All who have admired John Muir's ruggedly individualistic lifestyle, or who desire a greater appreciation of the history of environmental preservation in America, will be enthralled and enlightened by this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. Following Muir from his ancestral home in Scotland, through his early years in the harsh Wisconsin wilderness, to his historic pilgrimage to California, Linnie Marsh Wolfe creates a full and rounded portrait of...

Scottish-born naturalist and writer John Muir undertook a daring adventure in 1867, just a few years after the Civil War. After recovering from an injury at a saw mill, Muir decided that he wanted to explore the world. He left his life in Indiana and walked one thousand miles to Florida. Without any real direction or purpose other than to study the flora and fauna, Muir trekked south through Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida...

In central Texas in 1899, eleven-year-old Callie Vee Tate is instructed to be a lady by her mother, learns about love from the older three of her six brothers, and studies the natural world with her grandfather, the latter of which leads to an important discovery.

Charlie Doig is an explorer and naturalist caught up in the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. Trapped by the snow with his love, Elizaveta, they at first remain untouched by outside events and the familiar ways continue. But imperial Russia is doomed and with it all the old certainties.

A British naturalist recounts how he and his wife acquired a menagerie of animals and set up their own zoo in this delightful memoir. For many years I had wanted to start a zoo.... Any reasonable person smitten with an ambition of this sort would have secured the zoo first and obtained the animals afterwards. But throughout my life I have rarely if ever achieved what I wanted by tackling it in a logical fashion. After a decade of supplying creatures...

The author explains why she decided to study animal behavior, recounts her childhood and education, and describes her work studying chimpanzees in Africa.