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In this urgent time, World on the Edge calls out the pivotal environmental issues and how to solve them now. We are in a race between political and natural tipping points. Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid catastrophic sea level rise? Can we raise water productivity fast enough to halt the depletion of aquifers and avoid water-driven food shortages? Can we cope with peak water and peak oil at the same time? These are some of the issues Lester R. Brown skillfully distils in World on the Edge. Bringing decades of research and analysis into play, he provides the responses needed to reclaim our future.

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A truly lush, radiant enthusiast's guide, The Backyard Beekeeper's Honey Handbook goes beyond the scope of a cookbook to introduce to readers the literal cornucopia of honey varieties available. An intuitive follow-up to The Backyard Beekeeper, this book will presume beekeeping experience but reintroduce the basics. It is an insight into the practical, back-to-the-earth beekeeping lifestyle and well as the artisan cultivation of honey varieties.

Supplementary support for this book lay in the fact that interest in tapping honey's holistic and whole-health potential dovetails nicely into the natural health and green movements. Also, honey as natural, lower-calorie sweetener has garnered positive PR by those working against the obesity epidemic.

Want to read more? Preview this book: Producing and Selling Honey for the Backyard Beekeeper or Calculating Growing Degree Days.

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David Kline came upon a sleeping woodchuck one summer day as he walked the land near his farm. In a gesture that speaks eloquently of Kline's relationship with the natural world, he scratched the animal gently with his walking stick, and the sleeping creature arched its back with pleasure at the attention.

Like its title, this collection of essays on nature, farming, animals, insects, and other topics bespeaks the gentle demeanor and appreciation for nature that shape the author's descriptions of the world around him. Whether sharing his fondness for watching clouds while he rests his horses or for planting flowers in his favorite spot in the woods, David Kline offers a view of life that few of us take time to experience. Scratching the Woodchuck resounds with knowledge, reverence and a joyful spirit, and to follow Kline's explorations of the landscape and animals around his farm is to sense and come to share his respect for and unity with the earth.

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Janisse Ray, award-winning author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and Wild Card Quilt, writes an evocative paean to wildness and wilderness restoration with an extraordinary journey into southern Georgia's Pinhook Swamp.

Pinhook Swamp acts as a vital watershed and wildlife corridor, a link between the great southern wildernesses of Okefenokee Swamp and Osceola National Forest. Together Okefenokee, Osceola and Pinhook form one of the largest expanses of protected wild land east of the Mississippi River. This is one of America's last truly wild places, and Pinhook takes us into its heart.

Ray comes to know Pinhook intimately as she joins the fight to protect it, spending the night in the swamp, tasting honey made from its flowers, tracking wildlife, and talking to others about their relationship with the swamp. Ray sees Pinhook through the eyes of the people who live there: naturalists, beekeepers, homesteaders, hunters and locals at the country store. In lyrical, down-home prose, she draws together the swamp's need for restoration and the human desire for wholeness and wildness in our own lives and landscapes.

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Discover the edible riches in your backyard, local parks, woods and even roadside! In The Joy of Foraging, author Gary Lincoff shows you how to find fiddlehead ferns, rose hips, beach plums, bee balm and more, whether you are foraging in the urban jungle or the wild, wild woods. You will also learn about fellow foragers-experts, folk healers, hobbyists or novices like you-who collect wild things and are learning new things to do with them every day. Along with a world of edible wild plants-wherever you live, any season, any climate-you'll find essential tips on where to look for native plants, and how to know without a doubt the difference between edibles and toxic look-alikes. There are even ideas and recipes for preparing and preserving the wild harvest year-round, all with full-color photography. Let Lincoff take you on the ultimate tour of our edible wild kingdom!

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Mushrooms are an excellent source of natural food: They have few calories and are abundant, free for the taking, and fun to forage. This handy guide clearly explains not only how to identify them but also how to prepare them for your next meal. Whether you are an experienced mushroom hunter or an amateur naturalist, Wild Edible Mushrooms will help you find, harvest, prepare and enjoy North American wild mushrooms.

Inside are detailed descriptions and color photos of 40 edible mushrooms (plus dangerous look-alikes to avoid), including scientific and common names, habitat, odor, taste, fruiting time, and more. Following them are more than 100 recipes, ranging from delicious appetizers to soups, and from fresh salads to and hearty entrees.

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To the untrained eye, a desert is a wasteland that defies civilization; yet the desert has been home to native cultures for centuries and offers sustenance in its surprisingly wide range of plant life. Gary Paul Nabhan has combed the desert in search of plants forgotten by all but a handful of Native Americans and Mexican-Americans. In Gathering the Desert readers will discover that the bounty of the desert is much more than meets the eye-whether found in the luscious fruit of the stately organpipe cactus or in the lowly tepary bean. Nabhan has chosen a dozen of the more than 425 edible wild species found in the Sonoran Desert to demonstrate just how bountiful the land can be. From the red-hot chiltepines of Mexico to the palms of Palm Springs, each plant exemplifies a symbolic or ecological relationship that people of this region have had with plants through history. Each chapter focuses on a particular plant and is accompanied by an original drawing by artist Paul Mirocha. Word and picture together create a total impression of plants and people as the book traces the turn of seasons in the desert.

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Longtime residents of the Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O'odham people have spent centuries living off the land-a land that most modern citizens of southern Arizona consider totally inhospitable. Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan has lived with the Tohono O'odham, long known as the Papagos, observing the delicate balance between these people and their environment. Bringing O'odham voices to the page at every turn, he writes elegantly of how they husband scant water supplies, grow crops, and utilize wild edible foods. Woven through his account are coyote tales, O'odham children's impressions of the desert, and observations on the political problems that come with living on both sides of an international border. Whether visiting a sacred cave in the Baboquivari Mountains or attending a saguaro wine-drinking ceremony, Nabhan conveys the everyday life and extraordinary perseverance of these desert people in a book that has become a contemporary classic of environmental literature.

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Before GPS, the compass and even cartography, humankind was navigating. Now this singular guide helps us rediscover what our ancestors long understood: that a windswept tree, the depth of a puddle, or a trill of birdsong can help us find our way, if we know what to look and listen for. Adventurer and navigation expert Tristan Gooley unlocks the directional clues hidden in the sun, moon, stars, clouds, weather patterns, lengthening shadows, changing tides, plant growth and the habits of wildlife. Rich with navigational anecdotes collected across ages, continents and cultures, The Natural Navigator will help keep you on course and open your eyes to the wonders, large and small, of the natural world.