The Outlook for Earthlings traces an unusual, difficult friendship across a lifetime, between women of stunningly opposite natures. Melanie Taper is timid, compelled to obey and venerate authority. Yet in unguarded moments she demonstrates such deadly insight into human foibles as to suggest a strength that has, for dark reasons, deliberately hidden itself lifelong. Scarlet Rand, by contrast, is rash, willful, and impatient of reverence of any stripe. Scarlet is shocked by Mel's passive reserve; despite her obvious gifts, Mel is--bafflingly--self-erasing. Mel's Billy Budd-like saintliness maddens Scarlet--because finally and most troublingly, Scarlet disbelieves it. Their friendship suggests to each a final frontier, a saving sanctuary. Yet at its core, a pained impasse soon becomes evident: each woman takes a secret, moral offense at the other's inmost nature--and choices. Living out these differences--against awareness of the illness which is slowly destroying one of them--proves an ultimate challenge. In each, a reckoning must occur. The Outlook for Earthlings examines what women want, amid conflicting layers of need. It ponders beginnings, endings, and Virginia Woolf's declaration that good angels must be killed. It considers the limits of friendship--and of the act of witnessing. At its heart, it asks how we may finally measure a life--and who should do the measuring.

With The Human Animal Earthling Identity Carrie P. Freeman asks us to reconsider the devastating division we have created between the human and animal conditions, leading to mass exploitation, injustice, and extinction. As a remedy, Freeman believes social movements should collectively foster a cultural shift in human identity away from an egoistic anthropocentrism (human-centered outlook) and toward a universal altruism (species-centered ethic), so people may begin to see themselves more broadly as “human animal earthlings.” To formulate the basis for this identity shift, Freeman examines overlapping values (supporting life, fairness, responsibility, and unity) that are common in global rights declarations and in the current campaign messages of sixteen global social movement organizations that work on human/civil rights, nonhuman animal protection, and/or environmental issues, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, CARE, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the World Wildlife Fund, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the Nature Conservancy, the Rainforest Action Network, and Greenpeace. She also interviews the leaders of these advocacy groups to gain their insights on how human and nonhuman protection causes can become allies by engaging common opponents and activating shared values and goals on issues such as the climate crisis, enslavement, extinction, pollution, inequality, destructive farming and fishing, and threats to democracy. Freeman’s analysis of activist discourse considers ethical ideologies on behalf of social justice, animal rights, and environmentalism, using animal rights’ respect for sentient individuals as a bridge connecting human rights to a more holistic valuing of species and ecological systems. Ultimately, Freeman uses her findings to recommend a set of universal values around which all social movements’ campaign messages can collectively cultivate respectful relations between “human animal earthlings,” fellow sentient beings, and the natural world we share.

Explores the quest for place that compels and defines us through the author's travels in Europe and the United States

Curious, ruminative, and wry, this literary autobiography tours what Rachel Kushner called “the strange remove that is the life of the writer.” Frank’s essays cover a vast spectrum—from handling dismissive advice, facing the dilemma of thwarted ambition, and copying the generosity that inspires us, to the miraculous catharsis of letter-writing and some of the books that pull us through. Useful for writers at any stage of development, Late Work offers a seasoned artist’s thinking through the exploration of issues, paradoxes, and crises of faith. Like a lively conversation with a close, outspoken friend, each piece tells its experience from the trenches.

The author presents a concise introduction to the spiritual path of anthroposophy.

It is 2065, and a year has passed since the people of Earth formally established relations with several extraterrestrial races. Appearances suggest that a new age of peace, economic prosperity, and enlightenment has begun. One group of aliens in particular, the Greys, are an advanced and peaceful race. Human journalist C. A. Wyatt is in the process of writing a book about the Greys’ odyssey from their home world, planet Zeta, to Earth and their crash landing near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Their journey begins with the invasion of Zeta in 1944 by an aggressive alien species called Reptoids, just as the Greys’ spaceship, Zeta’s Hope, is about to be launched on an expedition to the uninhabited planet of Avalonia with fifty colonists—made up of both Greys and their human-like allies from planet Amigo. As crew of the ship voyages to various planets, they face a variety of problems, both internal and external, but eventually they set out to meet the humans of Earth, hoping for form a new alliance. But when those plans go awry, the fates of the Greys and of humanity will change forever. In this science fiction novel, set in 2065, aliens known as Greys recall their journey to Earth in the 1940s through interviews with a human journalist.

From John Muir to David Brower, from the creation of Yellowstone National Park to the Endangered Species Act, environmentalism in America has always had close to its core a preservationist ideal. Generations have been inspired by its ethos—to encircle nature with our protection, to keep it apart, pristine, walled against the march of human development. But we have to face the facts. Accelerating climate change, rapid urbanization, agricultural and industrial devastation, metastasizing fire regimes, and other quickening anthropogenic forces all attest to the same truth: the earth is now spinning through the age of humans. After Preservation takes stock of the ways we have tried to both preserve and exploit nature to ask a direct but profound question: what is the role of preservationism in an era of seemingly unstoppable human development, in what some have called the Anthropocene? Ben A. Minteer and Stephen J. Pyne bring together a stunning consortium of voices comprised of renowned scientists, historians, philosophers, environmental writers, activists, policy makers, and land managers to negotiate the incredible challenges that environmentalism faces. Some call for a new, post-preservationist model, one that is far more pragmatic, interventionist, and human-centered. Others push forcefully back, arguing for a more chastened and restrained vision of human action on the earth. Some try to establish a middle ground, while others ruminate more deeply on the meaning and value of wilderness. Some write on species lost, others on species saved, and yet others discuss the enduring practical challenges of managing our land, water, and air. From spirited optimism to careful prudence to critical skepticism, the resulting range of approaches offers an inspiring contribution to the landscape of modern environmentalism, one driven by serious, sustained engagements with the critical problems we must solve if we—and the wild garden we may now keep—are going to survive the era we have ushered in. Contributors include: Chelsea K. Batavia, F. Stuart (Terry) Chapin III, Norman L. Christensen, Jamie Rappaport Clark, William Wallace Covington, Erle C. Ellis, Mark Fiege, Dave Foreman, Harry W. Greene, Emma Marris, Michelle Marvier, Bill McKibben, J. R. McNeill, Curt Meine, Ben A. Minteer, Michael Paul Nelson, Bryan Norton, Stephen J. Pyne, Andrew C. Revkin, Holmes Rolston III, Amy Seidl, Jack Ward Thomas, Diane J. Vosick, John A. Vucetich, Hazel Wong, and Donald Worster.

Earthman Clayton Drew battles against the Martian Warlords who would destroy the world. In the grand tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Warrior of Mars is the second installment in the Clayton Drew quartet.

This volume introduces the hermeneutical approach and ecojustice principles developed by the Earth Bible project team. Following this approach, biblical scholars illustrate how a reading of the biblical text from the perspective of Earth yields fresh insights. Though the text may seem anthropocentric, these studies are able to retrieve evidence of the living voice and intrinsic value of Earth. It is an approach that can be harmonized with other recognized critical approaches to the Bible, from historical criticism to ecofeminist criticism. The texts chosen are from many parts of the Bible (Psalms, Prophets, Gospels, Romans, Revelation) and the intertestamental literature (Tobit and Wisdom of Solomon).

Life has always been difficult and dangerous for those living on and around the Turtle Mountain Reservation. Everyone has a story. Everyone has a secret. Everyone thinks they’re only connected to their neighbors by the isolated, peculiar town they share. Orphaned Sioux Ida Florence Little Shay is determined to escape the life before her, but her course of action only draws her into a world of increasing conflict and deepening poverty. Young Fawn Breen appears as if she is from a different century. With her primitive, animalistic father as her only companion, she is forced to look after herself when she is thrust into society. Harold Peavey is an idealistic young man who finds his views of the world in severe conflict with those around him, facing ostracism by his community when he refuses to abandon his beliefs. Enduring mistakes, tragedies, secrets, and long-held grudges spanning the 1930s-1960s that have permanently marked them, these three Great Plains farm families clash together as they struggle to survive and find their way in an ever-changing world.