The Whale In The Living Room

The Whale in the Living Room follows the thrilling adventures of film-maker, John Ruthven, as he travels the globe, dives into our oceans and passionately recounts his life-affirming experiences. What creatures could remain undiscovered in the 95 per cent of the seas that have not been thoroughly explored? How vast, really, are our oceans? The surface of Mars and Venus are better known to us than Earth's seabed. Yet to map the world's ocean to even 100-metre blocks of accuracy, something that environmentalists say is essential for its protection, could take another 300 years. Even creatures that are known to us, like the giant squid, have proved too difficult to accurately capture on film. Quite literally immersed in his subject, John can help readers understand the magnitude of our planet's oceans and why it is so important for us to protect our seas and the creatures that inhabit them. He is the only producer to have worked full-time on both series of Blue Planet, as well as nearly fifty other films about the sea. Through his first-hand experience, John shows us the loneliness of whale calves in the deep blue, the fear of seals as they dodge great white sharks near the coast, or the curiosity of octopus staring back at us through the camera. His book takes us through the blue rings of South Pacific coral atolls, on submarine rides into the abyss with ancient life forms, and up close and personal encounters with singing humpback whales that make you feel the water around you. The Whale in the Living Room, like the proverbial 'elephant in the room', is also about how, until recently, we have been largely blind to our polluting of the seas. John, for example, explores how plastic 'went wild' in the ocean; tries to understand how we got into this mess; and see if we can ever untangle the oceans from its grip.

The legend of the Great Spotted Whale has never been proven until two whale watchers set out on a journey fifty years later to find the mythical animal. When they finally see it, they discover another surprise even bigger than they imagined.

The illicit affair of a devout woman in London ignites a shattering family crisis in the author’s “ruthlessly honest” first play (The Guardian). In a dour Holland Park house with rooms and secrets long shuttered live three unyielding forces for morality: rigidly religious sisters Helen and Teresa, and their brother, a Roman Catholic priest. Into the lives of this insular trio comes their young grandniece, Rose Pemberton, following the death of her mother. To the mortification of her aunts, Rose has also brought her lover, Michael Dennis, who is twenty-five years Rose’s senior, married, and a psychology lecturer dictated by reason, not faith. In a home that reeks of sanctimony, Rose and Michael are as welcome as sin. But it’s the arrival of Michael’s distraught wife—armed with righteous emotional blackmail and worse—that ignites an unexpected fury and makes real the family’s greatest fears. Premiering in London in 1953 and moving to Broadway one year later, Graham Greene’s debut as a dramatist was hailed by Kenneth Tynan as “the best first play of its generation.”

Everybody Out of the Pond At the Water's Edge will change the way you think about your place in the world. The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us. We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago. In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.

One hundred unusual animals try to squeeze into the pages of this raucous rhyming tale. But will there be room to fit a whole blue whale?

A child and a whale embark on a beautiful journey together in this lyrical, gorgeously illustrated picture book about friendship, hope, and love for the world around us in the vein of The Fisherman & the Whale and Cynthia Rylant’s Life. Where land becomes sky and sky becomes sea, I first saw the whale and the whale first saw me. A child joins a friendly whale for a magical journey of discovery. They sail the blue ocean, dance with dolphins, and tail-splash seagulls. But the child also sees an ocean filled with plastic trash. And that inspires a promise of help, for the whale and all earth’s creatures.

A compendium of straightforward techniques on how to accentuate the positive and redirect the negative, increasing productivity at work and at home. What do your people at work and your spouse and kids at home have in common with a five-ton killer whale? Probably a whole lot more than you think, according to top business consultant and mega-bestselling author Ken Blanchard and his coauthors from SeaWorld. In this moving and inspirational new book, Blanchard explains that both whales and people perform better when you accentuate the positive. He shows how using the techniques of animal trainers -- specifically those responsible for the killer whales of SeaWorld -- can supercharge your effectiveness at work and at home. When gruff business manager and family man Wes Kingsley visited SeaWorld, he marveled at the ability of the trainers to get these huge killer whales, among the most feared predators in the ocean, to perform amazing acrobatic leaps and dives. Later, talking to the chief trainer, he learned their techniques of building trust, accentuating the positive, and redirecting negative behavior -- all of which make these extraordinary performances possible. Kingsley took a hard look at his own often accusatory management style and recognized how some of his shortcomings as a manager, spouse, and father actually diminish trust and damage relationships. He began to see the difference between "GOTcha" (catching people doing things wrong) and "Whale Done!" (catching people doing things right). In Whale Done!, Ken Blanchard shows how to make accentuating the positive and redirecting the negative the best tools to increase productivity, instead of creating situations that demoralize people. These techniques are remarkably easy to master and can be applied equally well at home, allowing readers to become better parents and more committed spouses in their happier and more successful personal lives.

In The Whale and the Supercomputer, scientists and natives wrestle with our changing climate in the land where it has hit first--and hardest A traditional Eskimo whale-hunting party races to shore near Barrow, Alaska--their comrades trapped on a floe drifting out to sea--as ice that should be solid this time of year gives way. Elsewhere, a team of scientists transverses the tundra, sleeping in tents, surviving on frozen chocolate, and measuring the snow every ten kilometers in a quest to understand the effects of albedo, the snow's reflective ability to cool the earth beneath it. Climate change isn't an abstraction in the far North. It is a reality that has already dramatically altered daily life, especially that of the native peoples who still live largely off the land and sea. Because nature shows her footprints so plainly here, the region is also a lure for scientists intent on comprehending the complexities of climate change. In this gripping account, Charles Wohlforth follows the two groups as they navigate a radically shifting landscape. The scientists attempt to decipher its smallest elements and to derive from them a set of abstract laws and models. The natives draw on uncannily accurate traditional knowledge, borne of long experience living close to the land. Even as they see the same things-a Native elder watches weather coming through too fast to predict; a climatologist notes an increased frequency of cyclonic systems-the two cultures struggle to reconcile their vastly different ways of comprehending the environment. With grace, clarity, and a sense of adventure, Wohlforth--a lifelong Alaskan--illuminates both ways of seeing a world in flux, and in the process, helps us to navigate a way forward as climate change reaches us all.

Feed your fascination with sharks! This complete resource enlightens readers on the biology, ecology, and behavior of sharks with approachable explanations and more than 250 stunning color illustrations. Studies of shark biology have flourished over the last several decades. An explosion of new research methods is leading to a fascinating era of oceanic discovery. Shark Biology and Conservation is an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of the diversity, evolution, ecology, behavior, physiology, anatomy, and conservation of sharks. Written in a style that is detailed but not intimidating by world-renowned shark specialists Dan Abel and Dean Grubbs, it relays numerous stories and insights from their exciting experiences in the field. While explaining scientific concepts in terms that non-specialists and students can understand, Abel and Grubbs reveal secrets that will illuminate even the experts. The text provides readers with a robust and wide range of essential knowledge as it • introduces emerging as well as traditional techniques for classifying sharks, understanding their behavior, and unraveling the mysteries of their evolution; • draws on both established shark science and the latest breakthroughs in the field, from molecular approaches to tracking technologies; • highlights the often-neglected yet fascinating subject of shark physiology, including heart function, sensory biology, digestion, metabolic performance, and reproduction; • addresses big picture ecological questions like "Which habitats do sharks prefer?" and "Where do sharks migrate and for what purpose?"; • describes the astonishing diversity of sharks' adaptations to their environment; • discusses which shark conservation techniques do and don't work; and • comments on the use and misuse of science in the study of sharks. Enhanced by hundreds of original color photographs and beautifully detailed line drawings, Shark Biology and Conservation will appeal to anyone who is spellbound by this wondrous, ecologically important, and threatened group, including marine biologists, wildlife educators, students, and shark enthusiasts.