Wingbeats and Heartbeats is a wingshooter's odyssey to the wild places where, at the end of the day, the companionship of faithful gun dogs and good friends matters more than a bulging game bag. In this sometimes humorous and sometimes poignant collection of essays, Dave Books celebrates a time-honored connection to the land and the hard-earned hunting rewards of an outdoor life. Through these essays, readers tag along on adventures in the forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota, the fields of Iowa and North Dakota, the prairies of eastern Montana and Nebraska, the mountains of western Montana and Idaho, and the deserts of Arizona. Books also writes of the game birds that hunters pursue and admire: grouse, quail, woodcock, doves, chukars, Hungarian partridge, and waterfowl. A heartfelt tribute to the freedom and magic of the hunt, Wingbeats and Heartbeats is a book that has much to say about work and fun, success and failure, and the sights, sounds, and smells of a day afield.

A STRANGER’S FAITH As the Twelve Kingdoms and their allies are drawn toward war, a princess cast aside must discover a purpose she never dreamed of… Karyn af Hardie behaved like a proper Dasnarian wife. She acquiesced, she accepted, she submitted. Until her husband gave her a choice: their loveless, unconsummated royal marriage—or her freedom. Karyn chose freedom. But with nowhere to run except into the arms of Dasnaria’s enemies, she wonders if she’s made a mistake. She wants love, security, a family. She can’t imagine finding any of it among the mercurial Tala. Worst of all is Zyr. The uninhibited shapeshifter is everywhere she looks. He’s magnetic, relentless, teasing and tempting as if she’s free to take her pleasure where she wishes. As if there isn’t a war rising before them, against a vile and demanding force far stronger than they. But with Karyn’s loyalty far from certain, Zyr offers her only chance to aid the defense—a dangerous gambit to seek out a land not seen in centuries, using clues no one can decipher. Together, they’ll have every opportunity to fail—and one chance to steal something truly precious… “I think where this author truly excels is in her ability to give us engaging, believable heroines that pull us into her worlds and with Karyn she is absolutely spot on. (…) There’s genuine emotion in this harrowing and yet enchanting story that pits mortals against ancient Gods and its a series that I never want to end.” ~Marta Cox on Goodreads “This is a series that benefits from reading in order. Each book wraps up a romantic fantasy in its own charming ribbons, but also serves to advance the overall plot of the series. That being said, I think you could hop into THE ARROWS OF THE HEART without being lost, and enjoy it for its own yummy goodness before plowing gleefully into the rest of the series. “ ~Make Kay on Goodreads “It was also a tale of empowerment, finding strength within yourself and being your own hero among so many other things.” ~Timitra on Goodreads

A diverse compilation of essays that explore the complex idea of simplicity in our lives, community, and environment, and how buying less and decluttering creates an enriching and sustainable life. In a rare collection of voices, the authors of Simpler Living, Compassionate Life explore voluntary simplicity as a path to wholeness and abundance. Henri Nouwen, Cecile Andrews, Richard Foster, and 19 other writers encourage you to listen to your own story, and to respond to dialogue about the fundamental issues of life: time, money, food, spirituality, heritage, and community. A diversity of voices and a helpful study guide make this an effective tool for individuals and groups ready to consider alternatives to high-price, high-stress “good life”: the riches of simplicity and compassion. “Simpler Living, Compassionate Life is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to have a comprehensive overview of the myriad ways living more simply has positively affected our culture. It is a delightful and practical guide for creating simplicity in our own lives, our communities, and for the benefit of our culture.”—Elaine James, author of Simplify Your Life and Inner Simplicity

The first book in the Art of Hearing Heartbeats series, this is a passionate love story, a haunting fable, and an enchanting mystery set in Burma. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.

"First published in Great Britain by Fig Tree, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK, 2016"--Title page verso.

From rainbows, river meanders, and shadows to spider webs, honeycombs, and the markings on animal coats, the visible world is full of patterns that can be described mathematically. Examining such readily observable phenomena, this book introduces readers to the beauty of nature as revealed by mathematics and the beauty of mathematics as revealed in nature. Generously illustrated, written in an informal style, and replete with examples from everyday life, Mathematics in Nature is an excellent and undaunting introduction to the ideas and methods of mathematical modeling. It illustrates how mathematics can be used to formulate and solve puzzles observed in nature and to interpret the solutions. In the process, it teaches such topics as the art of estimation and the effects of scale, particularly what happens as things get bigger. Readers will develop an understanding of the symbiosis that exists between basic scientific principles and their mathematical expressions as well as a deeper appreciation for such natural phenomena as cloud formations, halos and glories, tree heights and leaf patterns, butterfly and moth wings, and even puddles and mud cracks. Developed out of a university course, this book makes an ideal supplemental text for courses in applied mathematics and mathematical modeling. It will also appeal to mathematics educators and enthusiasts at all levels, and is designed so that it can be dipped into at leisure.

Fleeing post-World War II Germany, an aristocratic young man and his Nazi officer father are spirited away to the Brazilian jungle to help create a new, occult-obsessed, German Reich…but love, ambition, and vengeance interfere. In the waning days of World War II, fourteen-year-old Axel, his family, and their servants are cold and hungry in Pappendorf Castle. Baron Dietrich von Pappendorf, Axel’s father, is away, having spent much of the war traveling the world in search of an ancient, pre-Babel language that his occult-obsessed, Nazi masters believed would solidify Aryans as the master race. But when the baron returns to the family castle, it’s not in triumph. Axel and his family must flee Germany and embrace a life of luxurious exile in the Brazilian jungle. The von Pappendorfs take up residence in a gilded cage carved from the hallucinogenic wilds of Amazonia and originally built for Hitler. Protected from Nazi hunters, the baron prepares for the Fourth Reich while Axel is guided by a shaman into the wisdom of the jungle. It’s there the young man discovers ancient truths linking an Israelite king to a river known as Solimeos. Axel is also passionately in love with his father’s mistress: beautiful, Polish-Jewish Luba. He becomes torn between his love for his father, his desire for Luba, and the growing realization that he and his family can never atone for the past. Utterly original, highly entertaining, and sometimes shocking, Rhoda Lerman’s Solimeos—a provocative parable about the sins of the father visited upon the son—is a powerful and elegantly written story of family, fanaticism, and fate.

Until recently, little was known about the lives of songbirds during their travels from autumn until spring. Now scientists have documented mass migrations over the Gulf of Mexico, identified the voices of migrants in the night sky, and showed how songbirds navigate using stars, polarized light, and magnetic fields. Miyoko Chu explores the intricacies underlying the ebb and flow of migration, the cycle of seasons, and the interconnectedness between distant places. Songbird Journeys pays homage to the wonder and beauty of songbirds while revealing the remarkable lives of migratory birds and the scientific quest to answer age-old questions about where songbirds go, how they get there, and what they do in the far-flung places they inhabit throughout the year.

Book, or laboratory? Reader, or specimen? Wide slumber for lepidopterists is a poetic fantasia, a disorienting yet compelling dreamscape of butterflies and caterpillars and killing jars, where the waking mind's prose transforms into the sleeper's poetry. Each poem unfolds with precision, tracking the stages of sleep and pairing them with the life cycle of Lepidopterae. Insomnia is mirrored in the birth of the egg, narcolepsy in larval hatching. And when the caterpillar starts its final moult, dreams begin, weaving around us as tightly as a cocoon until we are somnambulant, a chrysalis ready to emerge as a moth. Reading the act of sleep through pupae and moths seems incongruous, but from this unlikely premise comes a darkly erotic text that takes cues from the scientific fascination of Christopher Dewdney, the linguistic experimentation of Gertrude Stein and the aural environments of Björk to explore science, sexuality and language in equal parts. Wide slumber for lepidopterists contains luminous illustrations by artist and bookmaker Matt Ceolin, who has managed to capture the spirit of the poems with his beautiful and disturbing treated photographs of butterflies, moths and dessication.

A newly updated and expanded edition of the bestselling Up North books, this is an entertaining guide to Ontario's north for every cottager, camper, and nature lover. Have you ever wondered how porcupines procreate? Or where you can best see the northern lights? Or how many fireflies it takes to equal the light of a 40-watt bulb? The answers to these questions — and many, many more — are in this lively and indispensable field guide to the plants and animals of Ontario's wilderness. Filled with amusing trivia, easy-to-understand natural history, and little-known folklore, The Complete Up North is the perfect introduction and companion to Ontario's great outdoors. Naturalists Doug Bennet and Tim Tiner answer those questions we have always wanted to ask — and many others we wish we'd thought to ask — about plants, mammals, birds, fish, insects, reptiles, clouds, the night sky, the weather, and the ground we walk on. Their infectious curiosity makes Up North as fun and interesting to read as it is useful to pack for a hike into the woods.