Environmental Memoir

"Dandelion Roots Run Deep" is the true story of three generations of tenacious Midwestern women, one in Illinois and two in Michigan. Merry is the third generation, and her mother Merrill, fought for organic agriculture and Michigan's environment from 1967 - 2009. Merrill developed Alzheimer's before finishing her book, so Merry took her story to fruition.

“A provocative and page-turning work of true crime.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A provocative, eerily lyrical study of the heyday of American serial killers . . . A true-crime story written with compassion, fury, and scientific sense.” —Kirkus (starred review) Named a Most...

After years of prosecuting hard-core criminals, rising legal star Alan Bell took a private sector job in South Florida's newest skyscraper. Suddenly, he suffered such bizarre medical symptoms, doctors suspected he'd been poisoned by the Mafia. Bell's rapidly declining health forced him to flee his glamorous Miami life to a sterile "bubble" in the remote Arizona desert.

In 2011, an Ecuadorian court issued a landmark $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron for decades of oil pollution in the Amazon rainforest. The ruling was celebrated as a historic win for Indigenous communities—and for the New York-based lawyer who helped lead the case, Steven Donziger. But Chevron never paid. Instead, the company fought back, accusing Donziger of fraud and waging an aggressive legal campaign that would ultimately leave him disbarred and under house arrest.

An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds...

The true story behind the events that inspired the major motion picture Only the Brave. A "unique and bracing" (Booklist) first-person account by the sole survivor of Arizona's disastrous 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, which took the lives of 19 "hotshots" -- firefighters trained specifically to battle...

An unforgettable spiritual journey through the Himalayas... IN 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen...

From global art superstar Kent Monkman and his long-time collaborator Gisèle Gordon, a transformational work of true stories and imagined history that will remake readers’ understanding of the land called North America. For decades, the singular and provocative paintings by Cree artist Kent...

From world-renowned scientist Jane Goodall, as seen in the National Geographic documentary Jane, comes a poignant memoir about her spiritual epiphany and an appeal for why everyone can find a reason for hope. Dr. Jane Goodall's revolutionary study of chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe preserve...

The essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it. “Jahren asks the central question of our time: how can we learn to live on a finite planet?" —Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction "The...

Early in the morning on August 27, 1996, 20-year-old Scott Dominguez showed up for an ordinary day at the fertilizing plant where he worked. By 11:00 am, he was clinging to life, unconscious and suffocating from toxic exposure to cyanide in a tank that was supposed to contain only mud and water. EPA Special Agent Joseph Hilldorfer was tasked with finding out what really happened on that horrific day in Soda Springs, Idaho, but the answers would not be easily uncovered.

An inspiring blend of nature writing and memoir that explores nature’s crucial role in our emotional and mental health Bats can hear shapes, plants can eat light, and bees can dance maps. When his life took him to a painfully dark place, the poet behind The CryptoNaturalist, Jarod K. Anderson...

George Bird Grinnell, the son of a New York merchant, saw a different future for a nation in the thrall of the Industrial Age. With railroads scarring virgin lands and the formerly vast buffalo herds decimated, the country faced a crossroads: Could it pursue Manifest Destiny without destroying its natural bounty and beauty? The alarm that Grinnell sounded would spark America's conservation movement. Yet today his name has been forgotten - an omission that John Taliaferro's commanding biography now sets right with historical care and narrative flair.

Beloved actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr. shares hilarious and poignant stories of his improbable life, focusing on his relationship with his legendary father, adventures with Hollywood icons, the origins of his environmental activism, addiction and recovery, and his lifelong search...

PNBA BESTSELLER “A powerful and inspiring story. Guido Rahr’s mission to save the wild Pacific salmon leads him into adventures that make for a breathtakingly exciting read.”—Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia Editors’ Choice: The New York Times Book Review Outside...

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE A “lyrical” (Chicago Tribune) final work of nonfiction from the National Book Award–winning author of Arctic Dreams and Horizon, a literary icon whose writing, fieldwork, and mentorship inspired generations of writers and activists. “Mesmerizing...

Memoir. Originally published in 2011 by Grand Central Publishing "An indie movie in print." In this bestselling memoir, NYT bestselling author Anne Frasier (The Body Reader, Play Dead) shares the deeply moving and personal story of her years on an apple farm. The Orchard is the story of a street-smart city girl who must adapt to a new life on an apple farm after she falls in love with Adrian Curtis, the golden boy of a prominent local family whose lives and orchards seem to be cursed. Married after only three months, young Anne finds life with Adrian on the farm far more difficult and ...

Everyone knew it was crazy to try to extract oil and natural gas buried in shale rock deep below the ground. Everyone, that is, except a few reckless wildcatters - who risked their careers to prove the world wrong. Things looked grim for American energy in 2006. Oil production was in steep decline and natural gas was hard to find. The Iraq War threatened the nation’s already tenuous relations with the Middle East. China was rapidly industrializing and competing for resources.

In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s.

A poet at heart, Amy Minato rejects her life of consumption in Chicago to go back to nature - specifically, to a commune in Oregon, where she rediscovers herself. She also cops occasionally to the pretentiousness of her mission, and laughs along with the listener at her attempts to be both environmentally friendly and sane, considering the fact that she’s moved in with a bunch of strangers in a remote locale.