The Kingdom of Rarities
10 best books like The Kingdom of Rarities (Eric Dinerstein): The Life of Birds, Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise, Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish, Gold Rush in the Jungle: The Race to Discover and Defend the Rarest Animals of Vietnam's "Lost World", The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa, Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures, Poseidon's Steed The Story of Seahorses, from Myth to Reality, Learning From the Octopus: How Secrets from Nature Can Help Us Fight Terrorist Attacks, Natural Disasters, and Disease, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle, The Nature of Horses
| Author | David Attenborough |
| ISBN | 0563387920 |
Over 9,000 species, the most widespread of all animals: on icebergs, in the Sahara or under the sea, at home in our gardens or flying for over a year at a time. Earthbound, we can only look and listen, enjoying their lightness, freedom and richness of plumage and song.
David Attenborough has been...
| Author | David Rothenberg |
| ISBN | 1250005213 |
In the spring of 2013 the cicadas in the Northeastern United States will yet again emerge from their seventeen-year cycle—the longest gestation period of any animal. Those who experience this great sonic invasion compare their sense of wonder to the arrival of a comet or a solar eclipse. This unending...
| Author | James Prosek |
| ISBN | 0060566116 |
Tour through the life history and cultural associations of the freshwater eel, exploring its biology in streams and epic migrations in the ocean, its myth and lore, its mystery and beauty. Prosek travels the globe to tell the story of the eel--from New York to New Zealand; from Europe to Japan and the...
| Author | Dan Drollette |
| ISBN | 0307407047 |
An engrossing, adventure-filled account of the rush to discover and save Vietnam's most extraordinary animals.
Deep in the jungle where the borders of Vietnam meet those of Laos and Cambodia is a region known as "the lost world." Large mammals never seen before by Western science have popped...
| Author | Caitlin O'Connell |
| ISBN | 0743284410 |
This book was not all I hoped for. Although the description of the author's life and how she studies the animals is quite interesting, the manner in which she told the story lost me. I thought in the beginning it was going to be a clear goal - discovering new information about the communication of the animals...
| Author | Bill Schutt |
| ISBN | 0307381129 |
For centuries, blood feeders have inhabited our nightmares and horror stories, as well as the shadowy realms of scientific knowledge. In Dark Banquet, zoologist Bill Schutt takes readers on an entertaining voyage into the world of some of nature’s strangest creatures—the sanguivores. Using...
A fascinating journey with the sea creature that has captured human imagination for thousands of years
Poseidon's Steed trails the seahorse through secluded waters across the globe in a kaleidoscopic history that mirrors man?s centuries-old fascination with the animal, sweeping from...
| Author | Rafe Sagarin |
| ISBN | 0465021832 |
Despite the billions of dollars we’ve poured into foreign wars, homeland security, and disaster response, we are fundamentally no better prepared for the next terrorist attack or unprecedented flood than we were in 2001. Our response to catastrophe remains unchanged: add another step to airport...
| Author | Thor Hanson |
| ISBN | 0465020135 |
Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling. They date back more than 100 million years. Yet their story has never been fully told. In Feathers, biologist Thor Hanson details a sweeping natural history, as feathers have been used to fly, protect, attract, and adorn through...
| Author | Stephen Budiansky |
| ISBN | 0684827689 |
Horses have a shared history with man going back millennia to their domestication around 4000 B.C. Yet only in very recent years have scientists begun to turn the tools of modem science on this remarkable animal that has been so wrapped up in human dreams and legends. Now modern scientific research...
| Author | Michael R. Canfield |
| ISBN | 0674057570 |
Pioneering a new niche in the study of plants and animals in their native habitat, Field Notes on Science and Nature allows readers to peer over the shoulders and into the notebooks of a dozen eminent field workers, to study firsthand their observational methods, materials, and fleeting impressions.
What...
| Author | Alan Burdick |
| ISBN | 0374219737 |
A stunning work of narrative nonfiction that asks: what is natural?
Now as never before, exotic animals and plants are crossing the globe, borne on the swelling tide of human traffic to places where nature never intended them to be. Bird-eating snakes from Australia hitchhike to Hawaii in the landing...
| Author | Craig Welch |
| ISBN | 0061537136 |
A unique blend of natural history and crime drama, Shell Games by Craig Welch is a riveting tale of rogues, scoundrels, and the hunt for nature’s bounty in the tradition of The Orchid Thief. A stranger-than-fiction true story centered around a larger-than-life character who pursued a larger-than-life...
Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World
| Author | William R. Leach |
| ISBN | 0375422935 |
With 32 pages of full-color inserts and black-and-white illustrations throughout.
From one of our most highly regarded historians, here is an original and engrossing chronicle of nineteenth-century America’s infatuation with butterflies, and the story of the naturalists who unveiled...
| Author | Lyanda Lynn Haupt |
| ISBN | 0316178527 |
From the bestselling author of Crow Planet, a compelling journey into the secret lives of the wild animals at our back door.
In THE URBAN BESTIARY, acclaimed nature writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt journeys into the heart of the everyday wild, where coyotes, raccoons, chickens, hawks, and humans...
| Author | Ruth Kassinger |
| ISBN | 0062048996 |
In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab.
In Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounted with grace and humor her journey from brown...
| Author | Elizabeth Royte |
| ISBN | 0618257586 |
This mischievous behind-the-scenes account of life at a biological research station on a Panamanian island "conveys the uncertainties, frustrations, and joys of [scientific] field work" (Science). Journalist Elizabeth Royte weaves together her own adventures on Barro Colorado with tales of...
| Author | David Quammen |
| ISBN | 0743200322 |
In 1981 David Quammen began what might be every freelance writer's dream: a monthly column for Outside magazine in which he was given free rein to write about anything that interested him in the natural world. His column was called "Natural Acts," and for the next fifteen years he delighted Outside's...
| Author | Wendy Williams |
| ISBN | 0810984652 |
Kraken is the traditional name for gigantic sea monsters, and this book introduces one of the most charismatic, enigmatic, and curious inhabitants of the sea: the squid. The pages take the reader on a wild narrative ride through the world of squid science and adventure, along the way addressing some...
| Author | Stephen J. O'Brien |
| ISBN | 0312339003 |
The history of life on Earth is dominated by extinction events so numerous that over 99.9% of the species ever to have existed are gone forever. If animals could talk, we would ask them to recall their own ancestries, in particular the secrets as to how they avoided almost inevitable annihilation in the...
| Author | William Stolzenburg |
| ISBN | 1608191036 |
Rat Island rises from the icy gray waters of the Bering Sea, a mass of volcanic rock covered with tundra, midway between Alaska and Siberia. Once a remote sanctuary for enormous flocks of seabirds, the island gained a new name when shipwrecked rats colonized, savaging the nesting birds by the thousands....
| Author | Bernd Heinrich |
| ISBN | 0547198485 |
Acclaimed scientist and author Bernd Heinrich has returned every year since boyhood to a beloved patch of western Maine woods. What is the biology in humans of this deep-in-the-bones pull toward a particular place, and how is it related to animal homing?
Heinrich explores the fascinating...
The Best Science Writing Online
| Author | Bora Zivkovic |
| ISBN | 0374533342 |
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way we think about science-- from fluids to fungi, poisons to pirates. Featuring noted authors and journalists as well as the brightest up-and-comers...
| Author | Caroline Fraser |
| ISBN | 0805078266 |
A gripping account of the environmental crusade to save the world’s most endangered species and landscapes—the last best hope for preserving our natural home
Scientists worldwide are warning of the looming extinction of thousands of species, from tigers and polar bears to rare flowers,...
Tigers in Red Weather: A Quest for the Last Wild Tigers
| Author | Ruth Padel |
| ISBN | 0802715443 |
Poet, writer, and descendant of Charles Darwin, Ruth Padel set out to visit a tropical jungle and wildlife sanctuary in India-- and her visit turned into a remarkable two-year journey through eleven countries in search of that most elusive and most beautiful animal: the tiger. Armed with her grandmother's...
