Nature Strange And Beautiful

Download Nature Strange And Beautiful full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Nature Strange And Beautiful ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Nature Strange and Beautiful

Author : Egbert Giles Leigh
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300249160
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Nature Strange and Beautiful by : Egbert Giles Leigh

Download or read book Nature Strange and Beautiful written by Egbert Giles Leigh and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautifully written exploration of how cooperation shaped life on earth, from its single-celled beginnings to complex human societies In this rich, wide-ranging, beautifully illustrated volume, Egbert Leigh explores the results of billions of years of evolution at work. Leigh, who has spent five decades on Panama’s Barro Colorado Island reflecting on the organization of various amazingly diverse tropical ecosystems, now shows how selection on “selfish genes” gives rise to complex modes of cooperation and interdependence. With the help of such artists as the celebrated nature photographer Christian Ziegler, natural history illustrator Deborah Miriam Kaspari, and Damond Kyllo, Leigh explains basic concepts of evolutionary biology, ranging from life’s single-celled beginnings to the complex societies humans have formed today. The book covers a range of topics, focusing on adaptation, competition, mutualism, heredity, natural selection, sexual selection, genetics, and language. Leigh’s reflections on evolution, competition, and cooperation show how the natural world becomes even more beautiful when viewed in the light of evolution.

Strange Nature

Author : Gregory Mone
Publisher : Abrams Books for Young Readers
ISBN 13 : 9781419731662
Total Pages : 40 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (316 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Strange Nature by : Gregory Mone

Download or read book Strange Nature written by Gregory Mone and published by Abrams Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly original collection of photographs that unlocks the hidden beauty of the insect world--now adapted for young readers! Adapted from the adult title Microsculpture, this book for young readers is a unique photographic study of insects in mind-blowing magnification that celebrates the wonders of nature and science. Levon Biss's photographs capture in breathtaking detail the beauty of the insect world and are printed in large-scale formats to provide an unforgettable viewing experience.

Passing Strange and Wonderful

Author : Yi-fu Tuan
Publisher : Kodansha Globe
ISBN 13 : 9781568360676
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (66 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Passing Strange and Wonderful by : Yi-fu Tuan

Download or read book Passing Strange and Wonderful written by Yi-fu Tuan and published by Kodansha Globe. This book was released on 1993 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional wisdom suggests that aesthetic experiences - those moments when the senses come to life - are important only after more basic needs have been met. In this inspiring wealth of provocative ideas, Yi-Fu Tuan demonstrates that feeling and beauty are essential parts of life and society. The aesthetic is shown to be not merely one aspect of culture but its central core - both its driving force and its ultimate goal. Beginning with the individual and the physical world, the author's exploration progresses from the simple to the complex. Tuan starts by examining the building blocks of aesthetic experience - sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste - and gradually expands his analysis to include the most elaborate of human constructs, including art, architecture, literature, philosophy, music, and landscape. This leads him to the realm of politics, where he grapples with the fundamental question of the relationship between goodness and beauty, and of how the aesthetic can become a moral force within society. To guide the reader along this journey, the author describes how the aesthetic operates in four widely disparate cultures: Australian aboriginal, Chinese, medieval European, and modern American. Yi-Fu Tuan, one of our most influential and original thinkers, brilliantly conveys the profound fascination of multisensory reality, and in so doing enables us to make connections among even the most diffuse elements of our lives. While Tuan does not ignore human folly, Passing Strange and Wonderful is a celebration of the world around us, our experiences, and our creations.

Nature Obscura

Author : Kelly Brenner
Publisher : Mountaineers Books
ISBN 13 : 1680512080
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (85 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Nature Obscura by : Kelly Brenner

Download or read book Nature Obscura written by Kelly Brenner and published by Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 2020-02-26 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With wonder and a sense of humor, Nature Obscura author Kelly Brenner aims to help us rediscover our connection to the natural world that is just outside our front door--we just need to know where to look. Through explorations of a rich and varied urban landscape, Brenner reveals the complex micro-habitats and surprising nature found in the middle of a city. In her hometown of Seattle, which has plowed down hills, cut through the land to connect fresh- and saltwater, and paved over much of the rest, she exposes a diverse range of strange and unknown creatures. From shore to wetland, forest to neighborhood park, and graveyard to backyard, Brenner uncovers how our land alterations have impacted nature, for good and bad, through the wildlife and plants that live alongside us, often unseen. These stories meld together, in the same way our ecosystems, species, and human history are interconnected across the urban environment.

Strange Tools

Author : Alva Noë
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1429945257
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Strange Tools by : Alva Noë

Download or read book Strange Tools written by Alva Noë and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselves In his new book, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë raises a number of profound questions: What is art? Why do we value art as we do? What does art reveal about our nature? Drawing on philosophy, art history, and cognitive science, and making provocative use of examples from all three of these fields, Noë offers new answers to such questions. He also shows why recent efforts to frame questions about art in terms of neuroscience and evolutionary biology alone have been and will continue to be unsuccessful.

The Lightkeepers

Author : Abby Geni
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1619027496
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (19 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Lightkeepers by : Abby Geni

Download or read book The Lightkeepers written by Abby Geni and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2016 B&N Discover Great New Writers Award for Fiction In The Lightkeepers, we follow Miranda, a nature photographer who travels to the Farallon Islands, an exotic and dangerous archipelago off the coast of California, for a one–year residency capturing the landscape. Her only companions are the scientists studying there, odd and quirky refugees from the mainland living in rustic conditions; they document the fish populations around the island, the bold trio of sharks called the Sisters that hunt the surrounding waters, and the overwhelming bird population who, at times, create the need to wear hard hats as protection from their attacks. Shortly after her arrival, Miranda is assaulted by one of the inhabitants of the islands. A few days later, her assailant is found dead, perhaps the result of an accident. As the novel unfolds, Miranda gives witness to the natural wonders of this special place as she grapples with what has happened to her and deepens her connection (and her suspicions) to her companions, while falling under the thrall of the legends of the place nicknamed ""the Islands of the Dead."" And when more violence occurs, each member of this strange community falls under suspicion.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

Author : Leslye Walton
Publisher : Candlewick Press
ISBN 13 : 0763670340
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (636 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by : Leslye Walton

Download or read book The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender written by Leslye Walton and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2015 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava — in all other ways a normal girl — is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.

Survival of the Beautiful

Author : David Rothenberg
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1408830566
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Survival of the Beautiful by : David Rothenberg

Download or read book Survival of the Beautiful written by David Rothenberg and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The peacock's tail makes me sick!' said Charles Darwin. That's because the theory of evolution as adaptation can't explain why nature is so beautiful. It took the concept of sexual selection for Darwin to explain that, a process that has more to do with aesthetic taste than adaptive fitness. Survival of the Beautiful is a revolutionary new examination of the interplay of beauty, art, and culture in evolution. Taking inspiration from Darwin's observation that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg probes why animals, humans included, have an innate appreciation for beauty - and why nature is, indeed, beautiful.

Man V. Nature

Author : Diane Cook
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062333127
Total Pages : 177 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Man V. Nature by : Diane Cook

Download or read book Man V. Nature written by Diane Cook and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A refreshingly imaginative, daring debut collection of stories that illuminates with audacious wit the complexity of human behavior, and the veneer of civilization over our darkest urges. Told with perfect rhythm and unyielding brutality, these stories expose unsuspecting men and women to the realities of nature, the primal instincts of man, and the dark humor and heartbreak of our struggle to not only thrive, but survive. In "Girl on Girl," a high school freshman goes to disturbing lengths to help an old friend. An insatiable temptress pursues the one man she can't have in "Meteorologist Dave Santana." And in the title story, a long-fraught friendship comes undone when three buddies get impossibly lost on a lake it is impossible to get lost on. Below the quotidian surface of Diane Cook's worlds lurks an unexpected surreality that reveals our most curious, troubling, and bewildering behavior. Other stories explore situations pulled directly from the wild, imposing on human lives the danger, tension, and precariousness of the natural world: a pack of "not-needed" boys takes refuge in a murky forest where they compete against one another for their next meal; an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals and desirous women; helpless newborns are snatched from their suburban yards by a man who stalks them. Through these characters Cook asks: What is at the root of our most heartless, selfish impulses? Why are people drawn together in such messy, needful ways? When the unexpected intrudes upon the routine, what do we discover about ourselves? As entertaining as it is dangerous, this accomplished collection explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized, where nature acts as a catalyst for human drama and lays bare our vulnerabilities, fears, and desires.

I Am a Strange Loop

Author : Douglas R. Hofstadter
Publisher : Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN 13 : 0465030785
Total Pages : 544 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis I Am a Strange Loop by : Douglas R. Hofstadter

Download or read book I Am a Strange Loop written by Douglas R. Hofstadter and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2007-03-27 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that the key to understanding ourselves and consciousness is the "strange loop," a special kind of abstract feedback loop that inhabits the brain.

Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

Author : Stephen Jay Gould
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393245209
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by : Stephen Jay Gould

Download or read book Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History written by Stephen Jay Gould and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1990-09-17 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

Strange Beasts of China

Author : Yan Ge
Publisher : Melville House
ISBN 13 : 1612199100
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (121 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Strange Beasts of China by : Yan Ge

Download or read book Strange Beasts of China written by Yan Ge and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book of 2021 "Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror of 2021"—The Washington Post From one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature, an uncanny and playful novel that blurs the line between human and beast… In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self. Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.

Diary of a Young Naturalist

Author : Dara McAnulty
Publisher : Milkweed Editions
ISBN 13 : 157131752X
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (713 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Diary of a Young Naturalist by : Dara McAnulty

Download or read book Diary of a Young Naturalist written by Dara McAnulty and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A BuzzFeed "Best Book of June 2021" From sixteen-year-old Dara McAnulty, a globally renowned figure in the youth climate activist movement, comes a memoir about loving the natural world and fighting to save it. Diary of a Young Naturalist chronicles the turning of a year in Dara’s Northern Ireland home patch. Beginning in spring?when “the sparrows dig the moss from the guttering and the air is as puffed out as the robin’s chest?these diary entries about his connection to wildlife and the way he sees the world are vivid, evocative, and moving. As well as Dara’s intense connection to the natural world, Diary of a Young Naturalist captures his perspective as a teenager juggling exams, friendships, and a life of campaigning. We see his close-knit family, the disruptions of moving and changing schools, and the complexities of living with autism. “In writing this book,” writes Dara, “I have experienced challenges but also felt incredible joy, wonder, curiosity and excitement. In sharing this journey my hope is that people of all generations will not only understand autism a little more but also appreciate a child’s eye view on our delicate and changing biosphere.” Winner of the Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing and already sold into more than a dozen territories, Diary of a Young Naturalist is a triumphant debut from an important new voice.

Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You

Author : Dan Riskin
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476767130
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You by : Dan Riskin

Download or read book Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You written by Dan Riskin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fun exploration of the darker side of the natural world reveals the fascinating, weird, often perverted ways that Mother Nature fends only for herself. It may be a wonderful world, but as Dan Riskin (cohost of Discovery Canada’s Daily Planet) explains, it’s also a dangerous, disturbing, and disgusting one. At every turn, it seems, living things are trying to eat us, poison us, use our bodies as their homes, or have us spread their eggs. In Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You, Riskin is our guide through the natural world at its most gloriously ruthless. Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be. From slothful worms that hide in your body for up to thirty years to wrathful snails with poisonous harpoons that can kill you in less than five minutes to lustful ducks that have orgasms faster than you can blink, these fascinating accounts reveal the candid truth about “gentle” Mother Nature’s true colors. Riskin’s passion for the strange and his enthusiastic expertise bring Earth’s most fascinating flora and fauna into vivid focus. Through his adventures— which include sliding on his back through a thick soup of bat guano just to get face-to-face with a vampire bat, befriending a parasitic maggot that has taken root on his head, and coming to grips with having offspring of his own—Riskin makes unexpected discoveries not just about the world all around us but also about the ways this brutal world has shaped us as humans and what our responsibilities are to this terrible, wonderful planet we call home.

World of Wonders

Author : Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Publisher : Milkweed Editions
ISBN 13 : 157131959X
Total Pages : 146 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (713 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis World of Wonders by : Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Download or read book World of Wonders written by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A poet celebrates the wonders of nature in a collection of essays that could almost serve as a coming-of-age memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted—no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape—she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance. “What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world’s gifts. Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy. Praise for World of Wonders Barnes & Noble 2020 Book of the Year An NPR Best Book of 2020 An Esquire Best Book of 2020 A Publishers Weekly “Big Indie Book of Fall 2020” A BuzzFeed Best Book of Fall 2020 “Hands-down one of the most beautiful books of the year.” —NPR “A timely story about love, identity and belonging.” —New York Times Book Review “A truly wonderous essay collection.” —Roxane Gay, The Audacity

Dark Ecology

Author : Timothy Morton
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231541368
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Dark Ecology by : Timothy Morton

Download or read book Dark Ecology written by Timothy Morton and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timothy Morton argues that ecological awareness in the present Anthropocene era takes the form of a strange loop or Möbius strip, twisted to have only one side. Deckard travels this oedipal path in Blade Runner (1982) when he learns that he might be the enemy he has been ordered to pursue. Ecological awareness takes this shape because ecological phenomena have a loop form that is also fundamental to the structure of how things are. The logistics of agricultural society resulted in global warming and hardwired dangerous ideas about life-forms into the human mind. Dark ecology puts us in an uncanny position of radical self-knowledge, illuminating our place in the biosphere and our belonging to a species in a sense that is far less obvious than we like to think. Morton explores the logical foundations of the ecological crisis, which is suffused with the melancholy and negativity of coexistence yet evolving, as we explore its loop form, into something playful, anarchic, and comedic. His work is a skilled fusion of humanities and scientific scholarship, incorporating the theories and findings of philosophy, anthropology, literature, ecology, biology, and physics. Morton hopes to reestablish our ties to nonhuman beings and to help us rediscover the playfulness and joy that can brighten the dark, strange loop we traverse.

Strange Beauty

Author : Cynthia Jean Hahn
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271050780
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Strange Beauty by : Cynthia Jean Hahn

Download or read book Strange Beauty written by Cynthia Jean Hahn and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A study of reliquaries as a form of representation in medieval art. Explores how reliquaries stage the importance and meaning of relics using a wide range of artistic means from material and ornament to metaphor and symbolism"--Provided by publisher.