Showing titles in Outdoors & Nature

In 2020, writer and campaigner Guy Shrubsole moved from London to Devon. As he explored the wooded valleys, rivers and tors of Dartmoor, Guy discovered a spectacular habitat that he had never encountered before: temperate rainforest. Entranced, he would spend the coming months investigating the history, ecology and distribution of rainforests across England, Wales and Scotland. Britain, Guy discovered, was once a rainforest nation. This is the story of a unique habitat that has been so ravaged, most people today don’t realise it exists.

When Felix arrived at Huddersfield Railway Station as a kitten, no-one knew how important she would become. She has a vital job as 'Senior Pest Controller' - but Felix is more than just an employee of TransPennine Express. She has changed her colleagues' lives and saved the day time and again: from bringing a boy with autism out of his shell to comforting a runaway child. When tragedy hits the team, they rely on Felix to pull them together. But it is a chance friendship with a commuter that catapults her to international stardom....

In Wilderlands, archaeologist Eloise Kane unearths 12,000 years of our changing relationship with and influence on the landscape. Through prehistory, Roman occupation, the Middle Ages and beyond, we see the unfamiliar beasts of our old wild make way for species such as brown hare and fallow deer, now romanticised as eternal symbols of the British countryside, but introduced much later than we might think. Places free from our influence haven't existed for a very long time. But Eloise Kane invites us to rethink our definition of the wild - not as separate from us.

Carl Sagan, writer and scientist, returns from the frontier to tell us about how the world works. In his delightfully down-to-earth style, he explores and explains a mind-boggling future of intelligent robots, extraterrestrial life and its consequences, and other provocative, fascinating quandaries of the future that we want to see today.

Thirty-four years ago, when they were in their 20s, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine’s ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the Earth.

Gerald Durrell's last book, The Aye-Aye and I, records his final animal-collecting expedition, a trip to Madagascar in 1990, and his efforts to save the elusive and mythical lemuroid known as the Aye-Aye. Prompted by the country's radical deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture, Durrell, his wife, and their team of zoologists embark on a mission to capture and conserve the species - distinguished by its "giant, chisel-like teeth", "round, hypnotic eyes", and large "spoon-like ears".

Brought to you by Penguin. Since the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about science, faith, art and philosophy. Looking to the skies above, we have variously worshipped them as gods, hunted them for sustenance, adorned ourselves in...

Britain is the home of the badger — there are more badgers per square kilometre in this country than in any other. And yet many of us have never seen one in the wild. They are enigmatic, nocturnal creatures who vanish into their labyrinthine underground setts at the first hint of a human. Here, Patrick Barkham follows in the footsteps of his badger-loving grandmother, to meet the feeders, farmers and scientists who know their way around Badgerlands: the mysterious world in which these distinctively striped creatures live out their lives.

In May of 1963, Seattle mountaineer Jim Whittaker stepped into world history by becoming the first American to summit Mount Everest. More than 50 years later, he is still regarded as a seminal figure in North American mountaineering, as well as an astute businessman who helped create the outdoor recreation industry. A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond is Jim's courageous, no-punches-pulled autobiography and a look at a peripatetic, sometimes difficult life.

From shark attack survivor to the shark’s biggest advocate, Paul de Gelder tells us just why these majestic diverse animals need our help as much as we need them. Something happens to you the first time you dive with sharks… We have a perennial fascination with sharks. Portrayed in the media...

The British countryside is renowned for its natural beauty and diverse wildlife and any walk, whether it be in woodland, wetland or open country, is always accompanied by the varied songs and calls of our birdlife.

On the afternoon of July 13, 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse.

Everest: It’s not about the summit, is a remarkable account of a lifelong goal altered in tragic circumstances two years running by the two worst disasters in Mount Everest’s history. Throughout it all Ellis Stewart shows a sense of humility and compassion sharing a heartfelt and emotional twenty year journey. From the streets of northern England through to the valleys and high mountains of Nepal, Stewart shared his story with thousands of followers on social media, winning over the hearts and minds of many.

This capstone work of New York Times bestselling spiritual writer Lucinda M. Vardey reveals itself as an unforgettable field guide to the wisdom of the wild, and our place in its superabundance. Nature invites all to receive the grand inheritance of the great outdoors, yet modern life estranges...

From her first ski trip, Jean Waight is entranced by the beauty and welcoming feel of Oregon's old lodge—an inspired 1937 creation. Winter by winter, her friends share weather, mishaps, and ale. She braves a comical encounter with a pine marten and is less brave when alone in a freakish snow accident that takes her to life's very edge. But Timberline Lodge's whisperings only become clear after she has to give up skiing. When skiers and snowboarders head for the slopes and all is quiet inside, the past comes out to play. Even the linocut murals hold up a mirror to her own life.

At 64° South, on a tiny Antarctic island bustling with penguins, even the smallest lives leave a mark. Welcome to Port Lockroy – the world’s southernmost post office, a tiny outpost on a football-pitch-sized island off the Antarctic Peninsula, shared by a handful of humans and a thousand...

Einmal im Leben einen Wal sehen – für die 23-jährige Malina beginnt mit diesem Traum ein Abenteuer, das ihr Leben verändern wird. Sie zieht für ein halbes Jahr auf eine winzige Atlantikinsel, um dort als Wal-Tour-Guide zu arbeiten – ganz allein, ohne jemals dort gewesen zu sein und ohne Plan. Zwischen Selbstzweifel, Heimweh und Seekrankheit wächst Malina über sich hinaus, lernt, die eigenen Ängste zu überwinden und ihrer Begeisterung zu folgen.

Beyond the Last Trail is not just a survival book. It’s a guide to staying calm, thinking clearly, and making the right decisions when everything goes wrong. When the trail disappears, comfort no longer matters. What matters is staying alive. This book takes you inside extreme survival moments where fear, hunger, injury, isolation, and uncertainty become real. Through powerful scenarios and practical lessons, you’ll learn how experienced survivors think, act, and endure when help isn’t coming.

**Shortlisted for the 2025 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize** The bestselling author of Your Inner Fish takes readers on an epic adventure to the North and South Poles to reveal the secrets locked in the ice about life, the cosmos, and our planet’s future. “Urgent [and]...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A harrowing, moving memoir of the 1972 plane crash that left its survivors stranded on a glacier in the Andes—and one man’s quest to lead them all home “In straightforward, staggeringly honest prose, Nando Parrado tells us what it took—and what it...