Fathoms

Author: Rebecca Giggs
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 198212069X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
Winner of the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction * Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A “delving, haunted, and poetic debut” (The New York Times Book Review) about the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about ourselves, our planet, and our relationship with other species. When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans. Fathoms: The World in the Whale is “a work of bright and careful genius” (Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails), one that blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? How has whale culture been both understood and changed by human technology? What can observing whales teach us about the complexity, splendor, and fragility of life on earth? In Fathoms, we learn about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet’s atmosphere. We travel to Japan to board the ships that hunt whales and delve into the deepest seas to discover how plastic pollution pervades our earth’s undersea environment. With the immediacy of Rachel Carson and the lush prose of Annie Dillard, Giggs gives us a “masterly” (The New Yorker) exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis. With depth and clarity, she outlines the challenges we face as we attempt to understand the perspectives of other living beings, and our own place on an evolving planet. Evocative and inspiring, Fathoms “immediately earns its place in the pantheon of classics of the new golden age of environmental writing” (Literary Hub).

Fathoms

Author: Rebecca Giggs
Publisher: Scribe Publications
ISBN: 1925693422
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Book Description
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 whales might shed light on the condition of our seas. How do whales experience environmental change? Has our connection to these fabled animals been transformed by technology? What future awaits us, and them? And what does it mean to write about nature in the midst of an ecological crisis? In Fathoms: the world in the whale, Giggs blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore these questions with clarity and hope. In lively, inventive prose, she introduces us to whales so rare they have never been named; she tells us of the astonishing variety found in whale sounds, and of whale ‘pop’ songs that sweep across hemispheres. She takes us into the deeps to discover that one whale’s death can spark a great flourishing of creatures. We travel to Japan to board whaling ships, examine the uncanny charisma of these magnificent mammals, and confront the plastic pollution now pervading their underwater environment. In the spirit of Rachel Carson and John Berger, Fathoms is a work of profound insight and wonder. It marks the arrival of an essential new voice in narrative nonfiction and provides us with a powerful, surprising, and compelling view of some of the most urgent issues of our time.

The Whale

Author: Philip Hoare
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061976202
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Book Description
From his childhood fascination with the gigantic Natural History Museum model of a blue whale, to his abiding love of Moby-Dick, to his adult encounters with the living animals in the Atlantic Ocean, the acclaimed writer Philip Hoare has been obsessed with whales. The Whale is his unforgettable and moving attempt to explain why these strange and beautiful animals exert such a powerful hold on our imagination.

The Heart of a Whale

Author: Anna Pignataro
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593692608
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 31

Book Description
In this beautiful story of kindness and empathy, loneliness and love, one creature finds that the help he needs is just a song and a sigh away. Now available as a board book--a perfect new baby gift! Whale's beautiful song winds its way through the ocean, reaching the farthest of faraways. His song is one of happiness and hope, magic and wonder--and Whale's fellow sea creatures are calmed, cheered, and lulled by it. But though Whale sings his tender song day after day, night after night, he wonders why he has no song to fill his empty heart. So when he lets out a mournful sigh, the ocean carries it like a wish through its fathoms, bringing it to just the right place. Filled with stunning art and poetic text, this poignant story reminds us that being kind and helping a friend in need are sometimes the most beautiful things of all.

Spying on Whales

Author: Nick Pyenson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735224587
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
“A palaeontological howdunnit…[Spying on Whales] captures the excitement of…seeking answers to deep questions in cetacean science.” —Nature Called “the best of science writing” (Edward O. Wilson) and named a best book by Popular Science, a dive into the secret lives of whales, from their four-legged past to their perilous present. Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-sized creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and travel entire ocean basins. Whales fill us with terror, awe, and affection--yet there is still so much we don't know about them. Why did it take whales over 50 million years to evolve to such big sizes, and how do they eat enough to stay that big? How did their ancestors return from land to the sea--and what can their lives tell us about evolution as a whole? Importantly, in the sweepstakes of human-driven habitat and climate change, will whales survive? Nick Pyenson's research has given us the answers to some of our biggest questions about whales. He takes us deep inside the Smithsonian's unparalleled fossil collections, to frigid Antarctic waters, and to the arid desert in Chile, where scientists race against time to document the largest fossil whale site ever found. Full of rich storytelling and scientific discovery, Spying on Whales spans the ancient past to an uncertain future--all to better understand the most enigmatic creatures on Earth.

Deep Thinkers

Author: Janet Mann
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022638750X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
A remarkable look at dolphin and whale intelligence, communication, and culture, with stunning photographs: “A wonderful read.” —Biologist Dolphins, whales, and porpoises are often considered to be the smartest nonhuman creatures on Earth. Science and nature buffs are drawn to stories of their use of tools, their self-recognition, their beautiful and complex songs, and their intricate societies. But how do we know what we know, and what does it mean? In Deep Thinkers, renowned cetacean biologist Janet Mann gathers a gam of the world’s leading whale and dolphin researchers—including Luke Rendell, Hal Whitehead, and many more—to illuminate these vital questions, exploring the astounding capacities of cetacean brains. Diving into our current understanding of and dynamic research on dolphin and whale cognition, communication, and culture, Deep Thinkers reveals how incredibly sophisticated these mammals are—and how much we can learn about other animal minds by studying cetacean behavior. Through a combination of fascinating text and more than 150 beautiful and informative illustrations, chapters compare the intelligence markers of cetaceans with those of birds, bats, and primates, asking how we might properly define intelligence in nonhumans. As all-encompassing and profound as the seas in which these deep cetacean cultures have evolved, Deep Thinkers is an awesome and inspiring journey into the fathoms—a reminder of what we gain through their close study, and of what we lose when the great minds of the sea disappear. “Everything you always wanted to know about cetaceans and their intelligence captured here in a single beautiful volume by some of the world’s greatest experts.” —Frans de Waal, New York Times–bestselling author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? “Teeming with cool stuff.” —NPR’s 13.7: Cosmos & Culture

Soundings

Author: Doreen Cunningham
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982171790
Category : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
“This book is a gorgeous journey…You will be glad you’ve joined her.” —Susan Orlean, author of On Animals and The Library Book In this memoir of motherhood, love, and resilience, a woman and her toddler son follow the grey whale migration from Mexico to northernmost Alaska. In this striking blend of nature writing, whale science, and memoir, Doreen Cunningham interweaves two stories: tracking the extraordinary northward migration of the grey whales with a mischievous toddler in tow and living with an Iñupiaq family in Alaska seven years earlier. Throughout the journey she explores the stories of the whales and their young calves—their history, their habits, and their attempts to survive the changes humans have brought to the ocean. Cunningham’s voice is powerful: sharp, profound, sensitive, and unflinching. A story of courage and resilience, Soundings is about the migrating whales and all we can learn from them as they mother, adapt, and endure, their lives interrupted and threatened by global warming. It is also a riveting journey onto the Arctic Sea ice and into the changing world of Indigenous whale hunters, where Doreen becomes immersed in the ancient values of the Iñupiaq whale hunt and falls in love. For this is Doreen’s story, too—a fierce, feminist tale, touching on her childhood and her time living in a Women’s Refuge with her baby, becoming a mother, just like the whales. Lyrical, brave, and fearlessly honest, Soundings is an unforgettable journey.

Into Great Silence

Author: Eva Saulitis
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807014362
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Science entwines with matters of the human heart as a whale researcher chronicles the lives of an endangered family of orcas Ever since Eva Saulitis began her whale research in Alaska in the 1980s, she has been drawn deeply into the lives of a single extended family of endangered orcas struggling to survive in Prince William Sound. Over the course of a decades-long career spent observing and studying these whales, and eventually coming to know them as individuals, she has, sadly, witnessed the devastation wrought by the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989—after which not a single calf has been born to the group. With the intellectual rigor of a scientist and the heart of a poet, Saulitis gives voice to these vital yet vanishing survivors and the place they are so loyal to. Both an elegy for one orca family and a celebration of the entire species, Into Great Silence is a moving portrait of the interconnectedness of humans with animals and place—and of the responsibility we have to protect them.

Whale Man

Author: Alan Michael Parker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781602260078
Category : Inheritance and succession
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Fiction. Avi Heyer's rollicking adventure begins when he returns to Elsbeth, North Carolina, to settle his mother's affairs. A student chef with the wrong girlfriend and a mud-loving dog, Avi soon finds himself dragged into a criminal conspiracy. His world is churned up, down and sideways by the diabolical Camel and her hired henchwomen; an unknown phone caller who somehow tracks his every move; an enticing hippie who may be trying to steal something from Avi; a plainspoken building contractor with a suspicious hearing aid; and a news reporter desperate for love. And then there's Avi's whale, with its graceful bulk and keening song, a whale that becomes more than an obsession.

Super Fly

Author: Jonathan Balcombe
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525506047
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History and a New York Times Editors Choice Pick "After reading Super Fly, you will never take a fly for granted again. Thank you, Jonathan Balcombe, for reminding us of the infinite marvels of everyday creatures." —Sy Montgomery, Author of How to Be a Good Creature From an expert in animal consciousness, a book that will turn the fly on the wall into the elephant in the room. For most of us, the only thing we know about flies is that they're annoying, and our usual reaction is to try to kill them. In Super Fly, the myth-busting biologist Jonathan Balcombe shows the order Diptera in all of its diversity, illustrating the essential role that flies play in every ecosystem in the world as pollinators, waste-disposers, predators, and food source; and how flies continue to reshape our understanding of evolution. Along the way, he reintroduces us to familiar foes like the fruit fly and mosquito, and gives us the chance to meet their lesser-known cousins like the Petroleum Fly (the only animal in the world that breeds in crude oil) and the Chocolate Midge (the sole pollinator of the Cacao tree). No matter your outlook on our tiny buzzing neighbors, Super Fly will change the way you look at flies forever. Jonathan Balcombe is the author of four books on animal sentience, including the New York Times bestselling What A Fish Knows, which was nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Science Writing. He has worked for years as a researcher and educator with the Humane society to show us the consciousness of other creatures, and here he takes us to the farthest reaches of the animal kingdom.