Nature

Even with such robust evidence, the proposal to formally recognize our current time as the Anthropocene remains controversial both inside and outside the scholarly world, kindling intense debates. The reason is clear. The Anthropocene represents far more than just another interval of geologic time. Instead, the Anthropocene has emerged as a powerful new narrative, a concept through which age-old questions about the meaning of nature and even the nature of humanity are being revisited and radically revised.

This Very Short Introduction explains the science behind the Anthropocene and the many proposals about when to mark its beginning: The nuclear tests of the 1950s? The beginnings of agriculture? The origins of humans as a species? Erle Ellis considers the many ways that the Anthropocene's "evolving paradigm" is reshaping the sciences, stimulating the humanities, and foregrounding the politics of life on a planet transformed by humans. The Anthropocene remains a work in progress. Is this the story of an unprecedented planetary disaster? Or of newfound wisdom and redemption? Ellis offers an insightful discussion of our role in shaping the planet, and how this will influence our future on many fronts.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Wendell Berry's profound critique of American culture has entered its sixth decade, and in this gathering he reaches with deep devotion toward a long view of agrarian philosophy. The Art of Loading Brush is an energetic mix of essays, stories, and a poem, which explore agrarian ideals as they present themselves historically and as they might apply to our work today. Filled with insights and new revelations from a mind thorough in its considerations and careful in its presentations, The Art of Loading Brush is a necessary and timely collection.

With fifty stickers provided, you can stick in the birds you have seen in your backyard or around town, and learn about them through interesting facts written by a leading ornithologist. Includes space for your own notes and observations.

A stunning collection of 200 bird species painted by the world-renowned wildlife painter.

"Robert Bateman's paintings and drawings... reveal a vision of the beautiful and stark possibilities of the natural world. They are compelling and haunting."
-- The Washington Post

At a time when bird species are disappearing rapidly, the poignant beauty of Robert Bateman's paintings is more urgent than ever. It reminds us why Bateman was compelled to study and paint his subjects and why we must work to secure their futures.

Bateman has sketched and painted bird life in every corner of the globe. His special relationship with some of the planet's most beautiful and fascinating creatures is captured here in an elegant volume that will appeal to bird lovers and art lovers alike.

The paintings are organized variously into 20 groups: At Home on Salt Spring Island; In the Pribilofs; Treeline and Tundra; Above Larch Valley; A Wenatchee Field Trip; Canyons and Deserts of Arizona; The Great Plains; Spring on the Great Lakes; Immigrants; Eastern Fields and Forests; On Inland Waters; The Atlantic Coast; In the Everglades; The Tropical Americas; The Galápagos; Old Worlds; At the Taj Mahal; A Visit to Bharatpur; The African Savannah and To the Antarctic.

Bateman's magnificent works celebrate the breathtaking range of bird life on Earth -- from the spectacular plumage of the fiery rainforest quetzel to the threatening glare of the golden eagle. And through his notes, informative diary entries and detailed sketches and studies, he shares with the reader a wealth of observations about the birds' behavior and his keen appreciation of their beauty. As the great Roger Tory Peterson said, "If I could paint like another wildlife artist, it would be Robert Bateman."

Robert Bateman began his lifelong education as an artist, naturalist and birder in the tree-filled ravine behind his boyhood home in Toronto. There he would study and sketch the birds he saw, adding them to the life list he keeps to this day. Robert has an enormous following, and his original artwork and limited edition prints are sought by collectors the world over. In 2003, the Robert Bateman Centre museum opened in Victoria, B.C. Today he lives with his wife, Birgit, and his family on one of the Gulf Islands off Canada's western coast.

Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times - "There is more insight here into the Age of Trump than in bushels of political-horse-race journalism."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

At a time when there is little consensus about who we are and what we should be doing with our power overseas, a return to the elemental truths of the American landscape is urgently needed. In Earning the Rockies, New York Times bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan undertakes a cross-country journey, traversing a rich and varied landscape that still remains the primary source of American power. Traveling west, in the same direction as the pioneers, Kaplan witnesses both prosperity and decline, and reexamines the history of westward expansion in a new light: as a story not just of genocide and individualism but also of communalism and a respect for the limits of a water-starved terrain. Concluding at the edge of the Pacific Ocean with a gripping description of an anarchic world, Earning the Rockies shows how America's foreign policy response ought to be rooted in its own geographical situation.

Praise for Earning the Rockies

"Unflinchingly honest . . . a lens-changing vision of America's role in the world . . . a jewel of a book that lights the path ahead."--Secretary of Defense James Mattis

"A sui generis writer . . . America's East Coast establishment has only one Robert Kaplan, someone as fluently knowledgeable about the Balkans, Iraq, Central Asia and West Africa as he is about Ohio and Wyoming."--Financial Times

"Kaplan has pursued stories in places as remote as Yemen and Outer Mongolia. In Earning the Rockies, he visits a place almost as remote to many Americans: these United States. . . . The author's point is a good one: America is formed, in part, by a geographic setting that is both sanctuary and watchtower."--The Wall Street Journal

"A brilliant reminder of the impact of America's geography on its strategy. . . . Kaplan's latest contribution should be required reading."--Henry A. Kissinger

"A text both evocative and provocative for readers who like to think ... In his final sections, Kaplan discusses in scholarly but accessible detail the significant role that America has played and must play in this shuddering world."--Kirkus Reviews

The second book in The Mysteries of Nature Trilogy by the New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben. The third book, The Secret Wisdom of Nature, is coming in Spring 2019.

"Like The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben's The Inner Life of Animals will rock your world. Surprising, humbling, and filled with delight, this book shows us that animals think, feel and know in much the same way as we do--and that their lives are, to them, as precious as ours are to us."
--Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus

Through vivid stories of devoted pigs, two-timing magpies, and scheming roosters, The Inner Life of Animals weaves the latest scientific research into how animals interact with the world with Peter Wohlleben's personal experiences in forests and fields.

Horses feel shame, deer grieve, and goats discipline their kids. Ravens call their friends by name, rats regret bad choices, and butterflies choose the very best places for their children to grow up.

In this, his latest book, Peter Wohlleben follows the hugely successful The Hidden Life of Trees with insightful stories into the emotions, feelings, and intelligence of animals around us. Animals are different from us in ways that amaze us--and they are also much closer to us than we ever would have thought.

Published in partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.

Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way.

Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe.

The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham.