Best Outdoor & Nature Reference

Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great reading adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends--and their amazing links to recent discoveries.

The roots of a tree indicate the sun’s direction; the Big Dipper tells the time; a passing butterfly hints at the weather; a sand dune reveals prevailing wind; the scent of cinnamon suggests altitude; a budding flower points south. For those inclined to solve mysteries written into the landscape, this author’s lead is one they’ll want to follow.”— The Wall Street Journal. His discovery (made on a sailing expedition to Iceland)—that if, when at sea, you see more than 10 birds in any given five minute window this means you are within 40 miles of land—has become part of the British military’s survival guidance.”— The Daily Beast. The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs , by Tristan Gooley, is brilliant in the English slang sense (as in being terrific); it is brilliant in its comprehensive conveyance of all the ways to interpret natural and man-made landscapes; and brilliance glitters from Gooley’s sparkling wit.”— Foreword. “I for one will never look at the . “As with his earlier, equally important The Natural Navigator , this text is densely packed with information, engagingly and clearly written . He has led expeditions on five continents, climbed mountains in three, and studied the methods of tribal peoples in some of the remotest regions on Earth.

A comprehensive and user-friendly field guide for identifying the many mushrooms of the northern California coast, from Monterey County to the Oregon border. —GARY LINCOFF, author of The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast is at a whole new level for regional mushroom guides. He is one of the premier mushroom photographers in the nation, having won numerous awards from the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) photography contest. His photographs have appeared on the covers and have been featured in articles of multiple issues of FUNGI Magazine and Mushroom the Journal, the primary mushroom enthusiast magazines in the United States, numerous mushroom books, as well as NAMA and other club publications. He is past president of the Monadnock Mushroomers Unlimited, (MMU) a mushroom club based out of Keene, NH, and is an active member of the Humboldt Bay Mycological Society and the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz.

The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots. Kunstler, who writes ably, casts a very wide net: he finds the roots of American individualism in pre-colonial property ownership, decries the abstracting influence of modernism on city architecture and slams road-builder Robert Moses to support his contention that suburbia is a social environment without soul.

The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes — and to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings. When this American transplant to Britain decided to return home, he made a farewell walking tour of the British countryside and produced Notes from a Small Island . Accompanied only by his old college buddy Stephen Katz, Bryson starts out one March morning in north Georgia, intending to walk the entire 2,100 miles to trail's end atop Maine's Mount Katahdin. As Bryson and Katz haul their out-of-shape, middle-aged butts over hill and dale, the reader is treated to both a very funny personal memoir and a delightful chronicle of the trail, the people who created it, and the places it passes through. Awed by merely the camping section of his local sporting goods store, he nevertheless plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a consistently comical account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard lessons about self-reliance.

This is the preliminary book to help you understand fundamental concepts such as MOA vs Mils and external ballistics, that can be like a trusted resource at the range. The author has a series of online instructional videos known for their ability to take seemingly complex areas of long range shooting and breaking them down so that they're easy to understand. The author has a series of online instructional videos known for their ability to take seemingly complex areas of long range shooting and breaking them down so that they're easy to understand. "Whether you're looking to dip a toe into the complex world of long range shooting, or you're a seasoned shooter with years of trigger time, Ryan Cleckner's book will prove to be excellent reference material. Whether you're looking to dip a toe into the complex world of long range shooting, or you're a seasoned shooter with years of trigger time, Ryan Cleckner's book will prove to be excellent reference material. Author Ryan Cleckner is unmatched in long distance accuracy and in this fantastic book, he tells us how it's done. While the subject of this book is hitting a target way out there with a heavier caliber super accurate rifle a small game hunter could even be blessed by this information. For law enforcement and citizens who want to be prepared for any long distance occasion, this book is absolutely a must read. Ryan Cleckner served as a special operations sniper team leader with the U.S. Army's elite 1st Ranger Bn. Ryan has a series of online instructional videos known for their ability to explain complex topics in a simple and digestible way.

Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded. Though the ‘stranger’ in the title is Knight, one closes the book with the sense that Knight, like all seers, is the only sane person in a world gone insane—that modern civilization has made us strangers to ourselves." —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times "Michael Finkel has done something magical with this profound book… [His] investigation runs deep, summoning…the human history of our own attempts to find meaning in a noisy world."

Over the thirty years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous—two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast world of animal minds. Alex's brain was the size of a shelled walnut, and when Irene and Alex first met, birds were not believed to possess any potential for language, consciousness, or anything remotely comparable to human intelligence. Together, Alex and Irene uncovered a startling reality: We live in a world populated by thinking, conscious creatures. Alex missed Irene when she was away. Alex and Irene stayed together through thick and thin—despite sneers from experts, extraordinary financial sacrifices, and a nomadic existence from one univer­sity to another. Alex is the African gray parrot whose ability to master a vocabulary of more than 100 words and answer questions about the color, shape and number of objects—garnered wide notice during his life as well as obituaries in worldwide media after his death in September 2007. While this book inevitably covers some of the same ground, it is a moving tribute that beautifully evokes the struggles, the initial triumphs, the setbacks, the unexpected and often stunning achievements during a groundbreaking scientific endeavor spent uncovering cognitive abilities in Alex that no one believed were possible, and challenging science's deepest assumptions about the origin of human cognitive abilities.