In Wild Delicate Seconds, Charles Finn captures twenty-nine chance encounters with the everyday—and not so everyday—animals, birds, and insects of North America. There are no maulings or fantastic escapes in Finn's narratives—only stillness and attentiveness to beauty. With profundity, humor, and compassion, Finn pays homage to the creatures we share our world with —from black bears to bumble bees, mountain lions to muskrats—and, in doing so, touches on what it means to be human.

"Novelist and essayist Brian Doyle describes encounters with astounding beings of every sort and shape in this collection of short vignettes. The book gathers previously unpublished work along with selections that have been published in Orion, The Sun, and The American Scholar, among others"--

Helps prospective foragers identify 72 edible plants and then provides more than 80 recipes for utilizing them, including Cardamine Cress With Fennel and Orange Vinaigrette; Braised Beef With Onions and Dandelion; Violets, Strawberries, and Créme Fraiche; and more.

“One of the distinguished gardening books of our time,” from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (USA Today). Chosen by the American Horticultural Society as one of the 75 greatest books ever written about gardening After Michael Pollan bought an old Connecticut dairy farm, he planted a garden and attempted to follow Thoreau’s example: do not impose your will upon the wilderness, the woodchucks, or the weeds. That ethic did not, of course, work. But neither did pesticides or firebombing the woodchuck burrow. So Michael Pollan began to think about the troubled borders between nature and contemporary life. The result is a funny, profound, and beautifully written book in the finest tradition of American nature writing. It inspires thoughts on the war of the roses; sex and class conflict in the garden; virtuous composting; the American lawn; seed catalogs, and the politics of planting a tree. A blend of meditation, autobiography, and social history, Second Nature, from the renowned author of The Botany of Desire, In Defense of Food, and other bestsellers, is “as delicious a meditation on one man’s relationship with the Earth as any you are likely to come upon” (The New York Times Book Review). “Usually when Americans have wanted to explore their relationship to nature they’ve gone to the wilderness, or the woods. Michael Pollan went to the garden instead . . . and he’s returned with a quirky and pleasing book.” —Annie Dillard “A joy to read.” —Los Angeles Times

For twenty-five years, Mary Paetzel roamed the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, tracking rare plants and insects and recording her experiences in a series of illustrated journals. A rugged land of peaks, canyons, and rushing rivers, the Siskiyous are renowned for their unusual plant life. Traversing logging roads in an old Volkswagen bus and hiking the high country, this self-taught naturalist came to know the Siskiyous as few ever have. Spirit of the Siskiyous gathers the best of Mary Paetzel's writings along with selections of her paintings and drawings, many in full color. With their descriptions of wildflowers, birds, butterflies, bees, and wasps, the journal entries collected here are an important natural history of the Siskiyou Mountains. Together, they also chronicle one woman's personal journey through a little-known, but fascinating, wilderness.

When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family's California vineyard estate. Here, she's meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she's meant to do a lot of things. But it's hard. She's bored. And when Sadie's bored, the only thing she likes is trouble. Emerson Tate's a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That's why Emerson's not happy Sadie's back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The things he longs to forget. The things she won't ever let him. Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles can see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That's what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness in his past. But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it's all of theirs. Delicate Monsters is Stephanie Kuehn at her finest.

The first book-length commentary on twentieth-century Pacific Northwest writing, The Arbutus / Madrone Files explores the dynamics of the Pacific Northwest. Laurie Ricou’s meditations are dropped into thirteen files—such as, the "Island File," the "Salmon File," and inevitably, the "Rain File." Resonant quotations, poetry, song lyrics, and art from the region enhance Ricou’s own readings, which move from an academic perspective on the narratives of bio-region toward more personal reflections on home and the local.

Abandoned for over a hundred years, a small village in northern Spain enchants Remy into purchasing what could be the worst real estate investment of all time. It is located near the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage path renowned for miracles, and the disgraced painter waits for her own revelation while rebuilding the ruins of her village and her life. But this property holds dangerous secrets dating back to a Galician military coup in 1846 that refuse to stay buried. Bieito is a local fisherman married to the sea, but he becomes enamored with the newly-arrived American artist. His decision to pursue Remy—when he can find her—upsets history's delicate balance and endangers his family. Engulfed in a past that no one else can see, Remy must find who—or what—is really in control of her fate, and if she can survive being torn between two worlds.

Bringing together a diverse range of writers, The Science of Story is the first book to ask the question: what can contemporary brain science teach us about the art and craft of creative nonfiction writing? Drawing on the latest developments in cognitive neuroscience the book sheds new light on some of the most important elements of the writer's craft, from perspective and truth to emotion and metaphor. The Science of Story explores such questions as: · Why do humans tell stories? · How do we remember and misremember our lives - and what does this mean for storytelling? · What is the value of writing about trauma? · How do stories make us laugh, or cry, make us angry or triumphant? Contributors: Nancer Ballard, Mike Branch, Frank Bures, J.T. Bushnell, Katharine Coles, Christopher Cokinos, Alison Hawthorne Deming, David Lazar, Lawrence Lenhart, Alan Lightman, Dave Madden, Jessica Hendry Nelson, Richard Powers, Sean Prentiss, Julie Wittes Schlack, Valerie Sweeney Prince, Ira Sukrungruang, Nicole Walker, Wendy S. Walters, Marco Wilkinson, Amy Wright.