Only thirty-five miles from St. Louis, the Shaw Nature Reserve is consistently ranked a top natural attraction in the state of Missouri. Founded in 1925 as a response to the coal pollution then choking plant life in the region, the Reserve has a mission to "inspire stewardship of our environment through education, restoration and protection of natural habitats, and public enjoyment of the natural world." This book captures the history and natural beauty of the Shaw Nature Reserve from its founding to the present day.

It's safe to say that few people have lived lives as thoroughly devoted to plants as Peter H. Raven has. The longtime director--now president emeritus--of the Missouri Botanical Garden, author of numerous leading textbooks and several hundred scholarly articles, Raven has been a tireless champion of sustainability and biodiversity, earning him the plaudit of "Hero for the Planet" from Time. Driven by Nature is the first chronicle of this prominent scientist and conservationist's life. Moving from his idyllic childhood in the San Francisco of the 1940s to his four decades leading the Missouri Botanical Garden, Raven's autobiography take readers across multiple continents and decades. Driven by Nature follows the globetrotting botanist from China to the American Midwest as he works to foster concern for a changing planet, further the cause of biological education, and build the Missouri Botanical Garden into the world-renowned haven for plant life it is today. Raven brings his story into the twenty-first century with a timely epilogue that reinforces the crucial importance of scientific learning, active conservation, and committed activism in the face of a rapidly changing natural world. Featuring an introduction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning naturalist E. O. Wilson, this beautifully illustrated book should thrill nature lovers, plant enthusiasts, and environmentally-conscious readers looking to take action to preserve our planet's biodiversity.

In this eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson describes why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. Through engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the country, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists, Lawson applies the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces. Detailed chapters address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. The Humane Gardener fills a unique niche in describing simple principles for both attracting wildlife and peacefully resolving conflicts with all the creatures that share our world.

"The Flora of Missouri project, directed by Garden Curator, Dr. George Yatskievych, is an ongoing effort to update and compile information on the state's flora. It began in 1987 as a joint effort of the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Missouri Department of Conservation. One of its main goals is a three-volume revision of former Missouri Botanical Garden curator Julian A. Steyermark's 'Flora of Missouri', first published in 1963. Missouri's ever changing plant diversity, the shifting distributions of its plant species, and the many new records of plants in the state have necessitated an expansion of Steyermark's original publication into three volumes."--

Follows three families as they recreate the lives of Western homesteaders.

A Washington Post, NPR, and Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year • Shortlisted for the Booker Prize “More than timely, the novel feels timeless, solid, like a forgotten classic recently resurfaced — a brutal, beguiling fairy tale about humanity. But at its core, The New Wilderness is really about motherhood, and about the world we make (or unmake) for our children.” — Washington Post "5 of 5 stars. Gripping, fierce, terrifying examination of what people are capable of when they want to survive in both the best and worst ways. Loved this."— Roxane Gay via Twitter Margaret Atwood meets Miranda July in this wildly imaginative debut novel of a mother's battle to save her daughter in a world ravaged by climate change; A prescient and suspenseful book from the author of the acclaimed story collection, Man V. Nature. Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now. Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State, guinea pigs in an experiment to see if humans can exist in nature without destroying it. Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, they slowly and painfully learn to survive in an unpredictable, dangerous land, bickering and battling for power and control as they betray and save one another. But as Agnes embraces the wild freedom of this new existence, Bea realizes that saving her daughter’s life means losing her in a different way. The farther they get from civilization, the more their bond is tested in astonishing and heartbreaking ways. At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood and what it means to be human, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary novel from a one-of-a-kind literary force.

This book offers new perspectives on the environmental history of lands that have come under Russian and Soviet rule by paying attention to 'place' and 'nature' in the intersection between humans and the environments that surround them. Through case studies of specific places in northwestern Russia, for example the Solovetskie Islands, the Urals, Siberia, in particular Lake Baikal, and the Russian Far East, the book highlights the importance of local environments and the specificities of individual places and spaces in understanding the human-nature nexus. This focus is accentuated by the fact that the authors have considerable, first-hand experience of the places they write about that complements and supplements their research in textual sources.

Written by one of the top B.A.S.S. tournament winners, this memoir and guide may become to bass fishing what "Harvey Penick's Little Red Book" is to golf. Illustrations.