Books about Outdoor from Amazon.com

The bestselling book for every boy from eight to eighty, covering essential boyhood skills such as building tree houses, learning how to fish, finding true north, and even answering the age old question of what the big deal with girls is.

In this digital age there is still a place for knots, skimming stones and stories of incredible courage. This book recaptures Sunday afternoons, stimulates curiosity, and makes for great father-son activities. The brothers Conn and Hal have put together a wonderful collection of all things that make being young or young at heart fun--building go-carts and electromagnets, identifying insects and spiders, and flying the world's best paper airplanes.

The completely revised American Edition includes:

The Greatest Paper Airplane in the World
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know
Stickball
Slingshots
Fossils
Building a Treehouse
Making a Bow and Arrow
Fishing (revised with US Fish)
Timers and Tripwires
Baseball's "Most Valuable Players"
Famous Battles-Including Lexington and Concord, The Alamo, and Gettysburg
Spies-Codes and Ciphers
Making a Go-Cart
Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary
Girls
Cloud Formations
The States of the U.S.
Mountains of the U.S.
Navigation
The Declaration of Independence
Skimming Stones
Making a Periscope
The Ten Commandments
Common US Trees
Timeline of American History

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Price: $14.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

There’s never been a better time to “be prepared ” Matthew Stein’s comprehensive primer on sustainable living skills—from food and water to shelter and energy to first-aid and crisis-management skills—prepares you to embark on the path toward sustainability. But unlike any other book, Stein not only shows you how to live “green” in seemingly stable times, but to live in the face of potential disasters, lasting days or years, coming in the form of social upheaval, economic meltdown, or environmental catastrophe.

When Technology Fails covers the gamut. You’ll learn how to start a fire and keep warm if you’ve been left temporarily homeless, as well as the basics of installing a renewable energy system for your home or business. You’ll learn how to find and sterilize water in the face of utility failure, as well as practical information for dealing with water-quality issues even when the public tap water is still flowing. You’ll learn alternative techniques for healing equally suited to an era of profit-driven malpractice as to situations of social calamity. Each chapter (a survey of the risks to the status quo; supplies and preparation for short- and long-term emergencies; emergency measures for survival; water; food; shelter; clothing; first aid, low-tech medicine, and healing; energy, heat, and power; metalworking; utensils and storage; low-tech chemistry; and engineering, machines, and materials) offers the same approach, describing skills for self-reliance in good times and bad.

Fully revised and expanded—the first edition was written pre-9/11 and pre-Katrina, when few Americans took the risk of social disruption seriously—When Technology Fails ends on a positive, proactive note with a new chapter on "Making the Shift to Sustainability," which offers practical suggestions for changing our world on personal, community and global levels.

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Price: $23.10 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The SAS Survival Handbook is the Special Air Service's complete course in being prepared for any type of emergency John 'Lofty' Wiseman presents real strategies for surviving in any type of situation, from accidents and escape procedures, including chemical and nuclear to successfully adapting to various climates (polar, tropical, desert), to identifying edible plants and creating fire. The book is extremely practical and is illustrated throughout with easy-to-understand line art and diagrams.

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Price: $12.09 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Product Description
Get ready for the most groundbreaking entry to date in the bestselling Birdsongs series (more than 400,000 copies sold!). Birdscapes delivers an immersive birding experience never before seen--or heard--in any book. For the eyes: seven elaborately engineered full-color pop-ups portraying dozens of bird species in diverse North American habitats from the Alaskan Tundra to a Southeast swamp. For the ears: extended recordings of the birds' calls and songs in stereo from the collection of the world-renowned Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. For the serious birder: scientifically accurate illustrations of the birds and moving text about their fragile ecosystems. This beautifully crafted volume is a visual and audio delight!

"Pop-up books aren't just for kids anymore! This multimedia experience transports you to seven natural habitats in North America and immerses you in the birds and their songs. --Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation, National Audubon Society

"Birdscapes is a delight for the eyes and the ears--a tour of North America's bird-rich ecosystems, rendered as seven lavishly detailed, three-dimensional landscapes, and brimming with choruses of authentic bird songs and calls." --Scott Weidensaul, author of Living on the Wind and Of a Feather

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An Interview with Miyoko Chu, Director of Communications at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Q: When did you first become interested in birds?

A: When I was 11, my father and I rescued some pigeons from a poultry truck in San Francisco's Chinatown. I spent a lot of time in the backyard coop, watching the pigeons as they courted and raised their young. It was amazing to realize all this drama was playing out with wild birds everywhere, too, and to have the opportunity to study it.

Q: What's your favorite bird song and why?

A: My favorite song is that of the Scott’s Oriole, featured in the desert scene of Birdscapes. Hearing that clear, bubbling melody in the desert is an unforgettable experience.

Q: What was the best thing about working on Birdscapes?

A: It was exciting to go from the ideas and bird lists for each soundscape to seeing and hearing this three-dimensional product as it emerged from the minds of the artists, editors, and sound engineers. It was incredible to see the artists' sketches transform into complex and ingenious pop-up scenes, and to experience how precise recordings for each bird were blended to evoke the soundscape.

Q: Have you visited all of the seven different bird habitats featured in Birdscapes?

A: Of the seven habitats, I'm most familiar with the desert, where I studied birds during 1995-2000, and the eastern deciduous forest, which is right outside my office window. I have visited the Great Plains and Pacific evergreen forests. I have not been to the Arctic, a southern swamp, or a seabird colony. In writing those scenes, I benefited from the insights of my colleague Gerrit Vyn, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s audio production engineer, who selected the recordings, including some that he had recorded on recent expeditions to these habitats.

Q: Which habitat in Birdscapes did you enjoy writing about the most and why?

A: Actually, there were two that I enjoyed the most--for completely opposite reasons! I loved writing about the desert because I had spent so much time there, and remembered the sights and sounds so vividly. And it was great fun to write about the seabird colony because that was something I had never experienced before—and I was completely surprised by what I learned. Whether an individual seabird's voice or thousands, the sounds are awe-inspiring, and the birds have such an interesting lifestyle as they all cram on to a bit of rock for the breeding season.

Q: Are you a daily birder or a weekend birder?

A: I'm an opportunistic birder! I'm always watching and listening for birds around my house and neighborhood. But in between work and spending time with my family, my focused birding these days happens irregularly, on the spur of the moment. My office at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology overlooks Sapsucker Woods, so I sometimes slip outside to look for birds after getting an email alert about a good migration day, or when I notice people outside my window pointing up at the trees.

Q: Do you have any suggestions for beginning birders?

A: Invest in a pair of binoculars and practice becoming comfortable with them. It will open up a whole new world, enabling you to see many more birds than you may have even realized were around you before. Spend time getting to know the different kinds of birds you see, the reasons for their behaviors, and the many kinds of sounds they use throughout the year.

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Excerpts from Birdscapes

Click on each image below to see a larger view of the page.

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More to Explore

Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song

Bird Songs From Around the World

The Backyard Birdsong Guide: Eastern and Central North America

The Backyard Birdsong Guide: Western North America

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Price: $38.82 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Daring Book for Girls is the manual for everything that girls need to know—and that doesn't mean sewing buttonholes! Whether it's female heroes in history, secret note-passing skills, science projects, friendship bracelets, double dutch, cats cradle, the perfect cartwheel or the eternal mystery of what boys are thinking, this book has it all. But it's not just a guide to giggling at sleepovers—although that's included, of course! Whether readers consider themselves tomboys, girly-girls, or a little bit of both, this book is every girl's invitation to adventure.

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Price: $14.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Discover for yourself the magic of Strength Training Anatomy, one of the best-selling strength training books ever published!

Get an intricate look at strength training from the inside out. Strength Training Anatomy, with over 850,000 copies already sold, brings anatomy to life with more than 400 full-color illustrations. This detailed artwork showcases the muscles used during each exercise and delineates how these muscles interact with surrounding joints and skeletal structures. Like having an X-ray for each exercise, the information gives you a multilateral view of strength training not seen in any other resource.

This updated bestseller also contains new information on common strength training injuries and preventive measures to help you exercise safely. Chapters are devoted to each major muscle group, with 115 total exercises for arms, shoulders, chest, back, legs, buttocks, and abdomen. .
Price: $14.08 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter.....
Price: $7.08 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $8.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Lewis has such a gift for storytelling ..he writes as lucidly for sports fans as for those who read him for other reasons "—Janet Maslin, New York Times

One day Michael Oher will be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write. He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family's love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game in which the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side. This paperback edition contains a brand-new 2007 afterword..
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