Underland: a Deep Time Journey (Wainwright Winner 2019) by Robert Macfarlane

$45.00 AUD

Category: Nature

The highly anticipated new book from the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of Landmarks, The Lost Words and The Old Ways Discover the hidden worlds beneath our feet... In Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes us on a journey into the worlds beneath our feet. From the ice-blue depths of G reenland's glaciers, to the underground networks by which trees communicate, from Bronze Age burial chambers to the rock art of remote Arctic sea-caves, this is a deep-time voyage into the planet's past and future. Global in its geography, gripping in its voice and haunting in its implications, Underland is a work of huge range and power, and a remarkable new chapter in Macfarlane's long-term exploration of landscape and the human heart. 'Macfarlane has invented a new kind of book, really a new genre entirely' The Irish Times 'He is the great nature writer, and nature poet, of this generation' Wall Street Journal 'Macfarlane has shown how utterly beautiful a brilliantly written travel book can still be' Observer onThe Old Ways 'Irradiated by a profound sense of wonder... Few books give such a sense of enchantment; it is a book to give to many, and to return to repeatedly' Independent onLandmarks  ...Show more

Written in Stone : Reading the Rocks of the Great Ocean Road by Philomena Manifold

$49.95 AUD

Category: Nature

Enchantment of the Long-Haired Rat: A Rodent History of Australia by Tim Bonyhady

$32.99 AUD

Category: Nature

The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat tells the story of a small Australian rodent known for its fast and prodigious spread after big rains: plagues for the European colonists who feared and loathed all rats; an abundance of food for the indigenous peoples who feasted with delight in these times of ple nty. While the rats brought despair and hardship for the early colonist eating not only crops and supplies but clothes, boots and saddlery, their presence also offered a lifeline as a food source. The Burke and Wills story might well have had a different ending had the hapless explorers been tempted to follow the example of the Aboriginal people and make use of a nutritious and readily available meal.Tim Bonyhady's account--from the earliest evidence of it, found in caves and overhangs, to its most recent boom triggered by the immense rains across Australia of 2010-11 and current research of its mysterious life--presents a fascinating view of Australia's history, illuminating a species, a continent, its climate and its people. ...Show more

Eucalypts of the Mount Alexander Region by Bernard J. Slattery

$14.95 AUD

Category: Nature

A field guide for beginners to common and uncommon Eucalypts of this region inland of the Great Divide in Victoria. Each species is illustrated with numerous excellent photos and line drawings. Descriptions are technically accurate but free of technical language. Though locally based, the guide would be useful to anyone interested in the 'box-ironbark' regions of Victoria. ...Show more

The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator by Timothy C. Winegard

$32.99 AUD

Category: Nature

What was George Washington's secret weapon during the American Revolution, and how did it lead to Britain colonising Australia? What protected Popes for centuries? And what does Starbucks have to thank for its global domination? The answer to these questions and many more is: the mosquito. The mosquito has razed economies, determined the fates of empires and decided the outcome of pivotal wars. They have dispatched an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion ever to have lived. As the greatest purveyor of extermination we have known, she has played a greater role in shaping our history than any other living creature. The Mosquito is the extraordinary story of how a tiny bloodsucking fly indelibly changed our world. ...Show more

Owls: Journeys Around the World by David Hollands

$35.00 AUD

Category: Nature

David Hollands first became aware of owls as a young boy upon hearing the quavering hoot of the Tawny Owl which lived, out of sight, in the woods near his home. Their secrets remained undiscovered but then he came across some spectral Barn Owls in an ancient English barn. These were the first owls that he had watched at close quarters and photographed in the night. It was a magical experience and, by then, that first awareness had progressed and become a lifelong passion. David Hollands came to Australia in 1961and for a while, the demands of running a medical practice put a brake on other activities. Nevertheless, his fascination for birds, owls and photography could never remain submerged for long and, in 1999, he completed 'Birds of the Night' - a comprehensive study in words and photographs of Australia's owls, frogmouths and nightjars. However, David's owl studies continued. There were owls to be pursued around the world and he set out to find and photograph as many as possible. By his own admission, he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The author's love of birds extends beyond owls and he has also written books on Australia's Birds of Prey and on Kingfishers and Kookaburras. All three books won the Whitley Award for the Best Illustrated Australian Natural History book of that year. ...Show more

Australian Wildlife by PARISH Steve

$34.95 AUD

Category: Nature

This 2010 Whitley-Award-winning book for Popular Zoology is a full-co lour tribute to natural diversity and a journey into an exquisite galler y of Australian animal life. In Australian Wildlife, Steve Parish shares with you personally selected portraits that explain and exemplify his o ngoing passion f or all creatures great and small. Each spread, complemen ted by insightful text, highlights the incredible adaptability of nature and provides a fitting homage to the beauty of Australia's living herit age. ...Show more

A Farmer's Diary - A Year at High House Farm by Sally Urwin

$29.99 AUD

Category: Nature

'It's beautiful weather today - I sit down outside the lambing shed with my back up against a pen and savour the spring sunshine. All the sheep are bedded up and everyone is fed and watered. No ewe is lambing, and I have half an hour to myself. I stretch out my feet in my wellies and push them into the warm straw ...'Sally Urwin and her husband Steve own High House Farm in Northumberland, which they share with Mavis the Sheepdog, one very fat pony, and many, many sheep. Set in beautiful, wild landscape, and in use for generations, it's the perfect setting for Sally's (sometimes brutally) honest and charming account of farming life. From stock sales to lambing sheds, and out in the fields in driving snow and hot summer days, A Farmer's Diary reveals the highs, lows and hard, hard work involved in making a living from the land. Filled with grit and humour, newborn lambs and local characters, this is the perfect book for anyone who has ever wondered what it's like on the other side of the fence. ...Show more

Homing by Jon Day

$39.99 AUD

Category: Nature

As a boy, Jon Day was fascinated by pigeons, which he used to rescue from the streets of London. Twenty years later he moved away from the city centre to the suburbs to start a family. But in moving house, he began to lose a sense of what it meant to feel at home. Returning to his childhood obsession wi th the birds, he built a coop in his garden and joined a local pigeon racing club. Over the next few years, as he made a home with his young family in Leyton, he learned to train and race his pigeons, hoping that they might teach him to feel homed. Having lived closely with humans for tens of thousands of years, pigeons have become powerful symbols of peace and domesticity. But they are also much-maligned, and nowadays most people think of these birds, if they do so at all, as vermin. A book about the overlooked beauty of this species, and about what it means to dwell, Homing delves into the curious world of pigeon fancying, explores the scientific mysteries of animal homing, and traces the cultural, political and philosophical meanings of home. It is a book about the making of home and making for home: a book about why we return. ...Show more

The Eastern Curlew PB by Harry Saddler

$19.99 AUD

Category: Nature

The Tangled Tree - A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen

$19.99 AUD

Category: Nature

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and A New York Times Notable Book of 2018. Our understanding of the 'tree of life', with powerful implications for human genetics, human health and our own human nature, has recently completely changed. This book is about a new method of telling the story of life on earth - through molecular phylogenetics. It involves a fairly simple method - the reading of the deep history of life by looking at the variation in protein molecules found in living organisms. For instance, we now know that roughly eight per cent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection. In The Tangled Tree, acclaimed science writer David Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them - such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about 'mosaic' creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health. Quammen explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of life - including where we humans fit into it. Thanks to new technologies, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic composition - through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. The Tangled Tree is a brilliant exploration of our transformed understanding of evolution and of life's history itself. ...Show more

Wooleen Way: The Renewing an Australian Resource by David Pollock

$35.00 AUD

Category: Nature

The outback conjures many images that the Australian psyche is built upon. Its grand vistas of sweeping dusty plains and its evocation of a tough pioneering spirit form the foundation of our prosperous culture. But these romantic visions often hide the stark environmental, economic, and social problems that have inadvertently been left in the wake of our collective past. Through retelling the struggle of his family amid droughts, financial ruin, depression, and death, David Pollock exposes the modern-day realities of managing a remote outback station. Forced by a sense of moral responsibility, he set out on an uncharted course to restore the 153,000 hectares of degraded leasehold land that he felt he was obliged to manage on behalf of the Australian people. Then, just at the point when that course seemed certain to fail, the project was saved by the generosity and faith of everyday Australians. This is an urgent story of political irresponsibility, bureaucratic obstinacy, industrial monopolisation, and, above all, ecological illiteracy in a vast segment of the Australian continent. It is a familiar story of overexploitation. Yet it is also a story of the extraordinary ability of the natural environment to repair itself, given the chance. After over a decade of his hard-won insights, Pollock outlines in The Wooleen Way a specific and comprehensive plan to reverse the ecological damage done to the pastoral resource since European colonisation. He also emphasises the economic and social necessity of carrying it out. This is a story with national implications about a way to curb the conquering human spirit so that it aligns with the subtle power of the natural landscape. ...Show more