Animals

An Immense World will take us on an insider's tour of the natural world by describing the biology, physics and chemistry animals use to perceive it....

This memoir is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy, surrounded by his eccentric family....

In this mesmerizing debut, award-winning palaeontologist Thomas Halliday gives us a breath-taking up close encounter with worlds that are normally unimaginably distant....

In Wilding, Isabella Tree tells the story of the ‘Knepp experiment’, a pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex, using free-roaming grazing animals to create new habitats for wildlife....

In Your Dog Is Your Mirror, dog trainer Kevin Behan proposes a radical new model for understanding canine behavior: a dog’s behavior and emotion, indeed its very cognition, are driven by our emotion....

Fresh out of Glasgow Veterinary College, to the young James Herriot 1930s Yorkshire seems to offer an idyllic pocket of rural life in a rapidly changing world....

The nation’s greatest voice, David Attenborough, reads a brand-new edition of Life on Earth, now available as an audiobook for the first time....

Your body is teeming with tens of trillions of microbes. It's an entire world, a colony full of life. In other words, you contain multitudes....

In Metazoa, Peter Godfrey-Smith, author of the best-selling Other Minds looks beyond the octopus to the complexity of the whole animal kingdom, exploring the origins of consciousness and grappling with the greatest mystery of evolution....

In this volume of memoirs David tells stories of the people and animals he has met and the places that he has visited....

Molecular biologist Nicklas Brendborg takes us on a journey from farthest reaches of the globe to the most cutting-edge research to explore what nature has to teach us about longevity....

Sixty-six million years ago the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the earth....

What does it mean to be female? Mother, carer, the weaker sex? Think again....

Insects are essential for life as we know it. As they become more scarce, our world will slowly grind to a halt; we simply cannot function without them. Dave Goulson reveals the shocking decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades....

In this inspiring, uplifting and heartwarming memoir, world-renowned veterinary surgeon Professor Noel Fitzpatrick explores his journey to becoming The Supervet....

Dian Fossey's classic account of four gorilla families - one of the most important books ever written about our connection to the natural world....

The highs and lows of being a vet in the Yorkshire Dales are perfectly captured in James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small which contains If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet....

Palaeontologist Dr David Hone explores the frontiers of dinosaur research....

Optimistic field notes from the new normal for nature. One thing has become clear this year - we need nature more than ever. And although the natural world has never been more under pressure, there are still reasons to be hopeful....

In 2015, England's last and loneliest golden eagle died in an unmarked spot among the remote eastern fells of the Lake District. It was a tragic day for the nation's wildlife, but the fight to restore the landscape had already begun....

Finally home from London after his wartime service in the RAF, James Herriot is settling back into life as a country vet....

If you are at all interested in life on our planet, then you need to know about insects. They are the most successful group of animals ever to have lived on Earth. Making up three-quarters of all animal species, insects conquered the planet long ago....

Wishing to leave behind the quiet isolation of her Orkney island life, Amy Liptrot books a one-way flight to Berlin. Searching for new experiences, inspiration and love, she rents a loftbed in a shared flat and looks for work....

Riley Black walks listeners through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe....

Now settled into the sleepy Yorkshire village of Darrowby, and married to Helen the farmer’s daughter, James Herriot thinks he’s finally got himself sorted....

What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without it. At first glance, human history is full of remarkable feats of intelligence, yet human exceptionalism can be a double-edged sword. With our unique cognitive prowess comes severe consequences, including existential angst, violence, discrimination and the creation of a world teetering towards climate catastrophe. What if human exceptionalism is more of a curse than a blessing?

Travel Tales: Wild Animals is a collection of wildlife-viewing stories including some very scary tales of often coming close to serious trouble with wild animals in your travels but managing to just barely escape. It is also a collection of the fearful sorts of things that can and do happen to travelers, but, mostly, these will not happen to you. But if they do, you get to experience real raw fear, including sometimes fear for your very own life. These are very unsettling occasions that may pop up now and again in your travels.

In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks listeners through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It's a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. 

Most of us are aware of the hive mind—the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others. They may even possess consciousness. 

Sara Dykman made history when she became the first person to bicycle alongside monarch butterflies on their storied annual migration—a round-trip adventure that included three countries and more than 10,000 miles. Equally remarkable, she did it solo, on a bike cobbled together from used parts. Her panniers were recycled buckets. In Bicycling with Butterflies, Dykman recounts her incredible journey and the dramatic ups and downs of the nearly nine-month odyssey.

Birds, Beasts and Bedlam recounts the adventures of farmer-turned-rewilder Derek Gow, who is saving Britain’s much-loved but dangerously threatened species, from the water vole to beaver, wildcat to white stork, and tree frog to glow worm.

We have a perennial fascination with sharks. Portrayed in the media and popular culture as killing machines, we are awed by their power and strength. But the shark is so much more—a marvel of the sea, they have evolved over 450 million years into more than 500 species, from the bioluminescent kitefin to the tiny dwarf lantern shark, the sociable lemon shark to the cow shark, which can birth up to 100 pups in one litter. Bringing balance to the ocean’s ecosystem, our planet is at serious risk when these amazing creatures are threatened.

Let's be clear: Mamadou Ndiaye knows a whole lot of animals that can and will end you, but he has no plans to let these strange and horrifying creatures cash in his life insurance policy. Now the TikTok star is turning his engaging, entertaining and informative takes on animal biology and behaviour into this hilarious guide to the world's most deadly creatures. 

Why is Georgia one of the best places to see the fall migration of hawks and eagles? Where can I see sandhill cranes in Georgia? What is the state bird of Georgia? If you find yourself asking any of these questions, then this book is for you... This book will help you learn which habitats you should visit to find the species you are most interested in, such as warblers, thrushes, sparrows, and raptors. There are also helpful hints for making some of the more challenging bird identifications. So grab YOUR copy today. You'll be glad you did. 

From the lifelong devotion of the American crow to the dalliances of the eastern bluebird, from the bald eagle’s dazzling aerial display to the male ruby-throated hummingbird’s reputation as a “deadbeat dad”—courtship, mating, and parenting differ dramatically among birds. Laura Erickson takes listeners on a romance-fueled romp through the love lives of 35 species, exploring the diversity of avian approaches to pairing up. Each species spotlight pairs Erickson’s remarkable depth of scientific knowledge with her talent for drawing humorous parallels between human and bird.

Nature is a powerful source of creativity, inspiration and healing; however, it has not always felt like a safe space for people of colour. Flock Together is here to change that, by inspiring everyone, regardless of race, religion or economic status, to build their relationship with the outdoors and embrace all that nature has to offer. Founded by Ollie Olanipekun and Nadeem Perera in summer 2020, Flock Together is the UK's first birdwatching collective for people of colour. 

Time outdoors is always well spent. It raises the spirits, sparks the imagination, and, as research increasingly shows, measurably improves our physical and mental well-being. Rhythms of Nature celebrates this fundamental relationship with the natural world, and considers some ways we might rediscover it. A paean to the "neglected" and untidy places that can enrich our lives, it will appeal to anyone wishing to develop a deeper connection with wildlife or who has a desire to seek out the wilder corners of our landscape.

Have you ever wondered why honey bees are so vital to the health and vitality of our world? Join retired educator Howard Steel as he whimsically shares his passion for these amazing creatures and his experiences with beekeeping. Discover why these incredible producers are endangered and how we can help protect them with simple, personal lifestyle changes. Find out about the intricate and fascinating role of the honey bee in ecosystem pollination. Be inspired and learn how to start up your own hive right in your backyard! 

Our precious archipelago is ravaged by climate change, bereft of natural ecosystems and lies at the mercy of global warming, flooding, drought and catastrophic biodiversity loss. But could restoring species that once helped protect our islands help turn this crisis around? From familiar yet imperilled honeybees and ancient oak woods to returning natives like beavers and boars, Britain’s cornerstone species may hold the key to recovering our biodiversity on land and in our seas.

Why is it that catching a fish, or simply contemplating catching a fish, can be so thrilling, so captivating? Why is it that what seems such a simple act—that of casting a line and hoping—can feel so rich in mystery? Illuminated by Water is Malachy's personal attempt to understand that freedom and to trace the origins and sources of that sense of wonder. He shares the appeal of fishing, its intense joys and frustrations, the steadying effect it has both at water's edge and in the memory, and the contemplation of nature and landscape that comes with being an angler.