn has sparked ideas that have allowed me to discover and explore new areas of bird study. Above all, I love telling people about birds.
Compared with many of those writing about bird conservation, using his sabre-like pen, Jonathan Franzen, gets to the very heart of the issues. No one else comes close to opening up the obscene bloody thorax of Mediterranean bird-killing. In this set of essays, Franzen is the master surgeon, desperate to diagnose, expose and extract the cancer that permeates this entire region. Several million small migrant birds, such as golden orioles, bee-eaters, and warblers, are shot, trapped, and eaten here each year. These millions are from bird populations across Europe and Africa already decimated by a multitude of other things including climate change, cats, and habitat loss.
A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning author of Freedom and The Corrections
In The End of the End of the Earth, which gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Jonathan Franzen returns with renewed vigour to the themes - both human and literary - that have long preoccupied him. Whether exploring his complex relationship with his uncle, recounting his young adulthood in New York, or offering an illuminating look at the global seabird crisis, these pieces contain all the wit and disabused realism that we've come to expect from Franzen.
My first experience of sailing was in an open dinghy in the North Sea in winter; the second was capsizing in the path of a hovercraft at Cowes. I was put off for years. But once Jenny and I moved to spectacular British Columbia, we were inspired to try again. In 1985 we left on what would become a 4-year circumnavigation of the world; more recently and over several years we made our way back under sail from Cape Town to BC, spending a year in Patagonian waters. My other (paying) career has been as a diplomat, which is everything long-distance-sailing is not: people, rules, compromises, convention. Over the years, things have more-or-less balanced out.
In 1986, New Zealander Gerry Clark set off on what would turn out to be a three-year circumnavigation of Antarctica aboard his home-built plywood yacht Totorore. The ostensible objective was a study of seabirds – notably albatrosses – but this is no ornithological treatise. In the Chilean channels and the intricate waterways around Tierra del Fuego, Totororeand her crew lurch from one near disaster to another, each recounted Tilman-like in an understated style. Later, he is dismasted twice and the voyage becomes a desperate struggle for survival. We were lucky enough to meet Gerry – and have him sign a copy of this book – in 1990; it’s rightly described as “one of the most remarkable small boat adventures of all time.”Tototore and crew disappeared one night in 1999, en route to retrieve satellite transmitters from albatrosses on Antipodes Island, off New Zealand.
`I love the sea, I love the birds, I love adventure. In what better way could I indulge myself, in these later years of my life, than to undertake an expedition in the great Southern Ocean? In 1983 at the age of 56, Gerry Clark set out from New Zealand in his 10 metre home built wooden yacht to circumnavigate Antarctica in a quest for new information about seabirds. In this graphic account of the ensuing 3 year 8 month voyage, he describes his adventures in some of the remotest, wildest and most spectacularly beautiful parts of the world.
I was one of those kids who wanted to understand everything. Early on, I worked at a research laboratory and majored in biology. When studies in religion and philosophy offered an even deeper level of inquiry, I turned to archeology, anthropology, psychology, and linguistic analysis. Over the years, I was a counselor for people at the end of life, taught college philosophy, and a cultural approach to religion. I have traveled throughout western Kenya, Guyana, New Zealand, Alaska, and Labrador. I also listened for the stories of the people. Additionally, I have sailed for more than forty years. I write about what I know, and about what still puzzles me.
Rule #1: Writers should write what they know. Many science fiction readers know Isaac Asimov as a prolific genre author. First and foremost, however, he is a scientist, a biochemist by training. In this book, Isaac and Janet Asimov share essays on diverse scientific subjects from life on earth to discoveries in space. For me, I searched the book for everything from the fate of the dinosaurs to the height of sea-level rise in case of a major melt-down of Antarctica and Greenland.
In this book, imagination runs a parallel reality. It is a place where a writer or a reader will see a jumping-off place from the real world to dystopia.
A treasury of 121 tales from the authors of Frontiers contains remarkable stories about humankind, the secrets of planet Earth, the vast expanse of outer space, and the mysteries of the universe. 15,000 first printing. $15,000 ad/promo.
I always want to be where I am not. This was why I read sci-fi and fantasy as a child. This was why I left the country of my birth and became a professional nomad. This is why I am spellbound by mountains I will never climb and oceans I will never dive into. Imagination can take you everywhere. It took me to the academy, where speculative literature became my scholarly field, and to the publishing world, where I am now getting ready for the launch of my eighth novel. When you are at home nowhere, you are at home everywhere–including on the summits of impossible mountains.
I am not frightened by Cthulhu, the tentacled monsters waiting in the depths of outer space or the ocean. I am mesmerized by them. Lovecraft, often labeled a horror writer, is one of the greatest literary fantasists. His imagination is boundless, and he is as adept at describing strange new environments as he is at evoking a sense of cosmic dread.
This classic novel combines Lovecraft’s signature monsters with an incredible dreamlike atmosphere that grips you and does not let you go. When you stand at the summit of the Mountains of Madness and glimpse what lies on the other side, you are torn between fear and fascination. For me, at least, fascination always wins.
At the Mountains of Madness is a science fiction-horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft.
An expedition to Antarctica goes horribly wrong as a group of explorers stumbles upon some mysterious ancient ruins, with devastating consequences. At the Mountains of Madness ranks among Lovecraft's most terrifying novellas, and is a firm favourite among fans of classic horror.
Hands down, Barry Lopez is the best nature writer ever!
Lopez
displays his considerable authorial skills in this distinctive collection of
essays published posthumously. Older pieces, in concert with new themes, move
readers to discover more about the natural world and all its wondrous
connections.
Lopez has a distinctive way with words – creating visions,
experiences, and insights available in no other book. This is writing as it
should be: a tour de force of precise words and compelling language that
draws you in and doesn’t let go until long after the final page is turned.
You
will be stimulated and awed, excited and moved. He is a distinctive steward of
environmentalism and a consummate wordsmith of observation and emotion. This
book should be in everyone’s library!
An ardent steward of the land, fearless traveller and unrivalled observer of nature and culture, Barry Lopez died after a long illness on Christmas Day in 2020. The previous summer, a wildfire had consumed much of what was dear to him in his home and the community around it - a tragic reminder of the climate change of which he'd long warned.
At once a cri de Coeur and a memoir of both pain and wonder, this remarkable collection of essays adds indelibly to Lopez's legacy, and includes previously unpublished works, some written in the months before his death. They…
I’ve had a lifelong passion for all things Arctic that began in childhood as I devoured many tragic tales of doomed Arctic explorers. This fascination later merged with concern for human impacts on this fragile ecosystem. Though I hate the cold and suffer from vertigo, I participated in the 2017 Arctic Circle Summer Solstice Expedition that sailed Svalbard’s western shores. Among other experiences, I witnessed a massive glacier calving and walked on an ice floe. Determined to fully absorb Svalbard’s setting for my creative work, I spent two subsequent residencies in Longyearbyen—one in the dark season and one as the light returned—and I signed on for another expedition to circumnavigate the archipelago.
I’d rank this novel in my top five of all time, not just as a great survival story.
This book is a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel set partly in Antarctica, a meditation on human existence, and a page-turner with keen attention to beautiful writing. Its characters grapple with essential, existential questions such as: How are we connected to the world? What happens when those last connections are broken? What is the nature of loneliness, of love? Is survival alone enough reason for living?
I’ve read this novel several times, and though I know the arc of the story and the fate of its characters, I come away each time with insights into what it means to be alive. A bonus: it’s one of the few novels I know of set in Antarctica.
From Kevin Brockmeier, one of this generation's most inventive young writers, comes a striking new novel about death, life, and the mysterious place in between.
The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. They will reside in this afterlife until they are completely forgotten. But the City is shrinking, and the residents clearing out. Some of the holdouts, like Luka Sims, who produces the City’s only newspaper, are wondering what exactly is going on. Others, like Coleman Kinzler, believe it is the beginning of the end. Meanwhile, Laura Byrd is trapped…
I’m a geographer and the author of more than 170 (mostly nonfiction) books for kids. I began my career at the National Geographic Society and have worked on a variety of projects for them over the last three decades. I also taught middle-school geography for years. In addition to my featured book, I have written numerous magazine articles on topics related to polar regions—from Siberia’s Eveny people to climate change in the Arctic. I am the author of Living in the Arctic and several books on countries in the polar regions. I was recently interviewed by PBS Books for my book on Benjamin Franklin’s scientific work.
As a fan of the Magic Tree House series, I love the way that this nonfiction book weaves great information with illustrations and photographs in a fun-to-read format. This title will be a hit with animal lovers, whether they are curious about the daily lives of penguins in Antarctica or why krill are so important to the food web here. Adventure seekers will revel in the daring exploits of explorers from the past. They’ll also learn about what it’s like to visit Antarctica today. The additional resources in the back of the book looked terrific and made me want to explore more of this frozen continent.
The #1 bestselling chapter book series of all time celebrates 25 years with new covers and a new, easy-to-use numbering system! Getting the facts behind the fiction has never looked better. Track the facts with Jack and Annie!!
When Jack and Annie got back from their adventure in Magic Tree House Merlin Mission #12: Eve of the Emperor Penguin, they had lots of questions. What do penguins eat? Why do they huddle together in groups? Who won the race to the South Pole? What happens at a research station in Antarctica? Find out the answers to these questions and more…
I knew when I was in elementary school that I wanted to be a therapist when I grew up, but I took a slight detour after finishing a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology to work as a line cook, retail manager, veterinary assistant, freelance editor, and registered nurse before finding my way back to graduate school. I also released ten young adult novels, many of them populated by characters struggling with mental illness. I understand anxiety, survivor’s guilt, grief, and loss as both a counselor and a human being, and I selected these books because they resonated deeply with me. I hope readers find comfort and connection in their pages.
Most books about grief deal specifically with the death of a loved one, but grief isn’t just about death—it’s about major loss. For some of us that might mean the loss of a friendship or relationship or job. In this book, the main character is facing the loss of a lifelong dream.
Despite what TV shows and self-help books tell us, success is not a simple matter of dedication and hard work. Sometimes we don’t achieve our dreams, and stories like this remind us that "failure" is okay, that we have options, that we can choose to pursue the thing we love in a different way, or choose to love something else, or maybe we'll have to take a break to heal and reflect before we choose anything at all. The universe might steal away a dream, but we remain in charge of our happiness.
Harper had a plan. It went south. Hand this utterly unique contemporary YA to anyone who loves ballet or is a little too wrapped up in their Plan A. (It's okay to fail, people!)
Harper Scott is a dancer. She and her best friend, Kate, have one goal: becoming professional ballerinas. And Harper won’t let anything—or anyone—get in the way of The Plan, not even the boy she and Kate are both drawn to.
Harper is a Scott. She’s related to Robert Falcon Scott, the explorer who died racing Amundsen and Shackleton to the South Pole. Amundsen won because he…
I'm a science fiction writer. If you write about time travel, one of the things you have to worry about is changing the past, the ‘gun for a dinosaur’ effect. If you go to the past and kill that dinosaur, will it affect the present? Maybe that dinosaur was the ancestor of all mammals. So, if you want to steal something from the past and bring it to now, you have to choose carefully. Something that has left no biological footprint. When I got that far, I remembered that Titus Oates walked off into the storm in Antarctica, never to be seen again, to save his companions. His body is still out there, frozen in a glacier … or is it?
One of the things that made Scott’s expedition legendary was the photographs. His was the first scientific expedition to include a professional photographer on staff. Herbert Ponting used the cameras and glass plates of his time, and the images are stupendous. This book reproduces all the great ones, images that renovated the human imagination and which you can see to this day imitated in movies and special effects.
