Science/Nature Writing from The Vespiary Book Restoration & Bindery

Reef Madness describes a 35-year argument that took place in the late 1800s between Charles Darwin and a younger scientist, Alexander Agassiz, over how coral reefs formed. That's the issue at its simplest — a scientific conflict. But it's also a story of intense personal and philosophical conflicts: of a son trying to deal with the huge legacy of a… Read more about this item

In the parched and seemingly lifeless heart of the Sahara desert, earthworms find enough moisture to survive. Four major mountain ranges interrupt the flow of dunes and gravel plains, and at certain times waterfalls cascade from their peaks. Even the sand amazes: massive dunes can appear almost overnight, and be gone just as quickly. We think we know the Sahara,… Read more about this item

In The Life of the Skies, Jonathan Rosen explores the significance of this timeless pursuit, chronicling his own birding adventures alongside those of John James Audubon, Teddy Rooseevelt, and others.

This easy-to-use field guide features 794 species of plants commonly found along the Pacific coast from Oregon to Alaska, including trees, shrubs, wildflowers, aquatic plants, grasses, ferns, mosses and lichens. Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast covers the coastal region from shoreline to alpine, including the western Cascades.

An award-winning ecology writer goes looking for the wilderness we've forgotten Many people believe that only an ecological catastrophe will change humanity's troubled relationship with the natural world. In fact, as J.B. MacKinnon argues in this unorthodox look at the disappearing wilderness, we are living in the midst of a disaster thousands of years in the making—and we hardly notice it.… Read more about this item

A product of William Leach's lifelong love of butterflies, this engaging and elegantly illustrated history shows how Americans from all walks of life passionately pursued butterflies, and how through their discoveries and observations they transformed the character of natural history. Leach focuses on the correspondence and scientific writings of half a dozen pioneering lepidopterists who traveled across the country and… Read more about this item

In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we've learned of these key migrations—how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an… Read more about this item

Edward Abbey lived for three seasons in the desert at Moab, Utah, and what he discovered about the land before him, the world around him, and the heart that beat within, is a fascinating, sometimes raucous, always personal account of a place that has already disappeared, but is worth remembering and living through again and again.

Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to… Read more about this item

This epic story offers a sweeping tale of the wild horse in the culture, history, and popular imagination of the American West.

When Joe Hutto began his experiment in imprinting two dozen wild turkey-in the tradition of the great animal behaviorist, Konrad Lorenz-he had no idea that it would change his life. Told with skill and humor, and vibrating with the natural wonders of the Florida flatwoods, Illumination in the Flatwoods will amaze and enrich all who share this season with the… Read more about this item

When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana. She was as emotionally isolated as she was physically, but she viewed the house as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be… Read more about this item

With the finely honed skills of an essayist, the heightened sensibility of a naturalist, and the carefully reasoned mind of a philosopher, Kathleen Dean Moore examines our connections to what we hold most dear. In a quest for the metaphorical holdfast-the structures at the end of seaweed strands that attach to rocks with a grip that even ocean gales cannot… Read more about this item

A lovely period piece on natural history and God's creation, beautiful illustrated with b&w photographs.

The acclaimed National Book Award winner gives us a collection of spellbinding essays that, read together, form a jigsaw-puzzle portrait of an extraordinary man. Here is far-flung travel (the beauty of remote Hokkaido Island, the over-explored Galápagos, enigmatic Bonaire); a naturalist's contention (Why does our society inevitably strip political power from people with intimate knowledge of the land small-scale farmers, Native… Read more about this item

A non-technical key to genera with keys to species of sedges and rushes.

An easy-to-use dichotomous key for anyone who needs or wants to identify plants in Montana.

With fewer and fewer pristine places on earth left to preserve, restoration is the "new" conservation. Yet the work is anything but easy. Ecology is complex, and restoration projects are often controversial. How do we know what's natural? What should nature look like? Can we ever really turn back the clock? These debates have real consequences for the land, and for… Read more about this item

Since the age of dinosaurs, Madagascar has thrived in isolation off the east coast of Africa. In this real-life "lost world," hundreds of animal and plant species, most famously the lemurs, have evolved here and only here, while other creatures extinct elsewhere for tens of millions of years now vie with modern man for survival. It's a land of striking… Read more about this item

These delightful tales are aimed at children and tell the exciting and heart-warming tales of various wild animals. Ideal for bedtime reading, this collection would make for a worthy addition to any personal collection, and is not to be missed by fans of Seton s work.