Environment & Nature audiobooks

Wild Ones

By: Jon Mooallem

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 10 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Field notes from an age of extinction, tracking the ever-shifting meaning of America’s animals throughout history to understand the current moment

Journalist Jon Mooallem has watched his little daughter’s world overflow with animals—butterfly pajamas, appliquéd owls—while the actual world she’s inheriting slides into a great storm of extinction.... Read more

The Upcycle

By: Michael Braungart & William McDonough

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 7 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

The Upcycle is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Cradle to Cradle, the most consequential ecological manifesto of our time. Now, drawing on the lessons gained from ten years of putting the cradle-to-cradle concept into practice with businesses, governments, and ordinary people, William McDonough and Michael Braungart envision the next step in the... Read more

Animals in Translation

By: Temple Grandin & Catherine Johnson

Narrated by: Andrea Gallo

Length: 14 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

With unique personal insight, experience, and hard science, Animals in Translation is the definitive, groundbreaking work on animal behavior and psychology.

Temple Grandin’s professional training as an animal scientist and her history as a person with autism have given her a perspective like that of no other expert in the field of animal science.... Read more

My Beloved Brontosaurus

By: Brian Switek

Narrated by: Brian Switek

Length: 6 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

A Hudson Booksellers Staff Pick for the Best Books of 2013

One of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Spring Science Books

A Bookshop Santa Cruz Staff Pick

Dinosaurs, with their awe-inspiring size, terrifying claws and teeth, and otherworldly abilities, occupy a sacred place in our childhoods. They loom over museum halls, thunder through movies, and are a... Read more

Hen of the Woods & Other Wild Foods and Medicines

By: Steve Brill

Narrated by: Susan Boyce

Length: 2 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

A living legend, "Wildman" Steve Brill leads us on a lively and entertaining tour through the Northeastern United States as he shares tips on foraging in densely populated areas like New York's Central Park and rural areas throughout New England. We follow the seasons: wild ramps in the spring, the first mushrooms of summer, and in autumn, wild... Read more

Storm Kings

By: Lee Sandlin

Narrated by: Andrew Garman

Length: 11 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

A riveting tale of the weather's most vicious monster -- the super cell tornado -- that recreates the origins of meteorology, and the quirky, pioneering, weather-obsessed scientists who helped change America. Read more

Woodsman

By: Ben Law

Narrated by: Ben Law

Length: 4 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Ben Law has lived as a woodsman in Prickly Nut Wood for over 20 years. His authentic, incredible sense of the land and the wildlife, and his respect for age old traditions and how to sustain them offers a wonderful, inviting insight into the life and character of Prickly Nut Wood. Having travelled to Papua New Guinea and the... Read more

Venom

By: Marilyn Singer

Narrated by: L.J. Ganser

Length: 3 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Beware! Poisonous things are all around you. In the spirt of What Stinks?, Marilyn Singer brings kids the coolest, newest info on creatures that can harm or even kill with a bite or sting. Read more

Japan Imagines Renewable Future

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Special correspondent Emily Taguchi has the story of Fukushima, Japan, a town aching for a comeback after an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. Once the home of the Fukushima Reactor, the town is looking towards renewable energy and other renewable sources to build a better future. Read more

Decreasing Snowfall Sends Business Downhill

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

While winter storms have blasted parts of the Midwest and Northeast, a lack of steady and deep snow -- less accumulation and faster melt -- has had serious effects for the ski industry. Hari Sreenivasan reports on how winter sports businesses are navigating the season as part of the Coping with Climate Change series. Read more

Animal Wise

By: Virginia Morell

Narrated by: Kirsten Potter

Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Noted science writer Virginia Morell explores the frontiers of research on animal cognition and emotion, offering a surprising and moving exploration into the hearts and minds of wild and domesticated animals.
 
   Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a fish? Or a parrot, dolphin, or elephant?  Do they experience thoughts that are similar... Read more

Zero Waste City

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

San Francisco is trying to become the first city with zero waste. By requiring residents and businesses to separate compostable items such as food scraps, as well as recyclable items, NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels reports that the city has already reduced a huge amount of garbage from ending up in landfills. Read more

Beyond Humans, Widening Our Circle Of Friends

By: Priscilla Stuckey, Ph.D

Narrated by: Justine Willis Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Stuckey encourages us to be aware of our connection with all the life that surrounds us, even in cities. In response to the idea that the world is a community rather than a collection of objects, she poses the question: “How do we interact with the more than human world as equal members of community, rather than trying to treat the world around... Read more

Here, There, Elsewhere

By: William Least Heat-Moon

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

From the acclaimed author of Blue Highways, PrairyErth, and Roads to Quoz, a dazzling collection of travel tales from the road.

Here, There, Elsewhere draws together for the first time William Least Heat-Moon's greatest short-form travel writing. Personally selected by the writer, these pieces take us from Japan, England, Italy, and Mexico to... Read more

Rescue Me

By: Melissa Wareham

Narrated by: Melissa Wareham

Length: 10 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Melissa Wareham always wanted to work with dogs. After failing her biology O-level she realised she'd have to start at the bottom, cleaning out kennels at Battersea Dogs Home.

From frail old men looking for a four-legged companion to famous folk who've lost their favourite hound, it seemed that at some point everyone passes through Battersea's... Read more

The Elephant Whisperer

By: Lawrence Anthony & Graham Spence

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them.
 
In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years... Read more

Endangered Coral Reefs Die

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 6 minutes

Abridged: No

In addition to negative consequences caused by overfishing and pollution, coral reefs face another major existential threat: increased acidity from warming oceans. Hari Sreenivasan reports from Florida about the dire outlook for coral reefs, as well as efforts and research to try and save them. Read more

Climate Change Causes Insurers to Rethink Price of Risk After Hurricane Sandy

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

The insurance industry looks at historical data, old and new, in order to assess the risk for potential disasters and put a price on premiums. But when Sandy hit the Northeast, some insurance companies reconsidered if they priced insurance high enough for the greater risks brought on by climate change. Paul Solman reports. Read more

Protecting New York From Future Superstorms

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

As thousands of residents continue to clean up from Hurricane Sandy, many are anticipating future disasters and considering how New York will cope with rising seas and potentially more devastating flooding. In this November 2012 report, Hari Sreenivasan looks at options like barriers that could protect the region from future storm surges. Read more

Principled Design Based on the Laws of Nature

By: William McDonough

Narrated by: Justine Willis Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

McDonough describes what is meant by the idea of “Cradle to Cradle,” and says “Things are designed to either go back to biology or back to technology without contaminating each other.” He tells us that we can and must design things to go back into an intelligent material pool for human benefit without contaminating the environment. Read more

On a Farther Shore

By: William Souder

Narrated by: David Drummond

Length: 15 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Published on the fiftieth anniversary of her seminal book, Silent Spring, here is an indelible new portrait of Rachel Carson, founder of the modern environmental movement.She loved the ocean and wrote three books about its mysteries, including the international bestseller The Sea around Us. But it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that... Read more

Rooftop Revolution

By: Danny Kennedy

Narrated by: Kevin Pierce

Length: 5 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

We're at a tipping point in our global movement from dirty, big-industry electricity-- countries like Germany have 25% of their power grid on clean, local energy, yet the U.S is still under 1%. Solar pioneer Danny Kennedy has written this rallying cry for the solar industry and policy makers--the only obstacle to solar power is our ignorance. Read more

David Attenborough In His Own Words

By: David Attenborough

Narrated by: David Attenborough

Length: 1 hour 31 minutes

Abridged: No

David Attenborough discusses his life and achievements in this collection of BBC radio and TV interviews: Parkinson (broadcast on BBC One, 2th December 1975, featuring Michael Parkinson), Profile (broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 1st July 1976, featuring Kathleen Cheesmond), Desert Island Discs (broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 1th March 1979, featuring Roy... Read more

Blizzard of Glass

By: Sally M. Walker

Narrated by: Paul Michael

Length: 2 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

December 6, 1917, started like any other day in Halifax. But everything stopped shortly before nine o’clock that morning, when two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One of the ships was loaded with munitions for the troops fighting in Europe; the other was preparing to collect medical supplies for the war’s victims.

The resulting disaster was... Read more