The National Parks
America's Best Idea
Written by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns

Format: Hardcover, 432 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: September 8, 2009
Price: $50.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-26896-9 (0-307-26896-9)

The companion volume to the twelve-hour PBS series from the acclaimed filmmaker behind The Civil War, Baseball, and The War

America’s national parks spring from an idea as radical as the Declaration of Independence: that the nation’s most magnificent and sacred places should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but... Read more >

The Hidden Life of Wolves

Written by Jim Dutcher and Jamie Dutcher
Foreword by Robert Redford

Format: Hardcover, 216 pages
Publisher: National Geographic
On Sale: February 5, 2013
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-1-4262-1012-9 (1-4262-1012-4)

Delve into amazingly intimate wolf photography by Jim and Jamie Dutcher, a couple who spent many years living with a pack of wolves at the edge of Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness, observing their complex social hierarchy. Here is the alpha pair, leaders of the pack, often the only couple that mate. Here... Read more >

Facing the Wave
A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami
Written by Gretel Ehrlich

Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: February 12, 2013
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-90731-8 (0-307-90731-7)

A passionate student of Japanese poetry, theater, and art for much of her life, Gretel Ehrlich felt compelled to return to the earthquake-and-tsunami-devastated Tohoku coast to bear witness, listen to survivors, and experience their terror and exhilaration in villages and towns where all shelter and hope seemed lost. In an eloquent... Read more >

Demon Fish
Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks
Written by Juliet Eilperin

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: June 14, 2011
Price: $26.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-42512-7 (0-375-42512-8)

A group of traders huddles around a pile of dried shark fins on a gleaming white floor in Hong Kong. A Papua New Guinean elder shoves off in his hand-carved canoe, ready to summon a shark with ancient magic. A scientist finds a rare shark in Indonesia and forges a deal... Read more >

Nature and Walking

Written by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau

Format: Trade Paperback, 144 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: July 1, 1994
Price: $13.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-1419-6 (0-8070-1419-2)

Together in one volume, Emerson’s Nature and Thoreau’s Walking, is writing that defines our distinctly American relationship to nature. Read more >

Home Gardens and Agrobiodiversity

Edited by Pablo B. Eyzaguirre and Olga F. Linares

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: July 6, 2010
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-288-1 (1-58834-288-3)

Focusing on peoples throughout the tropical world, and including case studies from Cuba, Ethiopia, Ghana, Venezuela, and Vietnam, Home Gardens and Agrobiodiversity explains how both rural and urban households manage home garden diversity in ways that enable them to cope with change, and adapt their crops to new situations.

After introducing theoretical... Read more >

Toms River
A Story of Science and Salvation
Written by Dan Fagin

Format: Hardcover, 560 pages
Publisher: Bantam
On Sale: March 19, 2013
Price: $28.00
ISBN: 978-0-553-80653-3 (0-553-80653-X)

The riveting true story of a small town ravaged by industrial pollution, Toms River melds hard-hitting investigative reporting, a fascinating scientific detective story, and an unforgettable cast of characters into a sweeping narrative in the tradition of A Civil Action, The Emperor of All Maladies, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta... Read more >

Cabin Fever
A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild
Written by Tom Montgomery Fate

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: April 17, 2012
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0098-4 (0-8070-0098-1)

Try to imagine Thoreau married, with a job, three kids, and a minivan. This is the sensibility–serious yet irreverent–that suffuses Cabin Fever, as the author seeks to apply the hermit-philosopher’s insights to a busy modern life. Tom Montgomery Fate lives in a Chicago suburb, where he is a husband, father, professor... Read more >

Cabin Fever
A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild
Written by Tom Montgomery Fate

Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: June 7, 2011
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0096-0 (0-8070-0096-5)

A modern Walden--if Thoreau had had three kids and a minivan--Cabin Fever is a serious yet irreverent take on living in a cabin in the woods while also living within our high-tech, materialist culture.

Try to imagine Thoreau married, with a job, three kids, and a minivan. This is the serious yet... Read more >

Farewell, My Subaru
An Epic Adventure in Local Living
Written by Doug Fine

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Villard
On Sale: March 24, 2009
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7789-9 (0-8129-7789-0)

Selected for Common Reading at Western Connecticut State University


Like many Americans, Doug Fine enjoys his creature comforts, but he also knows full well they keep him addicted to oil. So he wonders: Is it possible to keep his Netflix and his car, his Wi-Fi and his subwoofers, and still reduce his... Read more >

Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms
The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind
Written by Richard Fortey

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: December 11, 2012
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-27553-0 (0-307-27553-1)

From one of the world’s leading natural scientists and the acclaimed author of Trilobite!, Life: A Natural History of Four Billion Years of Life on Earth and Dry Storeroom No. 1 comes a fascinating chronicle of life’s history told not through the fossil record but through the stories of organisms that... Read more >

Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms
The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind
Written by Richard Fortey

Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: April 10, 2012
Price: $28.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-26361-2 (0-307-26361-4)

From one of the world’s leading natural scientists and the acclaimed author of Trilobite!, Life: A Natural History of Four Billion Years of Life on Earth and Dry Storeroom No. 1 comes a fascinating chronicle of life’s history told not through the fossil record but through the stories of organisms that... Read more >

Rare Birds
The Extraordinary Tale of the Bermuda Petrel and the Man Who Brought It Back from Extinction
Written by Elizabeth Gehrman

Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: October 9, 2012
Price: $26.95
ISBN: 978-0-8070-1076-1 (0-8070-1076-6)

The inspiring story of David Wingate, a living legend among birders, who brought the Bermuda petrel back from presumed extinction.

David Wingate is known in Bermuda as the birdman and in the international conservation community as a living legend for single-handedly bringing back the cahow, or Bermuda petrel–a seabird that flies... Read more >

Wild Coast
Travels on South America's Untamed Edge
Written by John Gimlette

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: June 12, 2012
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-47362-2 (0-307-47362-7)

Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana are among the least-known places in South America: nine hundred miles of muddy coastline giving way to a forest so dense that even today there are virtually no roads through it; a string of rickety coastal towns situated between the mouths of the Orinoco and Amazon... Read more >

My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization

Written by Chellis Glendinning

Format: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Shambhala
On Sale: May 24, 1994
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-87773-996-8 (0-87773-996-X)

Glendinning goes beyond the personal to the heart of western civilization to answer the question of how we can use the lessons of individual recovery to address our collective need to heal society and the Earth. She shows how we can use trauma recovery and deep ecology, along with the wisdom... Read more >

Ecological Intelligence
The Hidden Impacts of What We Buy
Written by Daniel Goleman

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Crown Business
On Sale: March 30, 2010
Price: $16.99
ISBN: 978-0-385-52783-5 (0-385-52783-7)

Virginia Tech has selected Ecological Intelligence for its 2009-2010 Common Book Project.

“The theme of ecological awareness and environmental sustainability emerged as we considered a variety of books. The selection committee felt that such a theme would offer many options for engagement and use of the book across all colleges and disciplines... Read more >

The Future
Six Drivers of Global Change
Written by Al Gore

Format: Hardcover, 592 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: January 29, 2013
Price: $30.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9294-6 (0-8129-9294-6)

From the former vice president and #1 New York Times bestselling author comes An Inconvenient Truth for everything—a frank and clear-eyed assessment of six critical drivers of global change in the decades to come.

Ours is a time of revolutionary change that has no precedent in history. With the same passion he... Read more >

The Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon

Written by Michael Goulding, Ronaldo Barthem and Efrem Ferreira

Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: March 17, 2003
Price: $39.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-135-8 (1-58834-135-6)

The Amazon River flows more than 4,000 miles through the world’s greatest rainforest, into the Amazon delta, and finally into the Atlantic Ocean. This extraordinary atlas is the first comprehensive view of not only the Amazon River but also its thirteen major tributaries. More than 150 color maps and nearly 300... Read more >

Orchid Fever
A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy
Written by Eric Hansen

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: February 27, 2001
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-77183-8 (0-679-77183-2)

The acclaimed author of Motoring with Mohammed brings us a compelling adventure into the remarkable world of the orchid and the impossibly bizarre array of international characters who dedicate their lives to it.

The orchid is used for everything from medicine for elephants to an aphrodisiac ice cream. A Malaysian species can... Read more >

Recovering a Lost River
Removing Dams, Rewilding Salmon, Revitalizing Communities
Written by Steven Hawley

Format: Trade Paperback, 280 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: March 6, 2012
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0473-9 (0-8070-0473-1)

A powerful argument for why dam removal makes good scientific, economic, and environmental sense–and requires our urgent attention

The Snake River, flowing through the Northwest, was once one of the world’s greatest salmon rivers. As recently as a hundred years ago, it retained some of its historic bounty with seven million fish... Read more >

Ethical Chic
The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love
Written by Fran Hawthorne

Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: June 19, 2012
Price: $25.95
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0094-6 (0-8070-0094-9)

“Hawthorne gives readers an impartial picture of the difficulties of running a profitable company while trying to maintain a positive corporate belief system…Highly recommended.”—Library Journal, starred review

Consumers are told that when they put on an American Apparel t-shirt, leggings, jeans, gold bra, or other item, they look hot. Not only do... Read more >

Measuring and Monitoring Biological Diversity
Standard Methods for Amphibians
Edited by Ronald Heyer, Maureen A. Donnelly, Mercedes Foster and Roy Mcdiarmid

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: February 17, 1994
Price: $36.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-284-5 (1-56098-284-5)

Measuring and Monitoring Biological Diversity is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of standard methods for biodiversity sampling of amphibians, with information on analyzing and using data that will interest biologists in general.

In this manual, nearly fifty herpetologists recommend ten standard sampling procedures for measuring and monitoring amphibian and many... Read more >

Totem Salmon
Life Lessons from Another Species
Written by Freeman House

Format: Trade Paperback, 248 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: May 12, 2000
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-8549-3 (0-8070-8549-9)

Part lyrical natural history, part social and philosophical manifesto, Totem Salmon tells the story of a determined band of locals who’ve worked for over two decades to save one of the last purely native species of salmon in California. The book-call it the zen of salmon restoration-traces the evolution of the... Read more >

Full Body Burden
Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
Written by Kristen Iversen

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books
On Sale: June 4, 2013
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-95565-4 (0-307-95565-6)

Chosen one of the Best Books of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews and the American Library Association and 2012 Best Book about Justice by The Atlantic
Finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence
Selected for Common Reading at:
Virginia Commonwealth University
St. Bonaventure University
Fort Lewis College
California State University... Read more >

Full Body Burden
Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
Written by Kristen Iversen

Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
Publisher: Crown
On Sale: June 5, 2012
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-95563-0 (0-307-95563-X)

Chosen one of the Best Books of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews and the American Library Association and 2012 Best Book about Justice by The Atlantic
Finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence
Selected for Common Reading at:
Virginia Commonwealth University
St. Bonaventure University
Fort Lewis College
California State University... Read more >