Beasts of New York

Beasts of New York PDF

Author: Jon Evans

Publisher: The Porcupine's Quill

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 112297714X

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Patch knows something is direly wrong when all the squirrels in Central Park wake to find every foodstore stolen -- and, in the middle of winter, that means starvation. Patch's mother is gone without a trace and in her den drifts a musky, unfamiliar scent. Hungry, tired and alone, Patch sets off into the mountains, ' the human lands of New York City, to find food and to uncover what's happening to his family. He finds out too late that a war is brewing beneath his paws. Patch is swept into an deadly battle that unites squirrels, birds, cats and dogs against vicious forces below the ground, rumoured to be led by the mysterious, legendary King Beneath. Gripping and suspenseful, Beasts of New York is a gritty urban fantasy populated by unforgettable characters as vivid and complicated as humans: from mercurial Zelina, the Queen of All Cats, to Snout, a massive and power-hungry rat, to Karmerruk, an arrogant, dangerous hawk. Evans's New York City of wildlife is deeply imagined; the urban landscape wavers between the familiar and the disturbingly bizarre, while Jim Westergard's intricate wood engravings illuminate the settings and many characters. Evans, a master of dark crime thrillers, brings his fast-paced energy to an entirely new world -- one right under our feet.

Filthy Beasts

Filthy Beasts PDF

Author: Kirkland Hamill

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-06-08

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1982122773

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Running with Scissors meets Grey Gardens in this “vivid tragicomedy” (People), a riveting riches-to-rags tale of a wealthy family who lost it all and the unforgettable journey of a man coming to terms with his family’s deep flaws and his own hidden secrets. “Wake up, you filthy beasts!” Wendy Hamill would shout to her children in the mornings before school. Startled from their dreams, Kirk and his two brothers couldn’t help but wonder—would they find enough food in the house for breakfast? Following a hostile exit from New York’s upper-class society, newly divorced Wendy and her three sons are exiled from the East Coast elite circle. Wendy’s middle son, Kirk, is eight when she moves the family to her native Bermuda, leaving the three young boys to fend for themselves as she chases after the highs of her old life: alcohol, a wealthy new suitor, and other indulgences. After eventually leaving his mother’s dysfunctional orbit for college in New Orleans, Kirk begins to realize how different his family and upbringing is from that of his friends and peers. Split between rich privilege—early years living in luxury on his family’s private compound—and bare survival—rationing food and water during the height of his mother’s alcoholism—Kirk is used to keeping up appearances and burying his inconvenient truths from the world, until he’s eighteen and falls in love for the first time. A keenly observed, fascinating window into the life of extreme privilege and a powerful story of self-acceptance, Filthy Beasts is “a stunning, deeply satisfying story about how we outlive our upbringings” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Strange Beasts of China

Strange Beasts of China PDF

Author: Yan Ge

Publisher: Melville House

Published: 2021-07-13

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1612199100

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A New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book of 2021 "Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror of 2021"—The Washington Post From one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature, an uncanny and playful novel that blurs the line between human and beast… In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self. Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.

Monsters of New York

Monsters of New York PDF

Author: Bruce G. Hallenbeck

Publisher: Stackpole Books

Published: 2013-08-01

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 0811753077

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Explore monster myths and legends of the Empire State.

Beasts Before Us

Beasts Before Us PDF

Author: Elsa Panciroli

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-06-10

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1472983971

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For most of us, the story of mammal evolution starts after the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, but over the last 20 years scientists have uncovered new fossils and used new technologies that have upended this story. In Beasts Before Us, palaeontologist Elsa Panciroli charts the emergence of the mammal lineage, Synapsida, beginning at their murky split from the reptiles in the Carboniferous period, over three-hundred million years ago. They made the world theirs long before the rise of dinosaurs. Travelling forward into the Permian and then Triassic periods, we learn how our ancient mammal ancestors evolved from large hairy beasts with accelerating metabolisms to exploit miniaturisation, which was key to unlocking the traits that define mammals as we now know them. Elsa criss-crosses the globe to explore the sites where discoveries are being made and meet the people who make them. In Scotland, she traverses the desert dunes of prehistoric Moray, where quarry workers unearthed the footprints of Permian creatures from before the time of dinosaurs. In South Africa, she introduces us to animals, once called 'mammal-like reptiles', that gave scientists the first hints that our furry kin evolved from a lineage of egg-laying burrowers. In China, new, complete fossilised skeletons reveal mammals that were gliders, shovel-pawed Jurassic moles, and flat-tailed swimmers. This book radically reframes the narrative of our mammalian ancestors and provides a counterpoint to the stereotypes of mighty dinosaur overlords and cowering little mammals. It turns out the earliest mammals weren't just precursors, they were pioneers.

In the garden of beasts

In the garden of beasts PDF

Author: Erik Larson

Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0307952428

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The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the 'New Germany,' she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance - and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.

Beasts

Beasts PDF

Author: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-03-04

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1608199916

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Bestselling author Jeffrey Masson shows us what the animals at the top of the food chain-orca whales, big cats, etc.-can teach us about the origins of good and evil in ourselves. In his previous bestsellers, Masson has showed us that animals can teach us much about our own emotions-love (dogs), contentment (cats), and grief (elephants), among others. In Beasts, he demonstrates that the violence we perceive in the “wild” is a matter of projection. Animals predators kill to survive, but animal aggression is not even remotely equivalent to the violence of mankind. Humans are the most violent animals to our own kind in existence. We lack what all other animals have: a check on the aggression that would destroy the species rather than serve it. In Beasts, Masson brings to life the richness of the animal world and strips away our misconceptions of the creatures we fear, offering a powerful and compelling look at our uniquely human propensity toward aggression.

Weird New York

Weird New York PDF

Author: Chris Gethard

Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9781402733833

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This book is a travel guide of sorts to New York's local legends and best kept secrets, filled with crazy characters, cursed roads, abandoned sites, and bizarre roadside attractions that the author feels reflect the shared modern folklore of our time.

Bestiary

Bestiary PDF

Author: K-Ming Chang

Publisher: One World

Published: 2020-09-29

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0593132602

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NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • Three generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this spellbinding, visceral debut about one family’s queer desires, violent impulses, and buried secrets. “Gorgeous and gorgeously grotesque . . . Every line of this sensuous, magical-realist marvel is utterly alive.”—O: The Oprah Magazine FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVELIST AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterward, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth—and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny. With a poetic voice of crackling electricity, K-Ming Chang is an explosive young writer who combines the wit and fabulism of Helen Oyeyemi with the subversive storytelling of Maxine Hong Kingston. Tracing one family’s history from Taiwan to America, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and girlhood. Praise for Bestiary “[A] vivid, fabulist debut . . . the prose is full of imagery. Chang’s wild story of a family’s tenuous grasp on belonging in the U.S. stands out with a deep commitment to exploring discomfort with the body and its transformations.”—Publishers Weekly

Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction

Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction PDF

Author: Michelle Nijhuis

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2021-03-09

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1324001690

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Winner of the Sierra Club's 2021 Rachel Carson Award One of Chicago Tribune's Ten Best Books of 2021 Named a Top Ten Best Science Book of 2021 by Booklist and Smithsonian Magazine "At once thoughtful and thought-provoking,” Beloved Beasts tells the story of the modern conservation movement through the lives and ideas of the people who built it, making “a crucial addition to the literature of our troubled time" (Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction). In the late nineteenth century, humans came at long last to a devastating realization: their rapidly industrializing and globalizing societies were driving scores of animal species to extinction. In Beloved Beasts, acclaimed science journalist Michelle Nijhuis traces the history of the movement to protect and conserve other forms of life. From early battles to save charismatic species such as the American bison and bald eagle to today’s global effort to defend life on a larger scale, Nijhuis’s “spirited and engaging” account documents “the changes of heart that changed history” (Dan Cryer, Boston Globe). With “urgency, passion, and wit” (Michael Berry, Christian Science Monitor), she describes the vital role of scientists and activists such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, reveals the origins of vital organizations like the Audubon Society and the World Wildlife Fund, explores current efforts to protect species such as the whooping crane and the black rhinoceros, and confronts the darker side of modern conservation, long shadowed by racism and colonialism. As the destruction of other species continues and the effects of climate change wreak havoc on our world, Beloved Beasts charts the ways conservation is becoming a movement for the protection of all species including our own.