On the inside of the wrapper is a map of the world, drawn by Van Loon. London edition (G.G. Harrap & Company, ltd.) has title: The home of mankind; the story of the world we live in.

The story of the Blind Man and the Loon is a living Native folktale about a blind man who is betrayed by his mother or wife but whose vision is magically restored by a kind loon. Variations of this tale are told by Native storytellers all across Alaska, arctic Canada, Greenland, the Northwest Coast, and even into the Great Basin and the Great Plains. As the story has traveled through cultures and ecosystems over many centuries, individual storytellers have added cultural and local ecological details to the tale, creating countless variations. In The Blind Man and the Loon: The Story of a Tale, folklorist Craig Mishler goes back to 1827, tracing the story's emergence across Greenland and North America in manuscripts, books, and in the visual arts and other media such as film, music, and dance theater. Examining and comparing the story's variants and permutations across cultures in detail, Mishler brings the individual storyteller into his analysis of how the tale changed over time, considering how storytellers and the oral tradition function within various societies. Two maps unequivocally demonstrate the routes the story has traveled. The result is a masterful compilation and analysis of Native oral traditions that sheds light on how folktales spread and are adapted by widely diverse cultures.

A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated overview to the birds of Maine The first comprehensive overview of Maine’s incredibly rich birdlife in more than seven decades, Birds of Maine is a detailed account of all 464 species recorded in the Pine Tree State. It is also a thoroughly researched, accessible portrait of a region undergoing rapid changes, with southern birds pushing north, northern birds expanding south, and once-absent natives like Atlantic Puffins brought back by innovative conservation techniques pioneered in Maine. Written by the late Peter Vickery in cooperation with a team of leading ornithologists, this guide offers a detailed look at the state’s dynamic avifauna—from the Wild Turkey to the Arctic Tern—with information on migration patterns and timing, current status and changes in bird abundance and distribution, and how Maine's geography and shifting climate mold its birdlife. It delves into the conservation status for Maine's birds, as well as the state's unusually textured ornithological history, involving such famous names as John James Audubon and Theodore Roosevelt, and home-grown experts like Cordelia Stanwood and Ralph Palmer. Sidebars explore diverse topics, including the Old Sow whirlpool that draws multitudes of seabirds and the famed Monhegan Island, a mecca for migrant birds. Gorgeously illustrated with watercolors by Lars Jonsson and scores of line drawings by Barry Van Dusen, Birds of Maine is a remarkable guide that birders will rely on for decades to come. Copublished with the Nuttall Ornithological Club

The author provides an account of his experiences as a crew member on a tall-masted schooner during a six-week voyage through the Great Lakes, and discusses his other explorations of the lakes, looking at their history, geology, and environmental disaster and rescue.

In 1953, 27-year-old Henry Gustave Molaison underwent an experimental "psychosurgical" procedure -- a targeted lobotomy -- in an effort to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was unexpected -- when Henry awoke, he could no longer form new memories, and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Henry's tragedy would prove a gift to humanity. As renowned neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin explains in Permanent Present Tense, she and her colleagues brought to light the sharp contrast between Henry's crippling memory impairment and his preserved intellect. This new insight that the capacity for remembering is housed in a specific brain area revolutionized the science of memory. The case of Henry -- known only by his initials H. M. until his death in 2008 -- stands as one of the most consequential and widely referenced in the spiraling field of neuroscience. Corkin and her collaborators worked closely with Henry for nearly fifty years, and in Permanent Present Tense she tells the incredible story of the life and legacy of this intelligent, quiet, and remarkably good-humored man. Henry never remembered Corkin from one meeting to the next and had only a dim conception of the importance of the work they were doing together, yet he was consistently happy to see her and always willing to participate in her research. His case afforded untold advances in the study of memory, including the discovery that even profound amnesia spares some kinds of learning, and that different memory processes are localized to separate circuits in the human brain. Henry taught us that learning can occur without conscious awareness, that short-term and long-term memory are distinct capacities, and that the effects of aging-related disease are detectable in an already damaged brain. Undergirded by rich details about the functions of the human brain, Permanent Present Tense pulls back the curtain on the man whose misfortune propelled a half-century of exciting research. With great clarity, sensitivity, and grace, Corkin brings readers to the cutting edge of neuroscience in this deeply felt elegy for her patient and friend.

Surveys the online social habits of American teens and analyzes the role technology and social media plays in their lives, examining common misconceptions about such topics as identity, privacy, danger, and bullying.

Ideas in Profile: Small Introductions to Big Topics Geography gives shape to our innate curiosity; cartography is older than writing. Channelling our twin urges to explore and understand, geographers uncover the hidden connections of human existence, from infant mortality in inner cities to the decision-makers who fly overhead in executive jets, from natural disasters to over-use of fossil fuels. In this incisive introduction to the subject, Danny Dorling and Carl Lee reveal geography as a science which tackles all of the biggest issues that face us today, from globalisation to equality, from sustainability to population growth, from climate change to changing technology - and the complex interactions between them all. Illustrated by a series of award-winning maps created by Benjamin D. Hennig, this is a book for anyone who wants to know more about why our world is the way it is today, and where it might be heading next.

"Langston focuses on three ghost species in the Great Lakes watershed-woodland caribou, common loons, and lake sturgeon. Their traces are still present in DNA, small fragmented populations, or in lone individuals. We can still restore them, if we make the hard choices necessary for them to survive"--