New Title

1) Stevens, Martin. Cheats and Deceits: How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead. 2016. Oxford University Press. Hardbound: 300 pages. Price: $34.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: In nature, trickery and deception are widespread. Animals and plants mimic other objects or species in the environment for protection, trick other species into rearing their young, lure prey to their death, and deceive potential mates for reproduction. Cuckoos lay eggs carefully matched to their host's own clutch. Harmless butterflies mimic the wing patterning of a poisonous butterfly to avoid being eaten. The deep-sea angler fish hangs a glowing, fleshy lure in front of its mouth to draw the attention of potential prey, while some male fish alter their appearance to look like females in order to sneak past rivals in mating. Some orchids develop the smell of female insects in order to attract pollinators, while carnivorous plants lure insects to their death with colourful displays.
     In Cheats and Deceits, Martin Stevens describes the remarkable range of such adaptations in nature, and considers how they have evolved and increasingly been perfected as part of an arms race between predator and prey or host and parasite. He explores both classic and recent research of naturalists and biologists, showing how scientists find ways of testing the impact of particular behaviors and colorings on the animals it is meant to fool. Drawing on a wide range of examples, Stevens considers what deception tells us about the process of evolution and adaptation.
RECOMMENDATION: A detailed treatment on the subjects.

New Title

1) Logan, Peter B.. Audubon: America's Greatest Naturalist and His Voyage of Discovery to Labrador. 2016. Ashbryn Press. Hardbound: 840 pages. Price: $40.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: The Birds of America. One man's dream to illustrate and publish a work depicting all the birds of North America. Midway through the nearly twelve-year project, the French-American painter and naturalist John James Audubon was beset by obstacles and began to doubt if he could complete it. This overlooked chapter in his life comes alive in this volume, as Audubon faces a difficult test while the fate of his Great Work hangs in the balance.
      By the spring of 1833, after six years of serial publication, not even half of the four hundred promised prints had been issued to his subscribers. Audubon still needed to find and paint scores of additional species before he could lay aside his brush.
     The uncharted shores of Labrador beckoned with rumors of rare birds, but an expedition to the north would be a severe trial. It was a desolate land, and its brief summer would afford him little time to accomplish his mission. At the age of forty-eight, he questioned how much longer he could maintain the punishing pace his project demanded. His wife, Lucy, feared for his health. Audubon was undaunted.
     As he sailed from Eastport, Maine, in early June, developments abroad threatened to undo his work. Robert Havell Jr., the brilliant London engraver and printer who had brought Audubon s vision to life, was ready to quit. At the same time, the naturalist's harshest critic in England had just unleashed an attack on him in Britain s foremost natural-history journal. Half a world away, Audubon was unable to respond.
     Through the lens of this heretofore unwritten tale, Audubon scholar Peter B. Logan offers a beautifully textured narrative for historians and Audubon lovers alike. Meticulously researched, using many previously unknown sources, this groundbreaking book portrays the panoramic sweep of Audubon s remarkable life, from his illegitimate birth through his aimless early years as a frontier storekeeper to his decision to launch a daring enterprise from which he would emerge as America s greatest naturalist. At the heart of this saga lies the Labrador expedition. With the reader alongside during the most critical point in his career, Audubon is revealed as his closest friends knew him dynamic, gregarious, and utterly indomitable, while simultaneously insecure, egotistical, and not beyond stretching the truth.
     Addressing historical errors made by previous biographers and supplemented with numerous maps and illustrations, as well as an appendix of never-before-published documents, Audubon: America's Greatest Naturalist and His Voyage of Discovery to Labrador rewrites the unforgettable story of the iconic American Woodsman, whose passion and purpose produced an enduring monument to natural history that has never been equaled.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in Audubon's travels.

New Title

1) Barber, Lynn E.. Birds in Trouble. 2016. Texas A&M University Press. Flexibound: 200 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: As oil was washing up on the shores of Louisiana, covering shorebirds and their nests and eggs after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Lynn Barber decided to write this book to heighten awareness, not only of the plight of bird species that are declining in numbers every year, but also of the ways in which the birds we see every day may also face the same fate.
     First explaining the idea of birds “in trouble”—and what that means in terms of population, conservation status, and national and international designations—the book then turns to the habitats that are important to birds, how they are affected by changes in these habitats, and what ordinary people can do to help counter those negative effects. Barber then profiles forty-two species that are in trouble in the United States, discussing the likely reasons why and what, if anything, we can do to improve their situations. Illustrated throughout with the author’s signature bird art, the book closes with a reminder about what we can do to ensure that the birds we see every day in our yards, parks, and communities will remain with us.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in rare or endangered bird species.

New Title

1) Carlsen, William. Jungle of Stone: The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. 2016. William Morrow. Hardbound: 544 pages. Price: $28.99 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: In 1839, rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world’s most intrepid travelers. Seized by the reports, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood—both already celebrated for their adventures in Egypt, the Holy Land, Greece, and Rome—sailed together out of New York Harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rainforests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. What they found would upend the West’s understanding of human history.
     In the tradition of Lost City of Z and In the Kingdom of Ice, former San Francisco Chronicle journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist William Carlsen reveals the remarkable story of the discovery of the ancient Maya. Enduring disease, war, and the torments of nature and terrain, Stephens and Catherwood meticulously uncovered and documented the remains of an astonishing civilization that had flourished in the Americas at the same time as classic Greece and Rome—and had been its rival in art, architecture, and power. Their masterful book about the experience, written by Stephens and illustrated by Catherwood, became a sensation, hailed by Edgar Allan Poe as “perhaps the most interesting book of travel ever published” and recognized today as the birth of American archaeology. Most important, Stephens and Catherwood were the first to grasp the significance of the Maya remains, understanding that their antiquity and sophistication overturned the West’s assumptions about the development of civilization.
     By the time of the flowering of classical Greece (400 b.c.), the Maya were already constructing pyramids and temples around central plazas. Within a few hundred years the structures took on a monumental scale that required millions of man-hours of labor, and technical and organizational expertise. Over the next millennium, dozens of city-states evolved, each governed by powerful lords, some with populations larger than any city in Europe at the time, and connected by road-like causeways of crushed stone. The Maya developed a cohesive, unified cosmology, an array of common gods, a creation story, and a shared artistic and architectural vision. They created stucco and stone monuments and bas reliefs, sculpting figures and hieroglyphs with refined artistic skill. At their peak, an estimated ten million people occupied the Maya’s heartland on the Yucatan Peninsula, a region where only half a million now live. And yet by the time the Spanish reached the “New World,” the Maya had all but disappeared; they would remain a mystery for the next three hundred years.
     Today, the tables are turned: the Maya are justly famous, if sometimes misunderstood, while Stephens and Catherwood have been nearly forgotten. Based on Carlsen’s rigorous research and his own 2,500-mile journey throughout the Yucatan and Central America, Jungle of Stone is equally a thrilling adventure narrative and a revelatory work of history that corrects our understanding of Stephens, Catherwood, and the Maya themselves.
RECOMMENDATION: If you enjoyed Lost City of Z, you should enjoy this book.

New Title

1) Trollinger, Susan L. and William Vance Trollinger, Jr.. Righting America at the Creation Museum. 2016. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 327 pages. Price: $26.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: On May 28, 2007, the Creation Museum opened in Petersburg, Kentucky. Aimed at scientifically demonstrating that the universe was created less than ten thousand years ago by a Judeo-Christian god, the museum is hugely popular, attracting millions of visitors over the past eight years. Surrounded by themed topiary gardens and a petting zoo with camel rides, the site conjures up images of a religious Disneyland. Inside, visitors are met by dinosaurs at every turn and by a replica of the Garden of Eden that features the Tree of Life, the serpent, and Adam and Eve.
     In Righting America at the Creation Museum, Susan L. Trollinger and William Vance Trollinger, Jr., take readers on a fascinating tour of the museum. The Trollingers vividly describe and analyze its vast array of exhibits, placards, dioramas, and videos, from the Culture in Crisis Room, where videos depict sinful characters watching pornography or considering abortion, to the Natural Selection Room, where placards argue that natural selection doesn’t lead to evolution. The book also traces the rise of creationism and the history of fundamentalism in America.
    This compelling book reveals that the Creation Museum is a remarkably complex phenomenon, at once a "natural history" museum at odds with contemporary science, an extended brief for the Bible as the literally true and errorless word of God, and a powerful and unflinching argument on behalf of the Christian right.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in the evolution vs. creationism debate.

New Titles

1) Phillipps, Quentin, and Karen Phillipps. Phillipps' Field Guide to the Mammals of Borneo and Their Ecology: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, and Kalimantan. 2016. John Beaufoy Publishing/ Princeton University Press. Paperback: 400 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: This is the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and easily accessible field guide to the mammals of Borneo—the ideal travel companion for anyone visiting this region of the world. Covering Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, and Kalimantan, the book provides essential information on 277 species of land and marine mammals and features 141 breathtaking color plates. Detailed facing-page species accounts describe taxonomy, size, range, distribution, habits, and status. This unique at-a-glance guide also includes distribution maps, habitat plates, regional maps, fast-find graphic indexes, top mammal sites, and a complete overview of the vegetation, climate, and ecology of Borneo.
RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for those with an interest in the mammals of the region.

2) Wijeyeratne, Gehan de Silva. A Naturalist's Guide to the Butterflies & Dragonflies of Sri Lanka. 2015. John Beaufoy Publishing. Paperback: 176 pages. Price: $17.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY:  Increasingly the segmentation between birders, butterfly watchers, dragonfly watchers and photographers is reducing as interests overlap and there is a demand for books that cover the three popular groups of birds, butterflies and dragonflies. Having written and photographed the guide to the birds of Sri Lanka in the series, Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne has produced a single, compact and portable photographic guide to the butterflies and dragonflies of the country. The emphasis in the 280 species featured is on the commoner species, covering around 90 per cent of the species that a visitor is likely to see. It is also an excellent book for residents to learn about the commoner butterflies and dragonflies before progressing to more advanced technical books.

     The guide is focused on field use to help beginners and experts identify species and provides information on their distribution and habitats. As identification of butterflies and dragonflies require a different approach, the two sections are done as two mini photographic field guides with common introductory sections to wildlife watching in Sri Lanka. The book includes information on the key wildlife sites, general introductions to the biology of dragonflies and butterflies, up-to-date checklists with local status and useful references for people who wish to progress further with their study of these charismatic and photogenic animals.
RECOMMENDATION: A well illustrated introduction to these insects of the region.

New Title

1) Powell, Robert, Roger Conant, and Joseph T. Collins. Peterson Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, Fourth Edition. 2016. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Paperback: 494 pages. Price: $21.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: A completely updated edition, including 122 newly recognized or recently established non-native species of reptiles and amphibians.
     The new edition of this definitive guide reflects 25 years’ worth of changes in our knowledge of reptiles and amphibians. It includes descriptions of 122 newly recognized or recently established non-native species, updated maps, and new figures and photos. Color illustrations and drawings show key details for accurate identification. More than 100 color photographs and 322 color distribution maps accompany the species descriptions. Clear and concise species accounts provide key characteristics, similar species, habitats, and ranges, as well as subspecies, voice descriptions, and conservation status. This edition will be a crucial resource for professional and amateur herpetologists, naturalists, outdoor enthusiasts, and students.
RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for those with an interest in the reptiles and amphibians of the region!

New Titles

1) Kays, Roland. Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature. 2016. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 261 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: In Candid Creatures, the first major book to reveal the secret lives of animals through motion-sensitive game cameras, biologist Roland Kays has assembled over 600 remarkable photographs. Drawing from archives of millions of color and night-vision photographs collected by hundreds of researchers, Kays has selected images that show the unique perspectives of wildlife from throughout the world. Using these photos, he tells the stories of scientific discoveries that camera traps have enabled, such as living proof of species thought to have been extinct and details of predator-prey interactions.
     Each image captures a moment frozen in the camera’s flash as animals move through their wild habitats. Kays also discusses how scientists use camera traps to address conservation issues, creating solutions that allow humans and wild animals to coexist. More than just a collection of amazing animal pictures, the book’s text, maps, and illustrations work together to describe the latest findings in the fast-moving field of wildlife research. Candid Creatures is a testament to how the explosion of game cameras around the world has revolutionized the study of animal ecology. The powerful combination of pictures and stories of discovery will fascinate anyone interested in science, nature, wildlife biology, or photography.
RECOMMENDATION: A well illustrated introduction on the subject.

2) Schmidt, Justin O.. The Sting of the Wild. 2016. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 257 pages. Price: $24.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt is on a mission. Some say it’s a brave exploration, others shake their heads in disbelief. His goal? To compare the impacts of stinging insects on humans, mainly using himself as the gauge.
     In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects, seeing the world through their eyes as well as his own. He explains how and why they attack and reveals the powerful punch they can deliver with a small venom gland and a "sting," the name for the apparatus that delivers the venom. We learn which insects are the worst to encounter and why some are barely worth considering.
      The Sting of the Wild includes the complete Schmidt Sting Pain Index, published here for the first time. In addition to a numerical ranking of the agony of each of the eighty-three stings he’s sampled so far (from below 1 to an excruciatingly painful 4), Schmidt describes them in prose worthy of a professional wine critic: "Looks deceive. Rich and full-bodied in appearance, but flavorless" and "Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel."
     Schmidt explains that, for some insects, stinging is used for hunting: small wasps, for example, can paralyze huge caterpillars and then lay their eggs inside so that their larvae can feast within. Others are used to kill competing insects, even members of their own species. Humans usually experience stings as defensive maneuvers used by insects to protect their nest mates.
With colorful descriptions of each venom’s sensation and a story that leaves you tingling with awe, The Sting of the Wild’s one-of-a-kind style will fire your imagination.
RECOMMENDATION: Ouch! All I can say is better him than me!

New Title

1) Zickefoose, Julie. Baby Birds: An Artist Looks into the Nest. 2016. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Hardbound: 338 pages. Price: $28.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: If you’ve ever wondered what goes on in bird nests, or what happens after a fledgling leaves the nest, come along on Julie’s sensitive exploration of often-uncharted ornithological ground.

     This beautiful book is as much an art book as it is a natural history, something readers have come to expect from Julie Zickefoose. More than 400 watercolor paintings show the breathtakingly swift development of seventeen different species of wild birds. Sixteen of those species nest on Julie's wildlife sanctuary, so she knows the birds intimately, and writes about them with authority. To create the bulk of this extraordinary work, Julie would borrow a wild nestling, draw it, then return it to its nest every day until it fledged. Some were orphans she raised by hand, giving the ultimate insider’s glimpse into their lives. In sparkling prose, Julie shares a lifetime of insight about bird breeding biology, growth, and cognition. 

      As an artist and wildlife rehabilitator, Julie possesses a unique skill set that includes sketching and painting rapidly from life as well as handling delicate hatchlings. She is uniquely positioned to create such an opus, and in fact, nothing like it has ever been attempted. Julie has many fans, and she will gain many more with this unparalleled work.

RECOMMENDATION: This is Zickefoose's best book to date!

Julie Zickefoose

New Title

1) Jahren, Hope. Lab Girl. 2016. Knopf. Hardbound: 290 pages. Price: $26.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world.
     Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much more.
      Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren’s remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.   
      Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them from the Midwest across the United States and back again, over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home.
     Jahren’s probing look at plants, her astonishing tenacity of spirit, and her acute insights on nature enliven every page of this extraordinary book. Lab Girl opens your eyes to the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal. Here is an eloquent demonstration of what can happen when you find the stamina, passion, and sense of sacrifice needed to make a life out of what you truly love, as you discover along the way the person you were meant to be.
RECOMMENDATION: For those that want a behind the scenes look at what it's like to be a scientist.

New Titles

1-2) Sibley, David. The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern/Western North America (Second Editions). 2016. Knopf. Flexibound: 438 and 477 pages respectively. Price: $19.95 U.S. each.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Now completely revised and updated--the indispensable resource for all birders seeking an authoritative guide to the birds of the East/West in a portable format they will want to carry into the field. 
      Compact and comprehensive, this guide (Eastern) features 650 bird species, plus regional populations, found east of the Rocky Mountains. Entries include stunningly accurate illustrations--more than 4,601 in total--with descriptive captions pointing out the most important field marks. Each entry has been updated to include the most current information concerning frequency, nesting, behavior, food and feeding, voice description, and key identification features. Here too are more than 601 updated maps drawn from information contributed by 110 regional experts across the continent, and showing winter, summer, year-round, migration, and rare ranges.
     Compact and comprehensive, this guide (Western) features 715 bird species, plus regional populations, found west of the Rocky Mountains. Entries include stunningly accurate illustrations--more than 5,046 in total--with descriptive captions pointing out the most important field marks. Each entry has been updated to include the most current information concerning frequency, nesting, behavior, food and feeding, voice description, and key identification features. Here too are more than 652 updated maps drawn from information contributed by 110 regional experts across the continent, and showing winter, summer, year-round, migration, and rare ranges.

NEW AND IMPROVED:

   •   Updated habitat, description, behavior, and conservation text for each species account and all family pages (drawn from the second edition of The Sibley Guide to Birds and tailored for the specific region).

   •   All illustrations, including new and revised illustrations of species and regional forms, are taken from the rescanned and meticulously color-corrected second printing of the second edition of the Sibley Guide.

   •   New design reflects the layout of The Sibley Guide to Birds, Second Edition. All species accounts are now presented in columns, rather than stacked, allowing for better comparison and more illustrations and text for each species.

   •   Current taxonomic order and up-to-date common names.

   •   All maps revised to reflect the most current range information.

   •   More species and rarities included.


RECOMMENDATION: If you like the Sibley "Big" guide but don't like carrying it in the field, these books will do nicely!

New Titles

1) Ackerman, Jennifer. The Genius of Birds. 2016. Penguin Press. Hardbound: 340 pages. Price: $28.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. In fact, according to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence.  Like humans, many birds have enormous brains relative to their size. Although small, bird brains are packed with neurons that allow them to punch well above their weight.
     In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores the newly discovered brilliance of birds and how it came about. As she travels around the world to the most cutting-edge frontiers of research— the distant laboratories of Barbados and New Caledonia, the great tit communities of the United Kingdom and the bowerbird habitats of Australia, the ravaged mid-Atlantic coast after Hurricane Sandy and the warming mountains of central Virginia and the western states—Ackerman not only tells the story of the recently uncovered genius of birds but also delves deeply into the latest findings about the bird brain itself that are revolutionizing our view of what it means to be intelligent.
     Consider, as Ackerman does, the Clark’s nutcracker, a bird that can hide as many as 30,000 seeds over dozens of square miles and remember where it put them several months later; the mockingbirds and thrashers, species that can store 200 to 2,000 different songs in a brain a thousand times smaller than ours; the well-known pigeon, which knows where it’s going, even thousands of miles from familiar territory; and the New Caledonian crow, an impressive bird that makes its own tools.
     But beyond highlighting how birds use their unique genius in technical ways, Ackerman points out the impressive social smarts of birds. They deceive and manipulate. They eavesdrop. They display a strong sense of fairness. They give gifts. They play keep-away and tug-of-war. They tease. They share. They cultivate social networks. They vie for status. They kiss to console one another. They teach their young. They blackmail their parents. They alert one another to danger. They summon witnesses to the death of a peer. They may even grieve.
     This elegant scientific investigation and travelogue weaves personal anecdotes with fascinating science. Ackerman delivers an extraordinary story that will both give readers a new appreciation for the exceptional talents of birds and let them discover what birds can reveal about our changing world. Incredibly informative and beautifully written, The Genius of Birds richly celebrates the triumphs of these surprising and fiercely intelligent creatures.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in avian intelligence.

2) Heinrich, Bernd. One Wild Bird at a Time: Portraits of Individual Lives. 2016. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Hardbound: 210 pages. Price: $28.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: In his modern classics One Man’s Owl and Mind of the Raven, Bernd Heinrich has written memorably about his relationships with wild ravens and a great horned owl.  
     In One Wild Bird at a Time, Heinrich returns to his great love: close, day-to-day observations of individual wild birds. There are countless books on bird behavior, but Heinrich argues that some of the most amazing bird behaviors fall below the radar of what most birds do in aggregate. Heinrich’s “passionate observations [that] superbly mix memoir and science” (New York Times Book Review) lead to fascinating questions — and sometimes startling discoveries. A great crested flycatcher, while bringing food to the young in their nest, is attacked by the other flycatcher nearby. Why? A pair of Northern flickers hammering their nest-hole into the side of Heinrich’s cabin deliver the opportunity to observe the feeding competition between siblings, and to make a related discovery about nest-cleaning. One of a clutch of redstart warbler babies fledges out of the nest from twenty feet above the ground, and lands on the grass below. It can’t fly. What will happen next?  
RECOMMENDATION: Fans of Heinrich's other works should enjoy this book!

In his modern classics One Man’s Owl and Mind of the Raven, Bernd Heinrich has written memorably about his relationships with wild ravens and a great horned owl.
 
In One Wild Bird at a Time, Heinrich returns to his great love: close, day-to-day observations of individual wild birds. There are countless books on bird behavior, but Heinrich argues that some of the most amazing bird behaviors fall below the radar of what most birds do in aggregate. Heinrich’s “passionate observations [that] superbly mix memoir and science” (New York Times Book Review) lead to fascinating questions — and sometimes startling discoveries. A great crested flycatcher, while bringing food to the young in their nest, is attacked by the other flycatcher nearby. Why? A pair of Northern flickers hammering their nest-hole into the side of Heinrich’s cabin deliver the opportunity to observe the feeding competition between siblings, and to make a related discovery about nest-cleaning. One of a clutch of redstart warbler babies fledges out of the nest from twenty feet above the ground, and lands on the grass below. It can’t fly. What will happen next?
- See more at: http://www.hmhco.com/shop/books/One-Wild-Bird-at-a-Time/9780544387638#sthash.6Wq8djNt.dpuf

Bernd Heinrich

Bernd Heinrich

New Title

1) Doyle, Brian. Martin Marten: A Novel. 2016. Picador. Paperback: 308 pages. Price: $16.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Dave is fourteen years old, living with his family in a cabin on Oregon’s Mount Hood (or as he prefers to call it, like the Multnomah tribal peoples once did, Wy’east). Dave will soon enter high school, with adulthood and a future not far off—a future away from his mother, father, his precocious younger sister, and the wilderness where he’s lived all his life.

And Dave is not the only one approaching adulthood and its freedoms on Wy’east that summer. Martin, a pine marten (of the mustelid family) is leaving his own mother and siblings and setting off on his own as well.
     As Dave and Martin set off on their own adventures, their lives, paths, and trails will cross, weave, and blend. Why not come with them as they set forth into the forest and crags of Oregon’s soaring mountain wilderness in search of life, family, friends, enemies, wonder, mystery, and good things to eat?
     Martin Marten is a braided coming-of-age tale like no other, told in Brian Doyle’s joyous, rollicking style.
RECOMMENDATION: If you enjoyed the author's other works, you should enjoy this one.