Water Boatmans Journey

Describes the journey of a water beetle as it swims, flies, and is carried by log and boat down stream to find a mate and new home in a marsh.

Leonard Gardner, a former artist suffering from aphasia, is confined to a nursing home. A young care assistant, Kate Davies, discovers his collection of paintings and begins to work with him in a new approach to therapy.

A collection of poems that provide a look at some of the animals, insects, and plants that are found in ponds, with accompanying information about each.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.

In the summer of 1991 Michael Burke, an experienced river guide, embarks on a three-week journey down a series of remote rivers in British Columbia. Leaving behind his pregnant wife, he embraces the perils of a voyage with a companion he barely knows in a raft that may not weather the trip. He attempts to reconcile the shifting fates of his lifeÑhis transition from river guide to husband, father, and academic. At the same time, he hopes to explore his connection to a distant relative, Sid Barrington, who was a champion Òswiftwater pilot of the NorthÓ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As Burke contemplates what he and Sid may have had in common, he meditates on the changing meaning of rivers, and the impossibility of fully recovering the past. In clear and graceful prose, Burke blends SidÕs colorful history with his own uncommon journey. He also reflects upon the quick currents of time and the fierce passion he shares with Sid for the life of river running in Alaska and the west. Unlike most river-running books that often describe waterways in the lower forty-eight states, The Same River Twice introduces readers to rough, austere, and unfamiliar rivers in the northern wilderness. Burke has an intimate understanding of these remote, free-flowing rivers. He effectively captures the thrill of moving water, the spirit of rivers and river canyons, and the life of river guides. This insightful memoir brings readers into a confluence of rivers, where past and present merge, revealing the power of wilderness and the truth about changing course.

The remarkable eighty-five-day journey of the first two women to canoe the 2,000-mile route from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay Unrelenting winds, carnivorous polar bears, snake nests, sweltering heat, and constant hunger. Paddling from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay, following the 2,000-mile route made famous by Eric Sevareid in his 1935 classic Canoeing with the Cree, Natalie Warren and Ann Raiho faced unexpected trials, some harrowing, some simply odd. But for the two friends—the first women to make this expedition—there was one timeless challenge: the occasional pitfalls that test character and friendship. Warren’s spellbinding account retraces the women’s journey from inspiration to Arctic waters, giving readers an insider view from the practicalities of planning a three-month canoe expedition to the successful accomplishment of the adventure of a lifetime. Along the route we meet the people who live and work on the waterways, including denizens of a resort who supply much-needed sustenance; a solitary resident in the wilderness who helps plug a leak; and the people of the Cree First Nation at Norway House, where the canoeists acquire a furry companion. Describing the tensions that erupt between the women (who at one point communicate with each other only by note) and the natural and human-made phenomena they encounter—from islands of trash to waterfalls and a wolf pack—Warren brings us into her experience, and we join these modern women (and their dog) as they recreate this historic trip, including the pleasures and perils, the sexism, the social and environmental implications, and the enduring wonder of the wilderness.

"A high-seas adventure story that combines the wry wit and deep reflection of "A Walk in the Woods" with the action and suspense of "A Perfect Storm." A stint in the army and a broken heart lead Kevin Patterson to the dock of a sailboat brokerage on Vancouver Island, where he stands contemplating the romance of the sea and his heartfelt desire to get away. By the end of the day, he finds himself the neophyte owner of a sailboat called the Sea Mouse. He also has a plan: to sail to Tahiti and back, and burn away his failings in hard miles at sea. First he recruits a traveling companion, another brokenhearted guy who at least knows how to sail. They set out like the Two Stooges-Seasick and Slapstick. Days without wind are days to kick back on the deck with a beer and a man-versus-nature adventure book that valorizes their journey into an essential quest for manhood. But eventually the voyage begins to take on a sharper edge. On a relentless beat across the South Pacific, they run across one solitary male sailor after another on the lam, not heroes but refugees. Both the literature and the reality of masculine adventure start to pall, and Patterson begins to long for home. But to get there, he faces the toughest of trials, single-handedly sailing the Sea Mouse across the North Pacific and through a four-day gale, conscious that no one on earth knows where he is or that he might die. The illusion that men are best tested by loneliness and adversity cracks in the force of the wind and the terrifying beat of the water, and The Water In Between becomes a hymn, not to running away but to heading home.