List

From the author of Mayflower, Valiant Ambition, and In the Hurricane's Eye--the riveting bestseller tells the story of the true events that inspired Melville's Moby-Dick. 

Winner of the National Book Award, Nathaniel Philbrick's book is a fantastic saga of survival and adventure, steeped in the lore of whaling, with deep resonance in American literature and history.

In 1820, the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale, leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than ninety days in three tiny boats. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents and vivid details about the Nantucket whaling tradition to reveal the chilling facts of this infamous maritime disaster. In the Heart of the Sea, recently adapted into a major feature film starring Chris Hemsworth, is a book for the ages.

In this New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, the son of working-class Mexican immigrants flees a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in a Native American marathon from Canada to Guatemala in this "stunning memoir that moves to the rhythm of feet, labor, and the many landscapes of the Americas" (Catriona Menzies-Pike, author of The Long Run).

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez worked at an apple–packing plant alongside his mother, who “slouched over a conveyor belt of fruit, shoulder to shoulder with mothers conditioned to believe this was all they could do with their lives.” A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first–generation Latino college–goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in.

At nineteen, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group of Dené, Secwépemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Seri, Purépecha, and Maya runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories alongside his own, Álvarez writes about a four–month–long journey from Canada to Guatemala that pushed him to his limits. He writes not only of overcoming hunger, thirst, and fear—dangers included stone–throwing motorists and a mountain lion—but also of asserting Indigenous and working–class humanity in a capitalist society where oil extraction, deforestation, and substance abuse wreck communities.

Running through mountains, deserts, and cities, and through the Mexican territory his parents left behind, Álvarez forges a new relationship with the land, and with the act of running, carrying with him the knowledge of his parents’ migration, and—against all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spirit—the dream of a liberated future.

"This book is not like any other out there. You will see this country in a fresh way, and you might see aspects of your own soul. A beautiful run." —Luís Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels

"When the son of two Mexican immigrants hears about the Peace and Dignity Journeys—'epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America'—he’s compelled enough to drop out of college and sign up for one. Spirit Run is Noé Álvarez’s account of the four months he spends trekking from Canada to Guatemala alongside Native Americans representing nine tribes, all of whom are seeking brighter futures through running, self–exploration, and renewed relationships with the land they’ve traversed." —Runner's World, Best New Running Books of 2020

"An anthem to the landscape that holds our identities and traumas, and its profound power to heal them." —Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River

"There is nothing imaginary about Junger's book; it is all terrifyingly, awesomely real." —Los Angeles Times

It was the storm of the century, boasting waves over one hundred feet high—a tempest created by so rare a combination of factors that meteorologists deemed it "the perfect storm." In a book that has become a classic, Sebastian Junger explores the history of the fishing industry, the science of storms, and the candid accounts of the people whose lives the storm touched. The Perfect Storm is a real-life thriller that makes us feel like we've been caught, helpless, in the grip of a force of nature beyond our understanding or control.

Winner of the American Library Association's 1998 Alex Award.

Only a few years ago, Alex Honnold was little known beyond a small circle of hardcore climbers. Today, at the age of thirty, he is probably the most famous adventure athlete in the world. In that short time, he has proven his expertise in many styles of climbing and has shattered speed records, pioneered routes, and won awards within each discipline. More spectacularly still, he has pushed the most extreme and dangerous form of climbing far beyond the limits of what anyone thought was possible.

Free soloing, Honnold's specialty, is a type of climbing performed without a rope, a partner, or hardware--such as pitons, nuts, or cams--for aid or protection. The results of climbing this way are breathtaking, but the stakes are ultimate: if you fall, you die.

In Alone on the Wall, Honnold recounts the seven most astonishing climbing achievements so far in his meteoric and still-evolving career. He narrates the drama of each climb, along with reflective passages that illuminate the inner workings of his highly perceptive and discerning mind. We share in the jitters and excitements he feels waking in his van (where he lives full time) before a climb; we see him self-criticize in his climbing journal (a veritable bible for students of the sport); and we learn his secrets to managing fear--his most enviable talent. Veteran climber and award-winning author David Roberts writes part of each chapter in his own voice, and he calls on other climbers and the sport's storied past to put Alex's tremendous accomplishments in perspective.

Whenever Honnold speaks in public, he is asked the same two questions: "Aren't you afraid you're going to die?" and "Why do you do this?" Alone on the Wall takes us around the world and through the highs and lows in the life of a climbing superstar to answer those fascinating questions. Honnold's extraordinary life, and his idiosyncratic worldview, have much to teach us about risk, reward, and the ability to maintain a singular focus, even in the face of extreme danger.

The harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton's 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole, one of the greatest adventure stories of the modern age.

In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. In January 1915, after battling its way through a thousand miles of pack ice and only a day's sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.

In Endurance, the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton's fateful trip, Alfred Lansing brilliantly narrates the harrowing and miraculous voyage that has defined heroism for the modern age.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again. At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

***NPR Books We Love selection***

“If you’re only going to read one Everest book this decade, make it The Third Pole. . . . A riveting adventure.”—Outside
Shivering, exhausted, gasping for oxygen, beyond doubt . . .

A hundred-year mystery lured veteran climber Mark Synnott into an unlikely expedition up Mount Everest during the spring 2019 season that came to be known as “the Year Everest Broke.” What he found was a gripping human story of impassioned characters from around the globe and a mountain that will consume your soul—and your life—if you let it.
 
The mystery? On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine set out to stand on the roof of the world, where no one had stood before. They were last seen eight hundred feet shy of Everest’s summit still “going strong” for the top. Could they have succeeded decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? Irvine is believed to have carried a Kodak camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did the frozen film in that camera have a photograph of Mallory and Irvine on the summit before they disappeared into the clouds, never to be seen again? Kodak says the film might still be viable. . . .
 
Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face along with his friend Renan Ozturk, a filmmaker using drones higher than any had previously flown. Readers witness first-hand how Synnott’s quest led him from oxygen-deprivation training to archives and museums in England, to Kathmandu, the Tibetan high plateau, and up the North Face into a massive storm. The infamous traffic jams of climbers at the very summit immediately resulted in tragic deaths. Sherpas revolted. Chinese officials turned on Synnott’s team. An Indian woman miraculously crawled her way to frostbitten survival. Synnott himself went off the safety rope—one slip and no one would have been able to save him—committed to solving the mystery.
 
Eleven climbers died on Everest that season, all of them mesmerized by an irresistible magic. The Third Pole is a rapidly accelerating ride to the limitless joy and horror of human obsession.

The captivating and heroic story of Hudson Stuck—an Episcopal priest—and his team's history-making summit of Denali.

In 1913, four men made a months-long journey by dog sled to the base of the tallest mountain in North America. Several groups had already tried but failed to reach the top of a mountain whose size—occupying 120 square miles of the earth’s surface —and position as the Earth’s northernmost peak of more than 6,000 meters elevation make it one of the world’s deadliest mountains. Although its height from base to top is actually greater than Everest’s, it is Denali's weather, not altitude, that have caused the great majority of fatalities—over a hundred since 1903.

Denali experiences weather more severe than the North Pole, with temperatures of forty below zero and winds that howl at 80 to 100 miles per hour for days at a stretch. But in 1913 none of this mattered to Hudson Stuck, a fifty-year old Episcopal priest, Harry Karstens, the hardened Alaskan wilderness guide, Walter Harper, part of the Koyukon people, and Robert Tatum, a divinity student, both just in their twenties. They were all determined to be the first to set foot on top of Denali.

In A Window to Heaven, Patrick Dean brings to life this heart-pounding and spellbinding feat of this first ascent and paints a rich portrait of the frontier at the turn of the twentieth century. The story of Stuck and his team will lead us through the Texas frontier and Tennessee mountains to an encounter with Jack London at the peak of the Yukon Goldrush. We experience Stuck's awe at the rich Inuit and Athabascan indigenous traditions—and his efforts to help preserve these ways of life.

Filled with daring exploration and rich history, A Window to Heaven is a brilliant and spellbinding narrative of success against the odds.

Fishermen, from novice to pro will find this fishing manual an indispensable must-have reference guide. 

The Complete Fishing Manual is your definitive guide to all things fishing, covering everything from strategies and techniques to bait, tackle, and kit. This manual will assist you every step of the way.

Within the pages of this fishing manual you will find:

   • Fully illustrated pages with high-quality photography and illustrations 
   • Covers fishing in all types of conditions and waters, from freshwater to saltwater
   • Text that assists the reader from the very beginning to the final catch, from getting your license to reeling in the catch
   • Step by step diagrams on how to prepare your rod for different types of fish 
   • Includes how to fit and use different types of accessories to enhance your chances of catching fish
   • Diagnostic spreads that go from symptom to solution - the manual will answer all of your fishing questions 
   • Top recommendations for where to fish around the world depending on what you want to catch 

Starting casting your line in no time at all

Whether you’re a pro, fly fishing in the rivers of the USA, or a novice figuring out the reel, this manual has all the information you need to plan your next fishing adventure. Vivid illustrations and detailed photographs draw you in, offering essential advice on anatomy, habitat, and behavior. No fish is safe with this book in your arsenal! Details of every fishing strategy and technique can be found within these pages, ensuring you are ever-ready. 

Casting your net further to the north of Italy and beautiful Spain, this book also takes you on a journey through the world’s best fishing destinations, acquainting you with once-in-a-lifetime species found in this region.  

More in the series

The Complete Manual series is an exciting, informative, and vividly illustrated series of books. With titles such as The Complete Bike Owners Manual, The Complete Sailors Manual, and The Complete Gardener’s Manual, this series offers a beautiful cross-section of titles for keen hobbyists.

A delightful photographic journey into a year in the life of a team of sled dogs, based on Braverman's wildly popular Twitter feed.

When Blair Braverman started posting pictures of her dog team on Twitter, she had no idea the response she would get. Being a musher, after all, isn't just about racing--raising dogs from puppyhood to retirement (and beyond) is a full-time job. She and her husband, musher Quince Mountain, wanted to share stories about life with their dog team. And not just the big stuff, like expeditions and wild animal encounters, but also the everyday things: the challenge of storing a thousand pounds of raw meat, scouting new trails with the dogs, the decisions that go into putting a team together, how she trains puppies to be brave. These were goofy stories, scary stories, heartfelt stories, stories that clearly connected with people and kept going viral.

Inspired by those connections, Dogs on the Trail is a chronicle of a year in the life of their dog team. Beginning in the fall as the weather starts to cool, training on both dry land and in the snow, then camping and racing. Spring brings mud--lousy for sledding, but the dogs love it. And summer is the season of puppies. The book ends on a beginning, in anticipation of the adventurous lives that the new pups have in store.

An irresistible adventure, Dogs on the Trail will delight and entertain while taking you inside a musher's world, and showing you why the wilderness isn't simply a place to visit but also a home to return to.

A beautifully illustrated and completely unique nautical book. This celebration of all things ocean features an unprecedented wealth of 21st-century know-how and storytelling. Informative, inspirational, and incredibly entertaining, The Ocean is the definitive guide to the world's greatest nature treasure and playground.

Filled with more than 200 enlightening and evocative illustrations, this beautiful ocean book features short-subject deep dives on topics like science, sailing, kayaking, surfing, diving, survival, and much more. In addition to thousands of hours of original reporting, authors Chris Dixon and Jeremy K. Spencer also gathered wisdom from dozens of experts, athletes, scientists, explorers, and more to craft an authoritative and captivating guide to all activities involving the sea.

The ultimate gift book for sailors, fishers, surfers, beachcombers, and ocean lovers everywhere.
UNIQUE AMONG OCEAN BOOKS: From fishing the beach to righting a sailboat, surviving jellyfish to saving our reefs, planning a dive to surfing the waves, The Ocean is rich with how-to advice and instruction to inspire experienced seafarers and ocean novices alike.

CAPTIVATING BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE: Divided into sections on Boating, Surfing, Science, Survival, Scuba and Snorkeling, and Fishing, this ultimate ocean compendium is beautifully illustrated and features expert consultation and entertaining asides about the sea.

A GIFT TO TREASURE: This handsomely packaged volume is the go-to guide for anyone captivated by the wonder, power, and mystery of the ocean.
Perfect for:

• People who live in coastal areas and have a passion for fishing, sailing, surfing, or boating
• Thoughtful and practical gift book for anyone with an abiding love for the ocean
• Housewarming or host/hostess gift or bon voyage present for seagoing adventurers
• Readers of books like The Brilliant Abyss, SAS Survival Handbook, The History of Surfing, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, TheDangerous Book for Boys, and The Daring Books for Girls

*An Outside Magazine Book Club Pick*

*Winner of the International Ski Association's Ullr Book Award*

"A sparkling account."--Wall Street Journal

An electrifying adventure into the rich history of skiing and the modern heart of ski-bum culture, from one of America's most preeminent ski journalists

The story of skiing is, in many ways, the story of America itself. Blossoming from the Tenth Mountain Division in World War II, the sport took hold across the country, driven by adventurers seeking the rush of freedom that only cold mountain air could provide. As skiing gained in popularity, mom-and-pop backcountry hills gave way to groomed trails and eventually the megaresorts of today. Along the way, the pioneers and diehards--the ski bums--remained the beating heart of the scene.

Veteran ski journalist and former ski bum Heather Hansman takes readers on an exhilarating journey into the hidden history of American skiing, offering a glimpse into an underexplored subculture from the perspective of a true insider. Hopping from Vermont to Colorado, Montana to West Virginia, Hansman profiles the people who have built their lives around a cold-weather obsession. Along the way she reckons with skiing's problematic elements and investigates how the sport is evolving in the face of the existential threat of climate change.

**USA Today 10Best Readers' Choice Award Winner**

Your essential planning guidebook for family-friendly RV or camping trips featuring 300+ of the best camping and glamping spots in the USA!

Outdoor adventure, glamping, and camping vacations have never been more popular--and everyone is looking to discover the best destinations with beautiful scenery and desirable amenities. In Where Should We Camp Next?, family camping and RV experts Stephanie and Jeremy Puglisi make it easy for you to plan the perfect family-friendly, budget-conscious summer road trip. Whether you're a fan of rustic national parks or luxury glamping resorts, the in-depth profiles of more than 300 amazing outdoor accommodation destinations will help you find the best places to park your RV, pitch your tent, or kick back in your yurt, treehouse, or cabin.

Includes:

Regional and state-by-state breakdown of campgrounds and RV resorts

Introduction to campsite types, prices, when to book, and how to book

The best campsites based on your personality and desired amenities

Where Should We Camp Next? is the adventurer's ultimate guide to vacations across the USA and highlights regional cuisine, must-see attractions, and unforgettable activities. Whether you're planning a cheap family camping vacation or a romantic couple's getaway, this book is your gateway to making memories with the people you love the most.

Packed with expert information and inspiring photography, The Camping Life is the perfect invitation to leave the noise and screens behind—if only for a single night—and reconnect with nature. From backpacking to bikepacking, camping while white-water rafting to big wall climbing, outdoor adventurers Brendan Leonard and Forest Woodward cover it all: how to pack a backpack, how to set up a tent in the snow, how to camp with your dog, how to build a campfire, how to judge a river’s difficulty. And, critically, how to leave no trace, while returning refreshed, recharged, and alive with new experience.

A hilarious and honest guide to the great outdoors, Nature doesn't care about your gender, race, shape, size, bank account balance, or number of Instagram followers. Whether you want to hike or backpack, Diana Helmuth serves up the advice you need to get out there. Part critique of modern hiking culture and part how-to, How to Suffer Outside helps novice hikers get started without spending a fortune-even seasoned hikers will find plenty of tips. With a blend of self-deprecating humor and good-natured heckling of both experienced backpackers and urbanites who romanticize being outdoorsy, Helmuth coaches you along one step at a time. Her motto: "If I can do it, and not only survive, but enjoy it so much I do it again and again, you probably can, too." Featuring illustrations by artist Latasha Dunston, each chapter focuses on an essential topic: gear, food, hygiene, clothing, and more, along with useful tips, checklists, and resources. Knowledgeable and practical, Helmuth shows walkers, hikers, and campers of all stripes how to venture outdoors with confidence. Her incisive, real-world approach cuts through the mystique, so go ahead and adopt her "probably good enough way" to backpack and step outside-with a map, of course. Book jacket.

A thoughtful and illuminating bicycle journey along the Underground Railroad by a climate scientist seeking to engage with American history.

The traces of the Underground Railroad hide in plain sight: a great church in Philadelphia; a humble old house backing up to the New Jersey Turnpike; an industrial outbuilding in Ohio. Over the course of four years, David Goodrich rode his bicycle 3,000 miles east of the Mississippi to travel the routes of the Underground Railroad and delve into the history and stories in the places where they happened.

He followed the most famous of conductors, Harriet Tubman, from where she was enslaved in Maryland, on the eastern shore, all the way to her family sanctuary at a tiny chapel in Ontario, Canada. Travelling South, he rode from New Orleans, where the enslaved were bought and sold, through Mississippi and the heart of the Delta Blues. As we pedal along with him, Goodrich brings us to the Borderland along the Ohio River, a kind of no-mans-land between North and South in the years before the Civil War. Here, slave hunters roamed both banks of the river, trying to catch people as they fled for freedom. We travel to Oberlin, Ohio, a town that staunchly defended freedom seekers, embodied in the life of Lewis Leary, who was lost in the fires of Harpers Ferry, but his spirit was reborn in the Harlem Renaissance.

On Freedom Road enables us to see familiar places—New York and Philadelphia, New Orleans and Buffalo—in a very different light: from the vantage point of desperate people seeking to outrun the reach of slavery. Join in this journey to find the heroes and stories, both known and hidden, of the Underground Railroad.

This beautifully illustrated guide from National Geographic reveals 500 of the best tent, cabin, glamping, and RV campgrounds--including opening dates, booking information, activity recommendations, and more--in all 50 states and Canada.

Plan your next getaway to the great outdoors with this one-of-a-kind resource for campgrounds across North America. In this comprehensive sequel to the best-selling 50 States, 5,000 Ideas, you'll discover the top tent and cabin campsites, as well as RV resorts and glamping destinations around the United States and Canada. Along with destination information--location, contact info, open seasons, and amenities--along with expert recommendations for activities including hiking, biking, and water sports; the best restaurants for days you need a break from the camp stove; and nearby attractions--from sights within nearby national and state parks to local museums. Choose from 10 sites in each state, Western and Eastern Canada, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, including a cabin at Yogi Bear's Delaware Beaches Jellystone Park Camp Resort; a tent near the stunning waterfall at the Grand Canyon's Havasupai Campground; or a cozy yurt in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Whatever your camping bucket list includes, 50 States, 500 Campgrounds has the site for you.

The story of a climbing adventure gone wrong in a remote Alaskan mountain range, the impossible rescue attempt that followed, and the fraught cost of survival

In 2018, two couples set out on an expedition to Alaska's Hidden Mountains, one of the last wild ranges in North America. A rarity in modern climbing, the peaks were nearly unexplored and untouched, a place where few people had ever visited and granite spires still awaited first ascents. Inspired by generations of daring alpinists before them, the four friends were now compelled to strike out into uncharted territory themselves.

This trip to the Hidden Mountains would be the culmination of years of climbing together, promising to test the foursome's skill and dedication to the sport. But as they would soon discover, no amount of preparation can account for the unknowns of true wilderness. As they neared the top of an unclimbed peak, rockfall grievously injured one of the team while he was out of sight, leaving him stranded and in critical condition.

Over the course of the next nine hours, the other three climbers worked to reach their companion. What followed was a pulse-pounding rescue attempt by Alaska's elite pararescue jumpers in one of the most remote regions in the country--raising difficult questions about wilderness accessibility, technology's role in outdoor adventure, and what it means to weigh risk against the siren song of the mountains.

With visceral prose, Michael Wejchert recounts the group's rescue and traces the scars left in the wake of life-altering trauma. Weaving the history and evolution of rock and alpine climbing with outside tales of loss and survival in the mountains, Wejchert gives a full picture of the reward--and cost--of following your passions in the outdoors.

From the waterfalls of Kauai's Napali coast to the tests of the Appalachian Trail, 100 Trails, 5,000 Ideas highlights the preeminent hiking treks across the United States and Canada, including the best scenic overlooks, camping sites, and off-trail activities.

This authoritative travel guide--the next in National Geographic's best-selling 5,000 Ideas series--takes you from the coast of Florida to the peaks of Wyoming on a series of epic hiking and walking adventures. So grab your hiking boots and get ready to explore 100 trails around all 50 states and Canada.

In these informative pages, you'll find National Geographic's recommendations for superlative hikes, as well as tips for wildlife spotting, scenic picnic locales, routes with a view, camp sites, and off-trail activities nearby. Plus, you'll discover alternative routes to extend your trek or tackle shorter lengths of some of the country's most iconic journeys, like the Appalachian Trail. With each itinerary you'll find practical planning advice for when to go and what to expect when you arrive.

Inspiring and comprehensive, this book offers something for everyone, from beginners looking for an easy day-hike (the tow path along the C&O Canal in Maryland) to advanced trekkers seeking multi-week excursions (the famed multi-state Continental Divide Trail). You'll also discover:

• Tips for exploring Washington's Elliott Bay Trail along the Seattle Waterfront
• Routes for hiking the Grand Canyon, rim to rim, in Arizona
• Advice for conquering Wisconsin's "Ice Age" Trail
• The fascinating history behind Georgia's Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield Trail
• The best way to see the falls along New York's Niagara Falls Gorge Trails
• How to trek the Plain of the Six Glaciers in Banff National Park
• And so much more!

Both inspiring and practical, here is the ultimate keepsake for any hiker.
 

“An invaluable guide…Kudos to the author for changing the narrative on inclusiveness, breaking down stereotypes, and building body positivity.” —Booklist

From the founder of the Fat Girls Hiking community comes an inclusive, inspiring call to the outdoors for people of all body types, sizes, and backgrounds. In a book brimming with heartfelt stories, practical advice, personal profiles of Fat Girls Hiking community members, and helpful trail reviews, Summer Michaud-Skog creates space for marginalized bodies with an insistent conviction that outdoor recreation should welcome everyone. Whether you’re an experienced or aspiring hiker, you’ll be empowered to hit the trails and find yourself in nature. Trails not scales!        

52 Ways to Walk is a short, user-friendly guide to attaining the full range of benefits that walking has to offer--physical, spiritual, and emotional--backed by the latest scientific research to inspire readers to develop a fulfilling walking lifestyle.

We think we know how to walk. After all, walking is one of the very first skills we learn. But many of us are stuck in our walking routines, forever walking in the same place, in the same way, for the same time, with the same people. With its thought-provoking and evidence-backed weekly walk routine, 52 Ways to Walk will encourage everyone to improve how they walk, while also encouraging them to seek out new locations (many on their own doorsteps), new walking companions (our brains age better when we mix up our fellow walkers), new times of the day and night, and new skills to acquire while walking.

Inspirational, backed by science, illuminated with human anecdote, and bolstered with how-to tips, 52 Ways to Walk will inspire, challenge, support, and encourage everyone to become more ambitious with their walking practice, revealing how walking may be the best-kept secret of the supremely healthy and happy, the creative and well-slept--those with the best posture and sharpest memories. Just about everything, it appears, can be improved and enhanced by clever and judicious walking. It turns out you actually can get more from life, one step at a time.

Part love letter, part invitation, Hiking is Fundamental is an informative celebration of hiking. Barbara Ann Kipfer covers all the basic elements of getting into hiking, from preparation to pacing, in simple, classic, fun, illustrated list-style chapters.

A complete guide to Friluftsliv, the Nordic secret to unplugging and connecting more deeply with nature.

In The Open-Air Life, Swedish-American writer Linda McGurk introduces readers to a wide array of Nordic customs and practices that focus on slowing down and spending more and more of ones’ time outdoors. An outdoorsy cousin of hygge, friluftsliv is what Nordic people do outside all day before they cozy up in front of the fireplace with their wool socks on and a cup of hot cocoa.
 
From the pleasures of foraging for wild berries and birding to how to stay warm and cozy outside in the middle of winter, this charmingly illustrated, inspirational guide shows readers how to harness the power-of-nature to improve their physical and mental health, as well as their relationships with both other people and Mother Nature. Readers will learn:

• Why and how they should spend more time outside
• How to use friluftsliv to combat stress, anxiety disorders, depression, and burnout
• Practical skills like making fire, cooking outdoors and cleaning water on the go. 
•  
  For country and city lovers alike, this book will serve as an essential guide to slowing down in this modern, fast paced society and connecting with the natural world.

Join the global movement and challenge your family to match screen time with outdoor time—with hundreds of fun, fresh-air ideas.

Did you know that the average American child spends 1,200 hours a year in front of a screen? And that outside play can boost children in every area of development? This book has everything you need to reset the balance and swap screen time for outdoor fun!

Challenge your family to spend 1,000 hours outside this year with this collection of games, crafts, and activities, organized by season to help you find something you can do every day. Play leaf pile games, take a hot chocolate hike, make corn husk dolls, go on an animal home hunt, and much more with hundreds of ideas for all ages, abilities, and family types.

No matter how busy you are, this book gives you all the ideas, photos, activity instructions, and inspiration you need to get outdoors with your family all year round.

A humorous and rousing set of literal and figurative sojourns as well as a mission statement about comprehending, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, fueled by three journeys undertaken by actor, humorist, and New York Times bestselling author Nick Offerman
Nick Offerman has always felt a particular affection for the Land of the Free—not just for the people and their purported ideals but to the actual land itself: the bedrock, the topsoil, and everything in between that generates the health of your local watershed. In his new book, Nick takes a humorous, inspiring, and elucidating trip to America's trails, farms, and frontier to examine the people who inhabit the land, what that has meant to them and us, and to the land itself, both historically and currently.  

In 2018, Wendell Berry posed a question to Nick, a query that planted the seed of this book, sending Nick on two memorable journeys with pals—a hiking trip to Glacier National Park with his friends Jeff Tweedy and George Saunders, as well as an extended visit to his friend James Rebanks, the author of The Shepherd's Life and English Pastoral. He followed that up with an excursion that could only have come about in 2020—Nick and his wife, Megan Mullally, bought an Airstream trailer to drive across (several of) the United States. These three quests inspired some “deep-ish" thinking from Nick, about the history and philosophy of our relationship with nature in our national parks, in our farming, and in our backyards; what we mean when we talk about conservation; and the importance of outdoor recreation, all subjects very close to Nick's heart. 

With witty, heartwarming stories and a keen insight into the human problems we all confront, this is both a ramble through and celebration of the land we all love.

This heartfelt, deeply personal memoir explores how a celebrated filmmaker and activist and his conservative Mormon mother built bridges across today's great divides--and how our stories hold the power to heal.

Dustin Lance Black wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Milk and helped overturn California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8, but as an LGBTQ activist he has unlikely origins--a conservative Mormon household outside San Antonio, Texas. His mother, Anne, was raised in rural Louisiana and contracted polio when she was two years old. She endured brutal surgeries, as well as braces and crutches for life, and was told that she would never have children or a family. Willfully defying expectations, she found salvation in an unlikely faith, raised three rough-and-rowdy boys, and escaped the abuse and violence of two questionably devised Mormon marriages before finding love and an improbable career in the U.S. civil service.

By the time Lance came out to his mother at age twenty-one, he was a blue-state young man studying the arts instead of going on his Mormon mission. She derided his sexuality as a sinful choice and was terrified for his future. It may seem like theirs was a house destined to be divided, and at times it was. This story shines light on what it took to remain a family despite such division--a journey that stretched from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court to the woodsheds of East Texas. In the end, the rifts that have split a nation couldn't end this relationship that defined and inspired their remarkable lives.

Mama's Boy is their story. It's a story of the noble quest for a plane higher than politics--a story of family, foundations, turmoil, tragedy, elation, and love. It is a story needed now more than ever.

A powerful and redemptive story of how the dazzling world of roller derby helped one young woman transform her fear and self-doubt into gutsy, big-hearted, adventurous living 
“A universal story of healing and triumph, made all the more beautiful, wild, and free by Gabe’s fierce love for roller derby and her team, who become her family.”—ABBY WAMBACH, Olympian, activist, and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wolfpack

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Book Riot

Growing up queer in a conservative Midwestern town, Gabe Montesanti never felt comfortable in her own skin. A competitive swimmer, she turned to perfectionism and self-control to create a sense of safety, only to develop an eating disorder and constantly second-guess her instincts. When she enters graduate school in St. Louis, she is determined to put the baggage of her childhood behind her. With no prior experience, she joins Arch Rival, one of the top-ranked roller derby leagues in the world. Gabe instantly falls in love with the sport’s roughness, intensity, and open embrace of people who are literally and figuratively scarred. She soon finds community and a sense of belonging, reveling in the tattoos, glitter, and campiness. 

But when Gabe suffers a catastrophic injury, she can no longer ignore the parallels between the physicality of roller derby and the unresolved trauma of her upbringing. Rendered inactive, forced to be still, Gabe realizes she needs to heal her emotional wounds as much as her physical ones; she must confront her fear and self-diminishment in order to feel truly alive.

Told with unflinching honesty and a giant dose of wonder, Brace for Impact is a tender, inspiring memoir about the everyday heroism of pursuing a life less ordinary, and the deeply human need to be at peace with who you are.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • An inspiring and intimate self-portrait of the champion of equality that encompasses her brilliant tennis career, unwavering activism, and an ongoing commitment to fairness and social justice.

“A story about the personal strength, immense growth, and undeniable greatness of one woman who fearlessly stood up to a culture trying to break her down.”—Serena Williams

In this spirited account, Billie Jean King details her life's journey to find her true self. She recounts her groundbreaking tennis career—six years as the top-ranked woman in the world, twenty Wimbledon championships, thirty-nine grand-slam titles, and her watershed defeat of Bobby Riggs in the famous "Battle of the Sexes." She poignantly recalls the cultural backdrop of those years and the profound impact on her worldview from the women's movement, the assassinations and anti-war protests of the 1960s, the civil rights movement, and, eventually, the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

She describes the myriad challenges she's hurdled—entrenched sexism, an eating disorder, near financial peril after being outed—on her path to publicly and unequivocally acknowledging her sexual identity at the age of fifty-one. She talks about how her life today remains one of indefatigable service. She offers insights and advice on leadership, business, activism, sports, politics, marriage equality, parenting, sexuality, and love. And she shows how living honestly and openly has had a transformative effect on her relationships and happiness.

Hers is the story of a pathbreaking feminist, a world-class athlete, and an indomitable spirit whose impact has transcended even her spectacular achievements in sports.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the creator of Elle's "Eric Reads the News," a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward, extraordinary stumble along the way.

"Pop culture-obsessed, Sedaris-level laugh-out-loud funny . . . [R. Eric Thomas] is one of my favorite writers."--Lin-Manuel Miranda, Entertainment Weekly

R. Eric Thomas didn't know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went--whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city--he found himself on the outside looking in.

In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an "other" through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents' house was an anomalous bright spot, and the Eden-like school they sent him to in white suburbia. He writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, the exhaustion of code-switching in college, accidentally getting famous on the internet (for the wrong reason), and the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election for Elle online, and the seismic changes that came thereafter. Ultimately, Thomas seeks the answer to these ever more relevant questions: Is the future worth it? Why do we bother when everything seems to be getting worse? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Thomas finds the answers to these questions by reenvisioning what "normal" means and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story.

Here for It will resonate deeply and joyfully with everyone who has ever felt pushed to the margins, struggled with self-acceptance, or wished to shine more brightly in a dark world. Stay here for it--the future may surprise you.

Making a baby through love and science? Get the guidance you need to navigate the conception process with confidence and ease.

“[A] a well-researched, deeply comprehensive (and readable!) guide to building a queer family in a way that works for you.” 
—Emily Oster, author of Expecting Better

The only evidence-based, up-to-date fertility guide for queer people from an experienced health care provider, this is also the first to be transgender inclusive and body-positive. 
 
Here, queer prospective parents will find sound advice for navigating complex medical, social and financial decisions. Trusted fertility midwife Kristin Kali walks you through the baby-making process: creating a timeline; fertile health for every body; preconception tests; identifying ovulation; donors, gamete banks, and surrogacy; methods of insemination including IUI, IVF and reciprocal IVF; navigating early pregnancy; and preparing for infant feeding, including lactation induction for trans women and nongestational parents.
 
This book is for all LGBTQ+ readers interested in creating family through pregnancy: anyone who identifies as queer, lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, trans and nonbinary people, couples, single parents by choice, poly families, and coparents. It’s an antidote to a culture and medical system that all too often centers heterosexual couples experiencing infertility while overlooking our unique needs. It also contains sidebars with guidance for reproductive healthcare professionals.

“This life-changing book is equal parts practical handbook and sensitively written resource. Highly recommended!”
—Toni Weschler, MPH, author of Taking Charge of Your Fertility

CANADA READS 2020 WINNER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
2020 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER
ONE OF BOOK RIOT'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL QUEER BOOKS OF ALL TIME

How do you find yourself when the world tells you that you don't exist?

Samra Habib has spent most of their life searching for the safety to be themself. As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, they faced regular threats from Islamic extremists who believed the small, dynamic sect to be blasphemous. From their parents, they internalized the lesson that revealing their identity could put them in grave danger.

When their family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered a whole new host of challenges: bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage. Backed into a corner, their need for a safe space--in which to grow and nurture their creative, feminist spirit--became dire. The men in Samra's life wanted to police them, the women in their life had only shown them the example of pious obedience, and their body was a problem to be solved.

So begins an exploration of faith, art, love, and queer sexuality, a journey that takes them to the far reaches of the globe to uncover a truth that was within them all along. A triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, We Have Always Been Here is a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place and a testament to the power of fearlessly inhabiting one's truest self.

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature.

“[Lorde's] works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”—The New York Times 

In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published.

These landmark writings are, in Lorde's own words, a call to “never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is . . . ”

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Transformative ... If Tobia aspires to the ranks of comic memoirists like David Sedaris and Mindy Kaling, Sissy succeeds." --The New York Times Book Review

A heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and giggle-inducing memoir about what it's like to grow up not sure if you're (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above.

"A beautiful book . . . honest and funny."--Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
"Sensational."--Tyler Oakley
"Jacob Tobia is a force." --Good Morning America
"A trans Nora Ephron . . . both honest and didactic." --OUT Magazine
"A rallying cry for anyone who's ever felt like they don't belong." --Woman's Day

As a young child in North Carolina, Jacob Tobia wasn't the wrong gender, they just had too much of the stuff. Barbies? Yes. Playing with bugs? Absolutely. Getting muddy? Please. Princess dresses? You betcha. Jacob wanted it all, but because they were "a boy," they were told they could only have the masculine half. Acting feminine labelled them "a sissy" and brought social isolation.

It took Jacob years to discover that being "a sissy" isn't something to be ashamed of. It's a source of pride. Following Jacob through bullying and beauty contests, from Duke University to the United Nations to the podiums of the Methodist church--not to mention the parlors of the White House--this unforgettable memoir contains multitudes. A deeply personal story of trauma and healing, a powerful reflection on gender and self-acceptance, and a hilarious guidebook for wearing tacky clip-on earrings in today's world, Sissy guarantees you'll never think about gender--both other people's and your own--the same way again.

For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it, with a foreword by Edmund White.

Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, presented by The Publishing Triangle
Tor.com, Best Books of 2019 (So Far)
Harper’s Bazaar, The 20 Best LGBTQ Books of 2019
The Advocate, The Best Queer(ish) Non-Fiction Tomes We Read in 2019

June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly the anthology spotlights both iconic activists who were pivotal in the movement, such as Sylvia Rivera, co-founder of Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), as well as forgotten figures like Ernestine Eckstein, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s. The anthology focuses on the events of 1969, the five years before, and the five years after. Jason Baumann, the NYPL coordinator of humanities and LGBTQ collections, has edited and introduced the volume to coincide with the NYPL exhibition he has curated on the Stonewall uprising and gay liberation movement of 1969.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Multi-award-winning Hannah Gadsby broke comedy with their show Nanette. Now they take us through the defining moments in their life and their powerful decision to tell the truth—no matter the cost.

Don’t miss Hannah Gadsby’s Something Special, coming to Netflix on May 9!

“Hannah is a Promethean force, a revolutionary talent. This hilarious, touching, and sometimes tragic book is all about where their fires were lit.”—Emma Thompson

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar, Vulture

“There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself,” Hannah Gadsby declared in their show Nanette, a scorching critique of the way society conducts public debates about marginalized communities. When it premiered on Netflix, it left audiences captivated by their blistering honesty and their singular ability to take viewers from rolling laughter to devastated silence. Ten Steps to Nanette continues Gadsby’s tradition of confounding expectations and norms, properly introducing us to one of the most explosive, formative voices of our time.

Gadsby grew up as the youngest of five children in an isolated town in Tasmania, where homosexuality was illegal until 1997. They perceived their childhood as safe and “normal,” but as they gained an awareness of their burgeoning queerness, the outside world began to undermine the “vulnerably thin veneer” of their existence. After moving to mainland Australia and receiving a degree in art history, Gadsby found themselves adrift, working itinerant jobs and enduring years of isolation punctuated by homophobic and sexual violence. At age twenty-seven, without a home or the ability to imagine their own future, they were urged by a friend to enter a stand-up competition. They won, and so began their career in comedy.             

Gadsby became well known for their self-deprecating, autobiographical humor that made them the butt of their own jokes. But in 2015, as Australia debated the legality of same-sex marriage, Gadsby started to question this mode of storytelling, beginning work on a show that would become “the most-talked-about, written-about, shared-about comedy act in years” (The New York Times).           

Harrowing and hilarious, Ten Steps to Nanette traces Gadsby’s growth as a queer person, to their ever-evolving relationship with comedy, and their struggle with late-in-life diagnoses of autism and ADHD, finally arriving at the backbone of Nanette: the renouncement of self-deprecation, the rejection of misogyny, and the moral significance of truth-telling.

"A brave, powerful memoir" (People) that will change the way we look at identity and equality in this country

"The energy and vigor Sarah has brought to the fight for equality is ever present in this book."--Senator Kamala Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Truths We Hold

Foreword by Joe Biden

Before she became the first transgender person to speak at a national political convention in 2016 at the age of twenty-six, Sarah McBride struggled with the decision to come out--not just to her family but to the students of American University, where she was serving as student body president. She'd known she was a girl from her earliest memories, but it wasn't until the Facebook post announcing her truth went viral that she realized just how much impact her story could have on the country.

Four years later, McBride was one of the nation's most prominent transgender activists, walking the halls of the White House, advocating inclusive legislation, and addressing the country in the midst of a heated presidential election. She had also found her first love and future husband, Andy, a trans man and fellow activist, who complemented her in every way . . . until cancer tragically intervened.

Informative, heartbreaking, and profoundly empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is McBride's story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community's battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. From issues like bathroom access to health care to gender in America, McBride weaves the important political and cultural milestones into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds.

As McBride urges: "We must never be a country that says there's only one way to love, only one way to look, and only one way to live."

The fight for equality and freedom has only just begun.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "A memoir in essays about so many things—growing up in an abusive cult, coming of age as a lesbian in the military, forced out by homophobia, living on the margins as a working class woman and what it’s like to grow into the person you are meant to be. Hough’s writing will break your heart." —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist

Searing and extremely personal essays, shot through with the darkest elements America can manifest, while discovering light and humor in unexpected corners.

As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe--to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile—but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond "The Family."

Along the way, she's loaded up her car and started over, trading one life for the next. She's taken pilgrimages to the sights of her youth, been kept in solitary confinement, dated a lot of women, dabbled in drugs, and eventually found herself as what she always wanted to be: a writer. Here, as she sweeps through the underbelly of America—relying on friends, family, and strangers alike—she begins to excavate a new identity even as her past continues to trail her and color her world, relationships, and perceptions of self.
 
At once razor-sharp, profoundly brave, and often very, very funny, the essays in Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing interrogate our notions of ecstasy, queerness, and what it means to live freely. Each piece is a reckoning: of survival, identity, and how to reclaim one's past when carving out a future.

A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

A memoir in essays that expands on the viral sensation “The Crane Wife” with a frank and funny look at love, intimacy, and self in the twenty-first century. From friends and lovers to blood family and chosen family, this “elegant masterpiece” (Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Hunger) asks what more expansive definitions of love might offer ​us all.

Hauser builds her life's inventory out of deconstructed personal narratives, resulting in a reading experience that's rich like a complicated dessert—not for wolfing down but for savoring in small bites." —The New York Times

“Hauser’s wry, introspective investigation of her assumptions about love will likely free readers to examine their own personal narratives as well ... ‘The rare happy ending I appreciate is one that makes room for the whole painful fact of the world at the same time it offers the reader some joy,’ she writes. The Crane Wife embraces this philosophy again and again as Hauser excavates her past loves and losses, thoughtfully examines them and declares the pain of love to be worth the risk.” —BookPage

Ten days after calling off her wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to Texas to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, she realized she'd almost signed up to live someone else's life.

Hauser releases herself from traditional narratives of happiness and goes looking for ways of living that leave room for the unexpected, making plenty of mistakes along the way. She kisses Internet strangers and officiates at a wedding. She rereads Rebecca in the house her boyfriend once shared with his ex-wife and rewinds Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story to learn how not to lose yourself in a relationship. She thinks about Florence Nightingale at a robot convention and grief at John Belushi’s rock and roll gravesite, and the difference between those stories we’re asked to hold versus those we choose to carry.

Told with the late-night barstool directness of your wisest, most bighearted friend, The Crane Wife is a book for everyone whose life doesn't look the way they thought it would; for everyone learning to find joy in the not-knowing; for everyone trying, if sometimes failing, to build a new sort of life story, a new sort of family, a new sort of home, to live in.

A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties

In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.

And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope—the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman—through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships.

Machado’s dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.

Have pride in history. A rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account LGBT History.
 
“If you think the fight for justice and equality only began in the streets outside Stonewall, with brave patrons of a bar fighting back, you need to read We Are Everywhere right now.”—Anderson Cooper

Through the lenses of protest, power, and pride, We Are Everywhere is an essential and empowering introduction to the history of the fight for queer liberation. Combining exhaustively researched narrative with meticulously curated photographs, the book traces queer activism from its roots in late-nineteenth-century Europe—long before the pivotal Stonewall Riots of 1969—to the gender warriors leading the charge today.

Featuring more than 300 images from more than seventy photographers and twenty archives, this inclusive and intersectional book enables us to truly see queer history unlike anything before, with glimpses of activism in the decades preceding and following Stonewall, family life, marches, protests, celebrations, mourning, and Pride. By challenging many of the assumptions that dominate mainstream LGBTQ+ history, We Are Everywhere shows readers how they can—and must—honor the queer past in order to shape our liberated future.

A groundbreaking tour of the human mind that illuminates the biological nature of our inner worlds and emotions, through gripping, moving—and, at times, harrowing—clinical stories

“[A] scintillating and moving analysis of the human brain and emotions.”—Nature

“Beautifully connects the inner feelings within all human beings to deep insights from modern psychiatry and neuroscience.”—Robert Lefkowitz, Nobel Laureate
Karl Deisseroth has spent his life pursuing truths about the human mind, both as a renowned clinical psychiatrist and as a researcher creating and developing the revolutionary field of optogenetics, which uses light to help decipher the brain’s workings. In Projections, he combines his knowledge of the brain’s inner circuitry with a deep empathy for his patients to examine what mental illness reveals about the human mind and the origin of human feelings—how the broken can illuminate the unbroken.

Through cutting-edge research and gripping case studies from Deisseroth’s own patients, Projections tells a larger story about the material origins of human emotion, bridging the gap between the ancient circuits of our brain and the poignant moments of suffering in our daily lives. The stories of Deisseroth’s patients are rich with humanity and shine an unprecedented light on the self—and the ways in which it can break down. A young woman with an eating disorder reveals how the mind can rebel against the brain’s most primitive drives of hunger and thirst; an older man, smothered into silence by depression and dementia, shows how humans evolved to feel not only joy but also its absence; and a lonely Uighur woman far from her homeland teaches both the importance—and challenges—of deep social bonds.

Illuminating, literary, and essential, Projections is a revelatory, immensely powerful work. It transforms our understanding not only of the brain but of ourselves as social beings—giving vivid illustrations through science and resonant human stories of our yearning for connection and meaning.

Written with authority and compassion, this is the essential resource for individuals and families seeking expert guidance on diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, featuring inspiring, true stories from real people in their own words.

Millions of people in the United States are affected by mental illness every year, and the Covid-19 pandemic only further exposed the shortcomings of the American mental health system. Too many are confused, afraid, and overwhelmed, with many asking themselves the same questions: What does it mean when different doctors give me different diagnoses? What if my insurance won't cover my treatment? Will I ever feel better? Families and friends are often left in the dark about how best to help their loved ones, from dealing with financial and logistical issues, to handling the emotional challenges of loving someone who is suffering.

You Are Not Alone is here to offer help. Written by Dr. Ken Duckworth with the wisdom of a psychiatrist and the vulnerability of a peer, this comprehensive guide centers the poignant lived experiences of over 125 individuals from across the country whose first-person stories illustrate the diversity of mental health journeys. This book also provides

• Practical guidance on dealing with a vast array of mental health conditions and navigating care
• Research-based evidence on what treatments and approaches work
• Insight and advice from renowned clinical experts and practitioners
   

This singular resource--the first book from the National Alliance on Mental Illness--is a powerful reminder that help is here, and you are never alone.

How to keep calm, carry on, and reconnect during times of social isolation and emotional crisis.

Although spending time alone for short periods may be restorative and helpful, unintentional or involuntary isolation can have profound detrimental effects on emotional and physical health. We all need social interaction and meaningful relationships in our lives to be well and thrive. Without them, we flounder.

In Reconnecting after Isolation, Dr. Susan J. Noonan draws on our collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic to help readers deal with the emotional impact of social isolation. Speaking as both a provider and recipient of mental health care services, Noonan combines her professional and personal experiences in an evidence-based and practical guide. Drawing on meticulous research and interviews with four psychologists, she outlines steps to overcome the emotional trauma of isolation.

The book touches on how social isolation, loneliness, and stress affect each of us individually and can sometimes provoke depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidality, and substance use. Describing specific lifestyle interventions that may help, it offers tips for

• developing effective coping skills
• facing isolation-induced fears
adapting effectively to the changes in our personal, family, work, academic, and social lives caused by imposed isolation
• finding effective, culturally sensitive mental health care
• improving sleep hygiene
• building and maintaining resilience
• adopting a healthy diet
• overcoming the fatigue burnout
• grieving a loss
• engaging in regular physical exercise
• keeping a daily routine or structure
• maintaining contact with others

Dr. Noonan also discusses re-entry anxiety, the challenging experience many have upon returning to their prior lifestyle, and the difficulty of establishing new school and work routines following social isolation. Accessible and compassionate, Reconnecting after Isolation empowers individuals to manage their own challenges, offering them a better chance of recovery and of staying well.

A concise, essential guide to living with bipolar disorder by an internationally known expert.

When a diagnosis of bipolar disorder enters your life, you may not be sure where to turn for accurate information about this potentially devastating but treatable illness. Whether you yourself have been diagnosed, or a spouse, parent, child, friend, or employee has developed the illness, the need for information and advice is acute.

Presenting the essentials of diagnosis and treatment clearly and succinctly, leading psychiatrist Dr. Francis Mark Mondimore distills everything you need to know about bipolar disorder in this new indispensable guide. In down-to-earth language, Dr. Mondimore explains what bipolar disorder is and how you (or your loved one) can live your best life with the help of medications, therapy, the support of family and friends, and medical care.

An extensive list of references is included, along with additional suggested reading materials and online resources. Realistic clinical descriptions and anecdotes reflecting on fascinating historical details associated with this condition provide further information. The Concise Guide to Bipolar Disorder is an excellent up-to-date resource for the newly diagnosed or those seeking rapid answers to the most common questions about bipolar disorder.

Past Praise for Books by Francis Mark Mondimore, MD

"Offers advice on how to live with bipolar disorder, and how not to become its victim."—Large Print Reviews

"An enlightened, pragmatic, and empathic resource for this very complex and challenging illness."—Journal of Clinical Psychiatry

"An absolute gold mine for those with the disorder and their families: thorough, candid, and up-to-date advice, full of new possibilities for help."—Kirkus Reviews

With candor and humor, a manic-depressive Iranian-American Muslim chronicles her experiences with both clinical and cultural bipolarity.

Born to Persian parents at the height of the Islamic Revolution, Melody Moezzi was raised amid a vibrant, affectionate, and gossipy Iranian diaspora in the American heartland of Dayton, Ohio. Moezzi enjoyed all the amenities of a typical American youth- Froot Loops, Saturday morning cartoons, biased history textbooks. But she als experienced a distinctly Iranian education and uprbinging- Farsi class, unibrows, safron on everything, and PH.D.s or M.D.s for the whole family.

When Moezzi began battling a severe physical illness at eighteen, her loud, loving community of adoptive Iranian aunties and uncles stepped up, filling her hospital rooms with roses, lilies, and hyacinths. But years later, when she attempted suicide and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, there were no flowers. Through several stays in psychiatric hospitals, bombarded with tranquilizers, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics, Moezzi was encouraged to keep her illness a secret - by both her family and an increasingly callous and indifferent medical establishment.

As Moezzi learned firsthand, there's something dangerous about the widespread secrecy surrounding mental illness. It breeds shame and isolation - both of which can be much more devastating than any psychiatric condition alone. Finally finding balance after years of treatment, Moezzi chose to become an outspoken advocate for the mentally ill.

Funny, caustic, and utterly unique, Haldol and Hyacinthsis the moving story of a woman who refused to become torn across cultural and social lines. Moezzi reports from the front lines of the no-man's-land between sickness and sanity, from the Midwest and the middle East. Told through a distinctive and fascinating cultural lens, Haldol and Hyacinthsis a tribute to the healing power of hope and humor.

'A compulsively readable account of one woman's descent into the hell of this insidious illness . . . Moezzi is the newest and perhaps the most important voice in this genre. Those suffering with mental illness (and their family members and friends) should read this book as soon as possible. Moezzi's story will save lives.' Andy Behrman, author of Electroboy- A Memoir of Mania

'A dazzling flower with poisonous thorns, Melody Moezzi's memoir describes formidable, twin conflicting identities, Bipolar, she wrestles frenzied, Hula-Hooping highs and psychotic, suicidal lows. Irnian-American, she finds Muslims scarce in the Bible Belt where she grew up, and learns that in Iran, there isn't even a word for 'bipolar'. Her struggle to keep these forces in balance is an immense task, and she tells her story with confidence and a fabulously wry sense of humor.' Ellen Forney, author of Marbles

'Haldol and Hyacinthsis like th brawling, big-hearted, and hilarious little sister of Darkness Visibleand The Noonday Demon. But Melody Moezzi is no imitator and she doesn't write in anyone's shadow. She stands alone and speaks her brilliant, fierce, inimitable mind, and we're the better for it.' Josh Hanagarne, author of The World's Strongest Librarian

'Melody Moezzi pulls no punches. A big brain and a big heart inform this courageous and often hilarious memoir, which crosses cultures and breaks stigmas. There is, quite simply, nothing like it. Nothing as smart, nothing as frank, nothing as information.' Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls

'With beautiful grace, sardonic humor and sharp intellect, Melody Moezzi casts a light where there is usually darkness. Haldol and Hyacinthsmay be a book about an American Muslim woman, but it speaks to the struggle of all p

A riveting, revelatory, and moving account of the author's struggles with anxiety, and of the history of efforts by scientists, philosophers, and writers to understand the condition

As recently as thirty-five years ago, anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category. Today, it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood.

Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety, Stossel presents an astonishing history, at once intimate and authoritative, of the efforts to understand the condition from medical, cultural, philosophical, and experiential perspectives. He ranges from the earliest medical reports of Galen and Hippocrates, through later observations by Robert Burton and Søren Kierkegaard, to the investigations by great nineteenth-century scientists, such as Charles Darwin, William James, and Sigmund Freud, as they began to explore its sources and causes, to the latest research by neuroscientists and geneticists. Stossel reports on famous individuals who struggled with anxiety, as well as on the afflicted generations of his own family. His portrait of anxiety reveals not only the emotion's myriad manifestations and the anguish anxiety produces but also the countless psychotherapies, medications, and other (often outlandish) treatments that have been developed to counteract it. Stossel vividly depicts anxiety's human toll--its crippling impact, its devastating power to paralyze--while at the same time exploring how those who suffer from it find ways to manage and control it.
My Age of Anxiety is learned and empathetic, humorous and inspirational, offering the reader great insight into the biological, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to the affliction.

From the NYT bestselling author of The Monopolists, the "fascinating" (People) story of Olympian Kevin Hall and the syndrome that makes him believe he stars in a television show of his life.

Meet Kevin Hall: brother, son, husband, father, and Olympic sailor. Kevin has an Ivy League degree, a winning smile, and throughout his adult life, he has been engaged in an ongoing battle with a person that doesn't exist to anyone but him: the Director. In the tradition of Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, journalist and NYT bestselling author Mary Pilon's The Kevin Show reveals the many-sided struggle--of Kevin, his family, and the medical profession--to understand and treat a psychiatric disorder whose euphoric highs and creative ties to pop culture have become inextricable from Kevin's experience of himself.

Kevin suffers from what doctors are beginning to call the "Truman Show" delusion, a form of bipolar disorder named for the 1998 movie in which the main character realizes he is the star of a reality TV show. When the Director commands Kevin to do things, the results often lead to handcuffs, hospitalization, or both. Once he nearly drove a car into Boston Harbor. His girlfriend, now wife, was in the passenger seat.

Interweaving Kevin's perspective--including excerpts from his journals and sketches--with police reports, medical records, and interviews with those who were present at key moments in his life, The Kevin Show is a bracing, suspenseful, and eye-opening view of the role that mental health plays in a seemingly ordinary life.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. Her memoir of the next two years is a "poignant, honest ... triumphantly funny ... and heartbreaking story" (The New York Times Book Review).
The ward for teenage girls in the McLean psychiatric hospital was as renowned for its famous clientele—Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles—as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties.

Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library.

"Destined to become a modern classic." —Entertainment Weekly

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FEEL TRULY ALIVE?

At the age of 24, Matt Haig's world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live again.

A moving, funny and joyous exploration of how to live better, love better and feel more alive, Reasons to Stay Alive is more than a memoir. It is a book about making the most of your time on earth.

"I wrote this book because the oldest clichés remain the truest. Time heals. The bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view. The tunnel does have light at the end of it, even if we haven't been able to see it . . . Words, just sometimes, really can set you free."

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • Sadness is your superpower. In her new masterpiece, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet explores the power of the bittersweet personality, revealing a misunderstood side of mental health and creativity while offering a roadmap to facing grief in order to live life to the fullest.

“Bittersweet has the power to transform the way you see your life and the world.”—OPRAH
“Grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go.”—BRENÉ BROWN, author of Atlas of the Heart
“Susan Cain has described and validated my existence once again!”—GLENNON DOYLE, author of Untamed
“The perfect cure for toxic positivity.”—ADAM GRANT, author of Think Again

LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, Mashable

Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of long­ing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute aware­ness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. 
 
If you’ve ever wondered why you like sad music . . . 
If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day . . . 
If you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty . . .
 
Then you probably identify with the bitter­sweet state of mind.
 
With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an un­tapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she em­ploys the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, con­nection, and transcendence.
 
Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain, whether from a death or breakup, addiction or illness. If we don’t acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another. 
 
At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.

The revised and expanded third edition of the bestselling guide to understanding borderline personality disorder—with advice for communicating with and helping the borderline individuals in your life.

After more than three decades as the essential guide to borderline personality disorder (BPD), the third edition of I Hate You—Don’t Leave Me now reflects the most up-to-date research that has opened doors to the neurobiological, genetic, and developmental roots of the disorder, as well as connections between BPD and substance abuse, sexual abuse, post-traumatic stress syndrome, ADHD, and eating disorders.

Both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic advancements point to real hope for success in the treatment and understanding of BPD.

This expanded and revised edition is an invaluable resource for those diagnosed with BPD and their family, friends, and colleagues, as well as professionals and students in the field, and the practical tools and advice are easy to understand and use in your day-to-day interactions with the borderline individuals in your life.

Acclaimed author Jonathan Rosen’s haunting investigation of the forces that led his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor, from the heights of brilliant promise to the forensic psychiatric hospital where he has lived since killing the woman he loved. A story about friendship, love, and the price of self-delusion, The Best Minds explores the ways in which we understand—and fail to understand—mental illness

When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of college professors, the boys were best friends and keen competitors, and, when they both got into Yale, seemed set to join the American meritocratic elite.

Michael blazed through college in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job. But all wasn’t as it seemed. One day, Jonathan received the fateful call: Michael had suffered a serious psychotic break and was institutionalized at a New York City psychiatric hospital where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He would stay there for nine months before transitioning to a halfway house.

Just before his break, Michael had been accepted to Yale Law School, and now he planned to play that one card still left to him. Still struggling mightily with schizophrenia, Michael made it through the top law school in the country. His extraordinary story was featured in the New York Times; an agent sold his memoir to a major publisher for a large sum; Ron Howard swept in to acquire film rights. It was all a dream come true for Michael and his tirelessly supportive girlfriend Carrie. But then Michael, in the grip of an unshakeable paranoid fantasy, stabbed Carrie to death with a kitchen knife and became a front-page story of an entirely different sort.

The Best Minds is Jonathan Rosen's brilliant and heartbreaking account of an American tragedy. It is a story about the bonds of family, friendship, and community, the promise of intellectual achievement and the lure of utopian solutions. At times tender and funny, and at times harrowing and almost unbearably sad, The Best Minds is an extreme version of a story that is tragically familiar to all too many. In the hands of a writer of Jonathan Rosen's gifts and dedication, its significance will echo widely.

As seen on Good Morning America's SEPTEMBER 2020 READING LIST and FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020!

"We need to read stories about folks who have been through hell and kept going... Fascinating." —Glennon Doyle, A Favorite Book of 2020 on Good Morning America

"Gildiner is nothing short of masterful—as both a therapist and writer. In these pages, she has gorgeously captured both the privilege of being given access to the inner chambers of people's lives, and the meaning that comes from watching them grow into the selves they were meant to be." —Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

In this fascinating narrative, therapist Catherine Gildiner’s presents five of what she calls her most heroic and memorable patients. Among them: a successful, first generation Chinese immigrant musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her at age nine with her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the depth of winter; and a glamorous workaholic whose narcissistic, negligent mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with "Good morning, Monster."

Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried.

As in such recent classics as The Glass Castle and Educated, each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes very funny. Good Morning Monster offers an almost novelistic, behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office, illustrating how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds.

A powerful, poetic memoir of an Indigenous woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Band in the Pacific Northwest—this New York Times bestseller and Emma Watson Book Club pick is “an illuminating account of grief, abuse and the complex nature of the Native experience . . . at once raw and achingly beautiful (NPR).

Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder, Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father―an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist―who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.

Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.

As seen in THE NEW YORK TIMES • READER'S DIGEST • SPIRITUALITY & HEALTH • HUFFPOST

Featured on NPR's RADIO TIMES and WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO

When a painful loss or life-shattering event upends your world, here is the first thing to know: there is nothing wrong with grief. "Grief is simply love in its most wild and painful form," says Megan Devine. "It is a natural and sane response to loss."

So, why does our culture treat grief like a disease to be cured as quickly as possible?

In It’s OK That You’re Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides—as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner—Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing. She debunks the culturally prescribed goal of returning to a normal, "happy" life, replacing it with a far healthier middle path, one that invites us to build a life alongside grief rather than seeking to overcome it. In this compelling and heartful book, you’ll learn:

• Why well-meaning advice, therapy, and spiritual wisdom so often end up making it harder for people in grief
• How challenging the myths of grief—doing away with stages, timetables, and unrealistic ideals about how grief should unfold—allows us to accept grief as a mystery to be honored instead of a problem to solve
• Practical guidance for managing stress, improving sleep, and decreasing anxiety without trying to "fix" your pain
• How to help the people you love—with essays to teach us the best skills, checklists, and suggestions for supporting and comforting others through the grieving process

Many people who have suffered a loss feel judged, dismissed, and misunderstood by a culture that wants to "solve" grief. Megan writes, "Grief no more needs a solution than love needs a solution." Through stories, research, life tips, and creative and mindfulness-based practices, she offers a unique guide through an experience we all must face—in our personal lives, in the lives of those we love, and in the wider world.

It’s OK That You’re Not OK is a book for grieving people, those who love them, and all those seeking to love themselves—and each other—better.

#1 New York Times bestseller

“Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society.” —Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies

A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller
 
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

With uncommon humanity, candor, wit, and erudition, award-winning author Andrew Solomon takes the reader on a journey of incomparable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets. His contribution to our understanding not only of mental illness but also of the human condition is truly stunning.

"The Noonday Demon" examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policymakers and politicians, drug designers and philosophers, Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications, the efficacy of alternative treatments, and the impact the malady has had on various demographic populations around the world and throughout history. He also explores the thorny patch of moral and ethical questions posed by emerging biological explanations for mental illness.

The depth of human experience Solomon chronicles, the range of his intelligence, and his boundless curiosity and compassion will change the reader's view of the world.

An intimate, insightful, at times even humorous exploration of why the thought of death is so compulsive for some while demonstrating that there’s always another solution—from the acclaimed writer and professor of philosophy, based on his viral essay, “I’m Still Here.”

“A rock for people who’ve been troubled by suicidal ideation, or have someone in their lives who is.” —The New York Times

“If you’re going to write a book about suicide, you have to be willing to say the true things, the scary things, the humiliating things. Because everybody who is being honest with themselves knows at least a little bit about the subject. If you lie or if you fudge, the reader will know.”

The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. It was one of over ten attempts throughout the course of his life. But he didn’t die, and like many who consider taking their own lives, he hid the attempt from his wife, family, coworkers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck, and series of vague explanations.

In How Not to Kill Yourself, Martin chronicles his multiple suicide attempts in an intimate depiction of the mindset of someone obsessed with self-destruction. He argues that, for the vast majority of suicides, an attempt does not just come out of the blue, nor is it merely a violent reaction to a particular crisis or failure, but is the culmination of a host of long-standing issues. He also looks at the thinking of a number of great writers who have attempted suicide and detailed their experiences (such as David Foster Wallace, Yiyun Li, Akutagawa, Nelly Arcan, and others), at what the history of philosophy has to say both for and against suicide, and at the experiences of those who have reached out to him across the years to share their own struggles.

The result combines memoir with critical inquiry to powerfully give voice to what for many has long been incomprehensible, while showing those presently grappling with suicidal thoughts that they are not alone, and that the desire to kill oneself—like other self-destructive desires—is almost always temporary and avoidable.

One of Today's Ten Best Inspirational Books, 2020
By the creator and host of the acclaimed mental health podcast Depresh Mode with John Moe

"[A] path to deeper understanding and openness, by way of laughter in the dark" ―The New York Times Book Review

"Filled with heart, humor and hope." ―People

"A funny, honest book." ―Neil Gaiman

"Candid and funny and intimate." ―Susan Orlean

For years John Moe, critically-acclaimed public radio personality and host of The Hilarious World of Depression podcast, struggled with depression; it plagued his family and claimed the life of his brother in 2007. As Moe came to terms with his own illness, he began to see similar patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms surfacing in conversations with others, including high-profile comedians who’d struggled with the disease. Moe saw that there was tremendous comfort and community in open dialogue about these shared experiences and that humor had a unique power. Thus was born the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression.

Inspired by the immediate success of the podcast, Moe has written a remarkable investigation of the disease, part memoir of his own journey, part treasure trove of laugh-out-loud stories and insights drawn from years of interviews with some of the most brilliant minds facing similar challenges. Throughout the course of this powerful narrative, depression’s universal themes come to light, among them, struggles with identity, lack of understanding of the symptoms, the challenges of work-life, self-medicating, the fallout of the disease in the lives of our loved ones, the tragedy of suicide, and the hereditary aspects of the disease.

The Hilarious World of Depression illuminates depression in an entirely fresh and inspiring way.

A bold, expert, and actionable map for the re-invention of America’s broken mental health care system.

“Healing is truly one of the best books ever written about mental illness, and I think I’ve read them all." —Pete Earley, author of Crazy

As director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel was giving a presentation when the father of a boy with schizophrenia yelled from the back of the room, “Our house is on fire and you’re telling me about the chemistry of the paint! What are you doing to put out the fire?” Dr. Insel knew in his heart that the answer was not nearly enough. The gargantuan American mental health industry was not healing millions who were desperately in need. He left his position atop the mental health research world to investigate all that was broken—and what a better path to mental health might look like.
 
In the United States, we have treatments that work, but our system fails at every stage to deliver care well. Even before COVID, mental illness was claiming a life every eleven minutes by suicide. Quality of care varies widely, and much of the field lacks accountability. We focus on drug therapies for symptom reduction rather than on plans for long-term recovery. Care is often unaffordable and unavailable, particularly for those who need it most and are homeless or incarcerated. Where was the justice for the millions of Americans suffering from mental illness? Who was helping their families?
 
But Dr. Insel also found that we do have approaches that work, both in the U.S. and globally. Mental illnesses are medical problems, but he discovers that the cures for the crisis are not just medical, but social. This path to healing, built upon what he calls the three Ps (people, place, and purpose), is more straightforward than we might imagine. Dr. Insel offers a comprehensive plan for our failing system and for families trying to discern the way forward.
 
The fruit of a lifetime of expertise and a global quest for answers, Healing is a hopeful, actionable account and achievable vision for us all in this time of mental health crisis.

A classic of psychology and eating disorders, now reissued with an important, and perhaps controversial, new afterword by the author, Wasted is New York Times bestselling author Marya Hornbacher’s highly acclaimed memoir that chronicles her battle with anorexia and bulimia.

Vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching, Wasted is the memoir of how Marya Hornbacher willingly embraced hunger, drugs, sex, and death—until a particularly horrifying bout with anorexia and bulimia in college forever ended the romance of wasting away.

In this updated edition, Hornbacher, an authority in the field of eating disorders, argues that recovery is not only possible, it is necessary. But the journey is not easy or guaranteed. With a different ending to her story that adds a contemporary edge, Wasted continues to be timely and relevant.

Powerful, affecting essays on mental illness, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and a Whiting Award

An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the “collected schizophrenias” but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community’s own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations of schizophrenia in her life. In essays that range from using fashion to present as high-functioning to the depths of a rare form of psychosis, and from the failures of the higher education system and the dangers of institutionalization to the complexity of compounding factors such as PTSD and Lyme disease, Wang’s analytical eye, honed as a former lab researcher at Stanford, allows her to balance research with personal narrative. An essay collection of undeniable power, The Collected Schizophrenias dispels misconceptions and provides insight into a condition long misunderstood.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

"Rarely have I read a book that challenged me to see myself in an entirely new light, and was at the same time laugh-out-loud funny and utterly absorbing."--Katie Couric

"This is a daring, delightful, and transformative book."--Arianna Huffington, Founder, Huffington Post and Founder & CEO, Thrive Global

"Wise, warm, smart, and funny. You must read this book."--Susan Cain, New York Times best-selling author of Quiet

From a New York Times best-selling author, psychotherapist, and national advice columnist, a hilarious, thought-provoking, and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world--where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose of-fice she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is rev-olutionary in its candor, offering a deeply per-sonal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly reveal-ing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.

In Furiously Happy, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea.

But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

As Jenny says:

"Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos.

"Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'"

Furiously Happy is about "taking those moments when things are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they're the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence. It's the difference between "surviving life" and "living life". It's the difference between "taking a shower" and "teaching your monkey butler how to shampoo your hair." It's the difference between being "sane" and being "furiously happy."

Lawson is beloved around the world for her inimitable humor and honesty, and in Furiously Happy, she is at her snort-inducing funniest. This is a book about embracing everything that makes us who we are - the beautiful and the flawed - and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. Because as Jenny's mom says, "Maybe 'crazy' isn't so bad after all." Sometimes crazy is just right.

A celebrated science and health reporter offers a wry, bracingly honest account of living with anxiety.

A racing heart. Difficulty breathing. Overwhelming dread. Andrea Petersen was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at the age of twenty, but she later realized that she had been experiencing panic attacks since childhood. With time her symptoms multiplied. She agonized over every odd physical sensation. She developed fears of driving on highways, going to movie theaters, even licking envelopes. Although having a name for her condition was an enormous relief, it was only the beginning of a journey to understand and master it--one that took her from psychiatrists' offices to yoga retreats to the Appalachian Trail.

Woven into Petersen's personal story is a fascinating look at the biology of anxiety and the groundbreaking research that might point the way to new treatments. She compares psychoactive drugs to non-drug treatments, including biofeedback and exposure therapy. And she explores the role that genetics and the environment play in mental illness, visiting top neuroscientists and tracing her family history--from her grandmother, who, plagued by paranoia, once tried to burn down her own house, to her young daughter, in whom Petersen sees shades of herself.

Brave and empowering, this is essential reading for anyone who knows what it means to live on edge.

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“This riveting, courageous memoir ought to be mandatory reading for every American.”  —Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow

“l cried reading this book, realizing more fully what my parents endured.” —Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and Where the Past Begins

“This book couldn’t be more timely and more necessary.” —Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of What Is the What and The Monk of Mokha

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called “the most famous undocumented immigrant in America,” tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms.

“This is not a book about the politics of immigration. This book––at its core––is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can’t. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home.

After 25 years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom.”

—Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America

This "graceful, captivating" (New York Times Book Review) story from a singular new talent paints a portrait of grief and the search for meaning as told through the prism of three generations of her Chinese American family--perfect for readers of Helen Macdonald and Elizabeth Alexander.

Kat Chow has always been unusually fixated on death. She worried constantly about her parents dying---especially her mother. A vivacious and mischievous woman, Kat's mother made a morbid joke that would haunt her for years to come: when she died, she'd like to be stuffed and displayed in Kat's future apartment in order to always watch over her.

After her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief. With a distinct voice that is wry and heartfelt, Kat weaves together a story of the fallout of grief that follows her extended family as they emigrate from China and Hong Kong to Cuba and America. Seeing Ghosts asks what it means to reclaim and tell your family's story: Is writing an exorcism or is it its own form of preservation? The result is an extraordinary new contribution to the literature of the American family, and a provocative and transformative meditation on who we become facing loss.

AN NPR BOOKS WE LOVE 2021 PICK * A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF 2021 PICK * A NEW YORK TIMESNOTABLE BOOK OF 2021 * A HARPER'S BAZAAR BOOK YOU NEED TO READ IN 2021 * A TOWN & COUNTRYBEST BOOK OF 2021 PICK * A FORTUNE BEST BOOK OF 2021 PICK

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE • A ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness

“Brilliant . . . To read this book is to become more human.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

In development as a television series starring and adapted by Greta Lee • One of Time’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, New Statesman, BuzzFeed, Esquire, The New York Public Library, and Book Riot

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.

Binding these essays together is Hong’s theory of “minor feelings.” As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they’re dissonant—and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her. 

With sly humor and a poet’s searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche—and of a writer’s search to both uncover and speak the truth.

Praise for Minor Feelings

“Hong begins her new book of essays with a bang. . . .The essays wander a variegated terrain of memoir, criticism and polemic, oscillating between smooth proclamations of certainty and twitches of self-doubt. . . . Minor Feelings is studded with moments [of] candor and dark humor shot through with glittering self-awareness.”—The New York Times

“Hong uses her own experiences as a jumping off point to examine race and emotion in the United States.”—Newsweek

“Powerful . . . [Hong] brings together memoiristic personal essay and reflection, historical accounts and modern reporting, and other works of art and writing, in order to amplify a multitude of voices and capture Asian America as a collection of contradictions. She does so with sharp wit and radical transparency.”—Salon

From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art.

“This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for years and years to come.” —Rachel Kushner, two-time National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room

In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them.

But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet.

Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends—his memories—Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he’s been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.

Universally acclaimed, rapturously reviewed, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography, and an instant New York Times bestseller, Chanel Miller's breathtaking memoir "gives readers the privilege of knowing her not just as Emily Doe, but as Chanel Miller the writer, the artist, the survivor, the fighter." (The Wrap).

"I opened Know My Name with the intention to bear witness to the story of a survivor. Instead, I found myself falling into the hands of one of the great writers and thinkers of our time. Chanel Miller is a philosopher, a cultural critic, a deep observer, a writer's writer, a true artist. I could not put this phenomenal book down." --Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and Untamed

"Know My Name is a gut-punch, and in the end, somehow, also blessedly hopeful." --Washington Post

She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral--viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time.

Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways--there were eyewitnesses, Turner ran away, physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios. Her story illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life.

Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.

Chosen as a BEST BOOK OF 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, TIME, Elle, Glamour, Parade, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, BookRiot

A "hauntingly beautiful memoir about family and identity" (NPR) and a young woman's journey to understanding her complicated parents--her mother an Okinawan war bride, her father a Vietnam veteran--and her own, fraught cultural heritage.

Elizabeth's mother was working as a nightclub hostess on U.S.-occupied Okinawa when she met the American soldier who would become her husband. The language barrier and power imbalance that defined their early relationship followed them to the predominantly white, upstate New York suburb where they moved to raise their only daughter. There, Elizabeth grew up with the trappings of a typical American childhood and adolescence. Yet even though she felt almost no connection to her mother's distant home, she also felt out of place among her peers.

Decades later, Elizabeth comes to recognize the shame and self-loathing that haunt both her and her mother, and attempts a form of reconciliation, not only to come to terms with the embattled dynamics of her family but also to reckon with the injustices that reverberate throughout the history of Okinawa and its people. Clear-eyed and profoundly humane, Speak, Okinawa is a startling accomplishment--a heartfelt exploration of identity, inheritance, forgiveness, and what it means to be an American.

A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life

“Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly

By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.

Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.

In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it.

Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR) • CELEBRATING OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 from: Dallas Morning News * Today.com * Good Housekeeping * Time * The Rumpus * The Week * Salon * Seattle Times * Electric Literature * Bookpage * The Millions * Elle.com * Washington Post * Book Riot * Lit Hub * NPR's Here & Now * Ms. Magazine * Town & Country * New York Times * USA Today * Sunset

From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of family, class and grief--a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost.

In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you'd hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them.

Nicole Chung couldn't hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found community and a path to the life she'd long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in - where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations - looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets.

When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief as well as rage, knowing that years of precarity and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his early death. And then the unthinkable happens - less than a year later, her beloved mother is diagnosed with cancer, and the physical distance between them becomes insurmountable as COVID-19 descends upon the world.

Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another - and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and grievous inequalities in American society.

Part field guide, part history, part ornithology primer, and altogether fun.

Fact: Pigeons are amazing, and until recently, humans adored them. We’ve kept them as pets, held pigeon beauty contests, raced them, used them to carry messages over battlefields, harvested their poop to fertilize our crops—and cooked them in gourmet dishes. Now, with The Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, readers can rediscover the wonder. Equal parts illustrated field guide and quirky history, it covers behavior: Why they coo; how they flock; how they preen, kiss, and mate (monogamously); and how they raise their young (on chunky pigeon milk). Anatomy and identification, from Birmingham Roller to the American Giant Runt to the Scandaroon. Birder issues, like what to do if you find a baby pigeon stranded in the park. And our lively shared story together, including all the things we’ve taught them—Ping-Pong, for example. “Rats with wings?” Think again.
Pigeons coo, peck and nest all over the world, yet most of us treat them with indifference or disdain. So Rosemary Mosco, a bird-lover, science communicator, writer, and cartoonist (and co-author of The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid) is here to give the pigeon's image a makeover, and to help every town- and city-dweller get closer to nature by discovering the joys of birding through pigeon-watching.
 

A writer discovers an unexpected passion for birding, along with a new understanding of the world and her own place in it.

When Julia Zarankin saw her first red-winged blackbird at the age of thirty-five, she didn't expect that it would change her life. Recently divorced and auditioning hobbies during a stressful career transition, she stumbled on birdwatching, initially out of curiosity for the strange breed of humans who wear multi-pocketed vests, carry spotting scopes and discuss the finer points of optics with disturbing fervor. What she never could have predicted was that she would become one of them. Not only would she come to identify proudly as a birder, but birding would ultimately lead her to find love, uncover a new language and lay down her roots.

Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder tells the story of finding meaning in midlife through birds. The book follows the peregrinations of a narrator who learns more from birds than she ever anticipated, as she begins to realize that she herself is a migratory species: born in the former Soviet Union, growing up in Vancouver and Toronto, studying and working in the United States and living in Paris. Coming from a Russian immigrant family of concert pianists who believed that the outdoors were for "other people," Julia Zarankin recounts the challenges and joys of unexpectedly discovering one's wild side and finding one's tribe in the unlikeliest of places.

Zarankin's thoughtful and witty anecdotes illuminate the joyful experience of a new discovery and the surprising pleasure to be found while standing still on the edge of a lake at six a.m. In addition to confirmed nature enthusiasts, this book will appeal to readers of literary memoir, offering keen insight on what it takes to find one's place in the world.

A new edition of the best-selling field guide with 25 all-new plates covering the birds of Hawaii.

For decades, thePeterson Field Guide to Birds has been a popular and trusted guide for birders of all levels, thanks to its famous system of identification and unparalleled illustrations. Now that the American Birding Association has expanded its species Checklist to include Hawaii, the Peterson Guide is the first edition to include the wonderful and exotic species of our fiftieth state. In addition, the text and range maps have been updated, and much of the art has been touched up to reflect current knowledge.

On May 27th, 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart met a flirtatious little starling in a Viennese shop who sang an improvised version of the theme from his Piano Concerto no. 17 in G major. Sensing a kindred spirit in the plucky young bird, Mozart bought him and took him home to be a family pet. For three years, the starling lived with Mozart, influencing his work and serving as his companion, distraction, consolation, and muse.

Two centuries later, starlings are reviled by even the most compassionate conservationists. A nonnative, invasive species, they invade sensitive habitats, outcompete local birds for nest sites and food, and decimate crops. A seasoned birder and naturalist, Lyanda Lynn Haupt is well versed in the difficult and often strained relationships these birds have with other species and the environment. But after rescuing a baby starling of her own, Haupt found herself enchanted by the same intelligence and playful spirit that had so charmed her favorite composer.

In Mozart's Starling, Haupt explores the unlikely and remarkable bond between one of history's most cherished composers and one of earth's most common birds. The intertwined stories of Mozart's beloved pet and Haupt's own starling provide an unexpected window into human-animal friendships, music, the secret world of starlings, and the nature of creative inspiration. A blend of natural history, biography, and memoir, Mozart's Starling is a tour de force that awakens a surprising new awareness of our place in the world.

The Audubon Birdhouse Book is the most authoritative book available for creating safe, sturdy, and easy-to-build homes for many of North America’s favorite birds. This updated second edition includes important new and timely topics including impacts of climate change on birds, nestbox monitoring for community science, native plants, and how birders can help birds.

Produced in association with the National Audubon Society, Audubon Birdhouse Book explains how to build and place functional DIY bird homes that are safe and appropriate for more than 20 classic North American species, from wrens to raptors. Each of the easy-to-build boxes and shelves within is accompanied by cut lists, specially created line diagrams, and step-by-step photography, making the projects accessible to those with even the most rudimentary woodworking skills. In addition, this practical and beautifully presented guide is packed with color photography and information about the bird species covered: Wrens, Warblers, Bluebirds, Flycatchers, Swallows, Titmice, Owls, Flickers, Kestrels, Chickadees, Ducks, Mergansers, Swallows, Doves, Swallows, Robins, Finches, Phoebes, Loons, Swifts, Herons, and Ospreys.

Detailed information will help you properly place and maintain the homes to attract birds. And because these projects are the product of years of experience and field-testing, you can be sure you’re getting the best advice regarding proper design, safe construction materials, and correct home placement to mitigate exposure to elements, pests, and predators. Finally, beyond the birdhouses, you’ll find out how you can contribute to the larger birding community and even enhance your birding experience.

A comprehensive field guide to the nests and nesting behavior of North American birds

Beyond being a simple reference book, the Peterson Field Guide to North American Bird Nests is a practical, educational, and intimate doorway to our continent's bird life. The diversity of nests and nesting strategies of birds reflect the unique biology and evolution of these charismatic animals. Unlike any other book currently on the market, this guide comprehensively incorporates nest design, breeding behavior, and habitat preferences of North American birds to provide the reader with a highly functional field resource and an engaging perspective of this sensitive part of a bird's life cycle.

Help your local wild birds by providing them with a safe garden environment

Make a difference to your local birdlife. Help reverse the decline in bird numbers by creating a haven in which they will thrive. It's a win-win. Provide the best shelter, feeding, and nesting opportunities for them and then you can reap the rewards as they sing and entertain.

No need to be an expert gardener already, or to break the bank - many of the most beneficial features can be installed easily and cheaply, and many you can build yourself or upcycle to be eco-friendly.

Hummingbirds inspire an unmistakable sense of devotion and awe among bird lovers. Gardeners, too, love the company of hummingbirds, not only for their beauty, but also for their role as pollinators.

Brimming with astonishing facts, practical advice, and important ecological information, The Hummingbird Handbook is a must-have guide to attracting, understanding, and protecting hummingbirds. From advice on feeders to planting and landscaping techniques that will have your garden whirring with tiny wings, lifelong birder John Shewey provides all you need to know to entice these delightful creatures. An identification guide makes them easy to spot in the wild, with stunning photographs, details on plumage variations, and range maps showing habitats and migration patterns. Need more joy in your life? Let this guide and nature’s aerial jewels help you create a lively haven.
 

"More than one hundred species of kingfishers are found distributed around the world - every continent but Antarctica. All share oversized heads, dagger bills, and short flicking tails. Many have dazzling rainbow feathers. They range in size from the diminutive pygmy kingfisher of African rainforests to the kookaburra of Australia. Here, Marina Richie takes as her inspiration the belted kingfisher, found all over North America but not as well-known as other common birds. In this first book on belted kingfishers, Richie plunges headfirst - just like a kingfisher would - into their lives, following them from her backyard to archives around the world. On a small stretch of Rattlesnake Creek in Missoula, Montana, Richie spent hundreds of hours seeking and observing a skittish pair of nesting belted kingfishers. Weaving natural history, mythology, and memoir, Richie celebrates the belted kingfisher through a journey of discovery across multiple seasons. She discusses the scientific literature on kingfishers, the role of citizen scientists, the appearance of kingfishers in religions and cultures from ancient Greece to the Salish tribes, and her own observations: the staccato calls, the sharp dives, the scenes of females chasing after each other. Her quest taught her not just about kingfishers but also about stillness and the world around her. Spending long hours still on the creek bank, she reflects on the challenges and narratives of wildlife, of environmental change, and of her own life: the death of her father, himself a bird lover; balancing her passion for kingfishers with marriage, motherhood, and paid work; and finally a decision to leave Montana for a different life in Oregon"--

* NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
* Winner of the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize
* Named the Costa Book of the Year
* #1 bestseller in the UK

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconerHelen had been captivated by hawks since childhoodshe'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance ofThe Once and Future King author T.H. White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor. Projecting herself "in the hawk's wild mind to tame her" tested the limits of Macdonald's humanity and changed her life.

Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator.

A visually stunning, comprehensive resource on North America's birds of prey

Always a popular group of birds, raptors symbolize freedom and fierceness, and in Pete Dunne's definitive guide, these traits are portrayed in hundreds of stunning color photographs showing raptors up close, in flight, and in action--fighting, hunting, and nesting. These gorgeous photographs enhance the comprehensive, authoritative text, which goes far beyond identification to cover raptor ecology, behavior, conservation, and much more. In returning to his forte and his first love, Pete Dunne has crafted a benchmark book on raptors: the first place to turn for any question about these highly popular birds, whether it's what they eat, where they live, or how they behave.

A "remarkable memoir" (Nature) of life with an emperor penguin colony, gorgeously illustrated with 32 pages of exclusive photography

For 337 days, award-winning wildlife cameraman Lindsay McCrae intimately followed 11,000 emperor penguins amid the singular beauty of Antarctica. This is his masterful chronicle of one penguin colony's astonishing journey of life, death, and rebirth--and of the extraordinary human experience of living amongst them in the planet's harshest environment.

A miracle occurs each winter in Antarctica. As temperatures plummet 60° below zero and the sea around the remote southern continent freezes, emperors--the largest of all penguins--begin marching up to 100 miles over solid ice to reach their breeding grounds. They are the only animals to breed in the depths of this, the worst winter on the planet; and in an unusual role reversal, the males incubate the eggs, fasting for over 100 days to ensure they introduce their chicks safely into their new frozen world.

My Penguin Year recounts McCrae's remarkable adventure to the end of the Earth. He observed every aspect of a breeding emperor's life, facing the inevitable sacrifices that came with living his childhood dream, and grappling with the personal obstacles that, being over 15,000km away from the comforts of home, almost proved too much. Out of that experience, he has written an unprecedented portrait of Antarctica's most extraordinary residents.

"Hummingbirds are a glittering, sparkling collective of over three hundred wildly variable, colorful species. For centuries they have captured our imaginations - revered by indigenous Americans, coveted by European collectors, and to this day admired worldwide for their unsurpassed metallic, jewel-like plumage, acrobatic flight, and immense character. Yet they exist on a knife-edge -- theirs is a precarious life, dependent upon finding sufficient nectar to provide the high energy their bodies demand daily. They live fast and die young. And they do this in habitats that range from boreal woodlands to deserts, from dripping cloud-forests to montane paramo, and on islands both tropical and sub-polar. They are, perhaps, the ultimate embodiment of evolution's power to carve a niche for a seemingly delicate creature in even the harshest of places. The Glitter in the Green tells the colorful story of these fabulous birds -- their history, their compelling life cycles, and their perilous position in a changing landscape -- and the stories of the people, past and present, whose lives have been shaped by the zealous passion hummingbirds inspire. Enthusiastic amateur birdwatchers, conservation workers, scientists, smugglers, witches, and celebrities -- all have been consumed in one way or another with passion for the most remarkable family of all the birds. Travelling the full length of their worldwide range, from the very edge of the Arctic Circle to the sub-Antarctic islands off the tip of South America, acclaimed nature writer Jon Dunn embarks on a search for the most remarkable examples of their kind, exploring their rich cultural heritage, and encountering a host of human characters as colorful as the birds themselves"--

In this updated edition of their best-selling field guide, renowned bird experts Tom Aversa, Richard Cannings, and Hal Opperman illuminate the key identification traits, vocalizations, seasonal statuses, habitat preferences, and feeding behaviors of bird species from British Columbia to southern Oregon.

- Compact full-page accounts feature maps and more than 900 color photographs by the region's top bird photographers

- Comprehensive revisions to taxonomic structure and sequencing of avian families to align with the most current print and online resources

- Territorial range covers much of British Columbia; all of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho; and parts of western Montana and Wyoming

Spanning a vast, distinctive region rich in protected wildlands and iconic national parks, Birds of the Pacific Northwest is a superlative, complete resource for enjoying the many bird species found in the region.

Learn to identify birds in Idaho, and make bird-watching even more enjoyable. With Stan Tekiela's famous field guide, bird identification is simple and informative. There's no need to look through dozens of photos of birds that don't live in your area. This book features 128 species of Idaho birds organized by color for ease of use. Do you see a yellow bird and don't know what it is? Go to the yellow section to find out.

Book Features:

• 128 species: Only Idaho birds
• Simple color guide: See a yellow bird? Go to the yellow section
• Compare feature: Decide between look-alikes
• Stan's Notes: Naturalist tidbits and facts
• Professional photos: Crisp, stunning full-page images

This new edition includes more species, updated photographs and range maps, revised information, and even more of Stan's expert insights. So grab Birds of Idaho Field Guide for your next birding adventure--to help ensure that you positively identify the birds that you see.

Traveling to 41 countries in 2015 with a backpack and binoculars, Noah Strycker became the first person to see more than half the world's 10,000 species of birds in one year.

In 2015, Noah Strycker set himself a lofty goal: to become the first person to see half the world's birds in one year. For 365 days, with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, he traveled across forty-one countries and all seven continents, eventually spotting 6,042 species--by far the biggest birding year on record.

This is no travelogue or glorified checklist. Noah ventures deep into a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, airline snafus, breakdowns, mudslides, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, conservation triumphs, common and iconic species, and scores of passionate bird lovers around the globe. By pursuing the freest creatures on the planet, Noah gains a unique perspective on the world they share with us--and offers a hopeful message that even as many birds face an uncertain future, more people than ever are working to protect them.

"The thrill of quiet adventure. The constant hope of discovery. The reminder that the world is filled with wonder. When I bird, life is bigger, more vibrant." That is why Susan Fox Rogers is a birder. Learning the Birds is the story of how encounters with birds recharged her adventurous spirit.

When the birds first called, Rogers was in a slack season of her life. The woods and rivers that enthralled her younger self had lost some of their luster. It was the song of a thrush that reawakened Rogers, sparking a long-held desire to know the birds that accompanied her as she rock climbed and paddled, to know the world around her with greater depth. Energized by her curiosity, she followed the birds as they drew her deeper into her authentic self, and ultimately into love. In Learning the Birds, we join Rogers as she becomes a birder and joins the community of passionate and quirky bird people. We meet her birding companions close to home in New York State's Hudson Valley as well as in the desert of Arizona and awash in the midnight sunlight of Alaska. Along on the journey are birders and estimable ornithologists of past generations--people like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Florence Merriam Bailey--whose writings inspire Rogers's adventures and discoveries. A ready, knowledgeable, and humble friend and explorer, Rogers is eager to share what she sees and learns. Learning the Birds will remind you of our passionate need for wonder and our connection to the wild creatures with whom we share the land.

Become a better birder with brief portraits of 200 top North American birds. This friendly, relatable book is a celebration of the art, science, and delights of bird-watching.

How to Know the Birds introduces a new, holistic approach to bird-watching, by noting how behaviors, settings, and seasonal cycles connect with shape, song, color, gender, age distinctions, and other features traditionally used to identify species. With short essays on 200 observable species, expert author Ted Floyd guides us through a year of becoming a better birder, each species representing another useful lesson: from explaining scientific nomenclature to noting how plumage changes with age, from chronicling migration patterns to noting hatchling habits. Dozens of endearing pencil sketches accompany Floyd's charming prose, making this book a unique blend of narrative and field guide. A pleasure for birders of all ages, this witty book promises solid lessons for the beginner and smiles of recognition for the seasoned nature lover.

The diversity and drama of the bird world brought to breathtaking life in an encyclopedic new edition

Unrivaled in scope for a single-volume reference work, this photographic guide to every bird order and family profiles more than 1,400 species, pictured in their native environment by photographers around the globe. Authoritative, comprehensive, and completely up to date, this reference was produced and revised by a team of expert contributors and in partnership with the leading avian authorities Birdlife International and Audubon.

Bird's photographic catalog showcases birds from hummingbirds to monkey-eating eagles, each with a photograph, description, three-color distribution map, and data file. Organized in taxonomic order, the catalog has detailed introductions to every bird order. The perching birds alone, making the largest order, occupy 158 pages; and most of their families, such as larks or tanagers, also have their own introductions. Nearly 100 further pages focus in vivid detail on bird biology--their flight, anatomy, feeding, communication, breeding, habitat, migrations, life cycles, and the many habitats they live in. All this, and special features on the world's most impressive birdwatching locations, make this "A must-have reference for every bird enthusiast" (BBC Wildlife Magazine).

This desk reference is the most up-to-date and comprehensive source of knowledge on North American bird identification, distribution, behavior, habitat, and conservation concerns available today.
More an encyclopedia than a field guide, National Geographic's Complete Birds is a browsable treasure trove of facts. This comprehensive volume profiles every bird observable in the continental United States and Canada, featuring species accounts with details that include calls and songs, breeding behaviors, molting patterns, and the vast extent of their polar and neotropical migrations. The precision maps, illuminating photographs, and more than 4,000 exquisite pieces of annotated art make this the biggest and best bird book ever.
This third edition, thoroughly updated, includes:

• Information on more than 1,000 species and subspecies
• Overviews of every family
• Organization reflecting current taxonomy
• 850 range maps, more than half updated since the last edition
• Sidebars on identification challenges such as distinguishing between Bay-breasted and Blackpoll Warblers in fall or separating the various species of white egrets

These 752 pages add up to a lifetime of learning for all devoted birders, from those just beginning birders to those who have been building their life lists for decades.
Bird lovers will appreciate many other titles from National Geographic, including:

• Field Guide to the Birds of North America
• Backyard Guide to the Birds of North America
• How to Know the Birds
• Birds of the Photo Ark

Best Books of the Month: Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Gulf, a sweeping cultural and natural history of the bald eagle in America.

The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you’re not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as “majestic” and “noble,” yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies. Taking us from before the nation’s founding through inconceivable resurgences of this enduring all-American species, Jack E. Davis contrasts the age when native peoples lived beside it peacefully with that when others, whether through hunting bounties or DDT pesticides, twice pushed Haliaeetus leucocephalus to the brink of extinction.

Filled with spectacular stories of Founding Fathers, rapacious hunters, heroic bird rescuers, and the lives of bald eagles themselves—monogamous creatures, considered among the animal world’s finest parents—The Bald Eagle is a much-awaited cultural and natural history that demonstrates how this bird’s wondrous journey may provide inspiration today, as we grapple with environmental peril on a larger scale.

New York Times Bestseller
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
A Library Journal Best Science and Technology Book of the Year

An exhilarating exploration of the science and wonder of global bird migration.

In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we’ve learned of these key migrations—how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basis—is nothing short of extraordinary.

Bird migration entails almost unfathomable endurance, like a sparrow-sized sandpiper that will fly nonstop from Canada to Venezuela—the equivalent of running 126 consecutive marathons without food, water, or rest—avoiding dehydration by "drinking" moisture from its own muscles and organs, while orienting itself using the earth’s magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement that made Einstein queasy. Crossing the Pacific Ocean in nine days of nonstop flight, as some birds do, leaves little time for sleep, but migrants can put half their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time, alternating sides—and their reaction time actually improves.

These and other revelations convey both the wonder of bird migration and its global sweep, from the mudflats of the Yellow Sea in China to the remote mountains of northeastern India to the dusty hills of southern Cyprus. This breathtaking work of nature writing from Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul also introduces readers to those scientists, researchers, and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges.

Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork, in A World on the Wing Weidensaul unveils with dazzling prose the miracle of nature taking place over our heads.

Targeted to beginners and beyond, National Geographic's fun, inspiring guide to the art, craft, and science of bird-watching combines practical know-how and expert knowledge. Browsable and bursting with helpful illustrations and photographs, Birding Basics offers new ideas for when, where, and how to get to know the birds in your world.

Not a field guide but a primer in best practices, authored by birding expert Noah Strycker, this breezy book features easy-to-follow advice on what to look and listen for, how to use field guides and birding apps, the best equipment to start with, and ways to engage with other birders around the world. Filled with fun facts and seasoned advice, this useful book will help you attract birds to your backyard, master bird identification, name a bird by its song, and witness the magic of migration. Sidebars feature fun facts, identification tips, and easy projects for exploring the world on the wing.

For everyone who loves watching the birds, whether out the window or on the trail, this colorful, easy-to-use guide to better birding has everything you need.

"Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself."

So begins this lively collection of essays by acclaimed filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar. Growing up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India, Kumar took for granted her immersion in a lush natural world. After moving to North America as a teenager, she found herself increasingly distanced from more than human life and discouraged by the civilization she saw contributing to its destruction. It was only in her twenties, living in Los Angeles and working on films, that she began to rediscover her place in the landscape--and in the cosmos--by way of watching birds.

Tracing her movements across the American West, this stirring collection of essays brings the avian world richly to life. Kumar's perspective is not that of a list keeper, counting and cataloguing species. Rather, from the mango-colored western tanager that rescues her from a bout of altitude sickness in Sequoia National Park to ancient sandhill cranes in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and from the snowy plovers building shallow nests with bits of shell and grass to the white-breasted nuthatch that regularly visits the apricot tree behind her family's casita in Santa Fe, for Kumar, birds "become a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world."

At a time when climate change, habitat loss, and the reckless use of pesticides are causing widespread extinction of species, Kumar's reflections on these messengers from our distant past and harbingers of our future offer luminous evidence of her suggestion that "seeds of transformation lie dormant in all of our hearts. Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us."

A one-of-a-kind guide to birding locally that encourages readers to slow down and notice the spectacular birds all around them.

Many birders travel far and wide to popular birding destinations to catch sight of rare or “exotic” birds. In Slow Birding, evolutionary biologist Joan E. Strassmann introduces readers to the joys of birding right where they are.

In this inspiring guide to the art of slow birding, Strassmann tells colorful stories of the most common birds to be found in the United States—birds we often see but might not have considered deeply before. For example, northern cardinals thrive in the city, where they are free from predators. White brows on a male white-throated sparrow indicate that he is likely to be a philanderer. This essential guide to the fascinating world of common, everyday birds features:

• detailed portraits of individual bird species and the scientists who have discovered and observed them
• advice and guidance on what to look for when slow birding, so that you can uncover clues to the reasons behind specific bird behaviors
• bird-focused activities that will open your eyes more to the fascinating world of birds
• Slow Birding is the perfect guide for the birder looking to appreciate the beauty of the birds right in their own backyard, observing keenly how their behaviors change from day to day and season to season.

A Guardian Book of the Year

“A beautiful book; wise and sharp-eared as its subject.” —Robert Macfarlane 

Owls have existed for over sixty million years, and in the relatively short time we have shared the planet with these majestic birds they have ignited the human imagination. But even as owls continue to captivate our collective consciousness, celebrated British nature writer Miriam Darlington finds herself struck by all she doesn't know about the true nature of these enigmatic creatures.

Darlington begins her fieldwork in the British Isles with her teenage son, Benji. As her avian fascination grows, she travels to France, Serbia, Spain, Finland, and the frosted Lapland borders of the Arctic for rare encounters with the Barn Owl, Tawny Owl, Long-eared Owl, Pygmy Owl, Snowy Owl, and more. But when her son develops a mysterious illness, her quest to understand the elusive nature of owls becomes entangled with a search for finding a cure.

In The Wise Hours, Darlington watches and listens to the natural world and to the rhythms of her home and family, inviting readers to discover the wonders of owls alongside her while rewilding our imagination with the mystery, fragility, and magnificence of all creatures.