ROAR! HISS! SQUEAK! NYUK-NYUK! Wildlife sure sounds fun, doesn't it? Explore the wild with Zai Whitaker, an eager adventurer raised among India's pioneering conservation heroes! Together with Romulus Whitaker, the 'Snake Man of India', Zai developed the Madras Crocodile Bank, to research and conserve crocodiles and other 'herps'. From living with cobras as to hatching sea turtles and from watching birds to stalking termites, Zai has a long and thrilling trail of escapades. Her stories, poems and real-life accounts take you from Chennai to the Western Ghats, from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to Papua New Guinea, and beyond into her wildly wonderful imagination! Beautifully illustrated, Cobra in my Kitchen and Other Adventures with Wildlife introduces you to the fascinating side of wriggly snakes, jumpy frogs, lively lizards, colourful chameleons and even a tiger or two, along with many more unmissable adventures! Hop on to this sensational safari of discoveries for children and the whole family!

A wild look at our natural world for fans of Steve Irwin, James Herriot, and Bear Grylls Millions follow Dr. Evan Antin and his wildlife adventures through social media and on his popular Animal Planet television show Evan Goes Wild. Now in his first book, World Wild Vet, Evan takes us to the deep blue seas, swimming with giant whale sharks with “puppy dog eyes," to jungles filled with venomous snakes (who are more afraid of you than you are of them), to a race across the savannah and against the clock to save rhinos from the clutches of poachers—all in the name of adventure and a deep love for the wild around us. Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and conservationist wake up call, World Wild Vet is an unforgettable exploration of the world we all call home and a love letter to the creatures we share it with.

This is a collection of articles, stories and poems by the well-known naturalist Zai Whitaker. Most are about reptiles, though a few birds and tigers have managed to wiggle in as well! Zai Whitaker's adventures and experiences are unique and often stranger than fiction. Told with her trademark brand of humour, these pieces are also full of fascinating information about animals, places and people. She takes us to places such as Papua New Guinea, the Andaman Islands and the Western Ghats where we meet out-of-the-way characters such as taipans and king cobras.This book is a must read for anyone interested in natural history. Or anyone who enjoys good writing, anecdotes and an occasional laugh.

“This is a gorgeous, lyrical, hilarious, important book. . . . Read this and you may find yourself instinctively beginning to heal old wounds: in yourself, in others, and just maybe in the cathedral of the wild that is our true home.”—Martha Beck, author of Finding Your Own North Star Boyd Varty had an unconventional upbringing. He grew up on Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa, a place where man and nature strive for balance, where perils exist alongside wonders. Founded more than eighty years ago as a hunting ground, Londolozi was transformed into a nature reserve beginning in 1973 by Varty’s father and uncle, visionaries of the restoration movement. But it wasn’t just a sanctuary for the animals; it was also a place for ravaged land to flourish again and for the human spirit to be restored. When Nelson Mandela was released after twenty-seven years of imprisonment, he came to the reserve to recover. Cathedral of the Wild is Varty’s memoir of his life in this exquisite and vast refuge. At Londolozi, Varty gained the confidence that emerges from living in Africa. “We came out strong and largely unafraid of life,” he writes, “with the full knowledge of its dangers.” It was there that young Boyd and his equally adventurous sister learned to track animals, raised leopard and lion cubs, followed their larger-than-life uncle on his many adventures filming wildlife, and became one with the land. Varty survived a harrowing black mamba encounter, a debilitating bout with malaria, even a vicious crocodile attack, but his biggest challenge was a personal crisis of purpose. An intense spiritual quest takes him across the globe and back again—to reconnect with nature and “rediscover the track.” Cathedral of the Wild is a story of transformation that inspires a great appreciation for the beauty and order of the natural world. With conviction, hope, and humor, Varty makes a passionate claim for the power of the wild to restore the human spirit. Praise for Cathedral of the Wild “Extremely touching . . . a book about growth and hope.”—The New York Times “It made me cry with its hard-won truths about human and animal nature. . . . Both funny and deeply moving, this book belongs on the shelf of everyone who seeks healing in wilderness.”—BookPage

The forests of India are not only home to a wide variety of animals and birds, but they also teem with committed conservationists, naturalists and nature lovers. And after having spent many years with wildlife, these men and women have fascinating stories to tell. Cliff Rice is one such animal-explorer. He lived for two years in the mountains of Kerala, befriending the Nilgiri tahr, an endangered species of mountain goat, with fistfuls of salt. Ralph Morris, one of the first British coffee planters in the Biligirirangan Hills, went on a 'tiger beat' and chased a pair of tigers towards his daughter Monica , who was given little pebbles to throw at them if defence became necessary. Sally Walker spent years with tiger cubs in zoos, and proved that kindness is more effective than fierce authority; Rom Whitaker set off on an international hunt for giant crocodiles, which took him from Orissa to Egypt; and Manish Chandi tells a fascinating tale about Meroe, the rumbling Nicobar island, where he studied sea turtles and other wildlife.

Homemaker-CEOs can teach MBAs, corporate managers and businesses much more than you ever imagined. Doesn't managing a home's finances, nurturing the family's nutritional and emotional needs and planning the workflow of everyday activities of different family members count as management? Every Mother Is a CEO answers these questions and more. In a breezy, conversational style, the author Dhanjit Vadra-Managing Director, Allen & Alvan Pvt. Ltd and CEO, Allen & Alvan Defence & Aerospace-recounts the ways in which his mother Urmil Vadra worked tirelessly towards managing a large household, raising a family and assisting his father build a hardware manufacturing empire from scratch. Through her common-sense management techniques, knack for organizational efficiency and most of all, compassion for family and staff, she not only brought up extremely successful and well-settled children, but also created a team of dedicated personnel to look after both family and business. In achieving all this and more, she proves yet again how homemakers are caregivers, supervisors of finances and inventory, educators and HR managers. In fact, they are anchors of the whole family unit and the wheel that makes everything run. Filled with anecdotes, tips, inspiring stories of business pioneers like Ford and Godrej, and common business scenarios, this is a riveting and informative read for managers, employees and students alike. It opens our eyes to the often overlooked, vital management skills of homemakers.

Meet Pooch, the mongoose along with scorpions, crabs, centipedes and other insects and reptiles in the pages of this charming little book as they talk about their habits and eccentricities - in verse! Did you know that the cobra cannot hear, and 'dances' because it is following the movements of the snake charmer's flute? That the hermit crab does not have a shell of its own and has to go about looking for one that fits? And what, exactly, does the cockroach feel when you flee screaming from it? Crackling with wit, and full of fun facts, these poems by the author of the widely acclaimed "Cobra in My Kitchen", are a must read for poetry and nature lovers alike. Show More Show Less

An intrepid investigation of the criminal world of wildlife trafficking--the poachers, the traders, and the customers--and of those fighting against it Journalist Rachel Nuwer plunges the reader into the underground of global wildlife trafficking, a topic she has been investigating for nearly a decade. Our insatiable demand for animals -- for jewelry, pets, medicine, meat, trophies, and fur -- is driving a worldwide poaching epidemic, threatening the continued existence of countless species. Illegal wildlife trade now ranks among the largest contraband industries in the world, yet compared to drug, arms, or human trafficking, the wildlife crisis has received scant attention and support, leaving it up to passionate individuals fighting on the ground to try to ensure that elephants, tigers, rhinos, and more are still around for future generations. As Reefer Madness (Schlosser) took us into the drug market, or Susan Orlean descended into the swampy obsessions of TheOrchid Thief, Nuwer--an award-winning science journalist with a background in ecology--takes readers on a narrative journey to the front lines of the trade: to killing fields in Africa, traditional medicine black markets in China, and wild meat restaurants in Vietnam. Through exhaustive first-hand reporting that took her to ten countries, Nuwer explores the forces currently driving demand for animals and their parts; the toll that demand is extracting on species across the planet; and the conservationists, rangers, and activists who believe it is not too late to stop the impending extinctions. More than a depressing list of statistics, Poached is the story of the people who believe this is a battle that can be won, that our animals are not beyond salvation.

After twenty-five years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain has decided to tell all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.