A uniquely personal meditation on Britain's gulls by one of today's leading wildlife writers From a distance, gulls are beautiful symbols of freedom over the oceanic wilderness. Up close, however, they can be loud, aggressive and even violent. Yet gulls fascinate birdwatchers, and seafarers regard them with respect and affection. The Gull Next Door explores the natural history of gulls and their complicated relationship with humans. Marianne Taylor grew up in an English seaside town where gulls are ever present. Today, she is a passionate advocate for these underappreciated birds. In this book, Taylor looks at the different gull species and sheds light on all aspects of the lives of gulls—how they find food, raise families, socialize and migrate across sea, coastland and countryside. She discusses the herring gull, Britain's best-known and most persecuted gull species, whose numbers are declining at an alarming rate. She looks at gulls in legend, fiction and popular culture, and explains what we can do to protect gull populations around the world. The Gull Next Door reveals deeper truths about these remarkable birds. They are thinkers and innovators, devoted partners and parents. They lead long lives and often indulge their powerful drive to explore and travel. But for all these natural gifts, many gull species are struggling to survive in the wild places they naturally inhabit, which is why they are now exploiting the opportunities of human habitats. This book shows how we might live more harmoniously with these majestic yet misunderstood birds.

“You either love Andrea Camilleri or you haven’t read him yet. Each novel in this wholly addictive, entirely magical series, set in Sicily and starring a detective unlike any other in crime fiction, blasts the brain like a shot of pure oxygen. Aglow with local color, packed with flint-dry wit, as fresh and clean as Mediterranean seafood — altogether transporting. Long live Camilleri, and long live Montalbano.” A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window With Inspector Montalbano's most recent outings hitting the New York Times bestseller list, Andrea Camilleri's darkly refined Italian mysteries have become favorites of American crime novel fans. This latest installment finds Montalbano in search of his missing right-hand man. Before leaving for vacation with Livia, Montalbano witnesses a seagull doing an odd dance on the beach outside his home, when the bird suddenly drops dead. Stopping in at his office for a quick check before heading off, he notices that Fazio is nowhere to be found and soon learns that he was last seen on the docks, secretly working on a case. Montalbano sets out to find him and discovers that the seagull's dance of death may provide the key to understanding a macabre world of sadism, extortion, and murder.

Poppy is a fun-loving young seagull whose carefree life is suddenly changed when another gull’s head gets trapped in a piece of plastic rubbish that was floating in the sea. Horrified, she decides she has to do something to stop plastic pollution. But even with the help of her resourceful gang, the Grabbos, she soon realises that they can’t do it alone because of the sheer scale of the problem. As they watch Poppy’s one human friend, a little girl, the gulls come to see that some plastic things are useful. But they are shocked that so much of it is thrown away and ends up in the world’s oceans. They figure that humans are making far too much plastic, and that they must hatch a plan to try and temporarily shut down plastic-producing factories. But what about the crows, the gulls’ sworn enemies? They are going to be a problem, especially as they love to hoard bits of plastic rubbish. Poppy has to be brave and face up to the crows. Can she convince them to help her and the Grabbos? And if so, what kind of ingenious plan can they come up with to tackle this world problem? Ideal for ages 6 - 8, this charming book has an important message for our younger generation who will inherit the world we leave behind.

Seafarer Marlin Bree captures the poetry of the seagull's flight, the majesty of its soaring wings, and its amusing antics as gulls gregariously interact with humans. Through black-and-white digital stop-sequence photography, this tribute introduces their habits and habitats, their special abilities, and their remarkable intelligence. Via detailed drawings and illustrations, Bree examines the gulls' "wings of wonder" and how they achieve their amazing sense of air, control their soaring and hovering, and remain aloft over great distances. The work also recounts fascinating legends that have sprung up over the years about gulls and their mystical symbolism in life and death, as well as lighthearted stories, such as that of Sam, a gull who walks into a seafront store and picks up the same brand bag of chips day after day.

This book explores how the heroes and villains of popular comic books—and the creators of these icons of our culture—reflect the American experience out of which they sprang, and how they have achieved relevance by adapting to, and perhaps influencing, the evolving American character. Multiple generations have thrilled to the exploits of the heroes and villains of American comic books. These imaginary characters permeate our culture—even Americans who have never read a comic book grasp what the most well-known examples represent. But these comic book characters, and their creators, do more than simply thrill: they make us consider who we are and who we aspire to be. Icons of the American Comic Book: From Captain America to Wonder Woman contains 100 entries that provide historical background, explore the impact of the comic-book character on American culture, and summarize what is iconic about the subject of the entry. Each entry also lists essential works, suggests further readings, and contains at least one sidebar that provides entertaining and often quirky insight not covered in the main entry. This two-volume work examines fascinating subjects, such as how the superhero concept embodied the essence of American culture in the 1930s; and the ways in which comic book icons have evolved to reflect changing circumstances, values, and attitudes regarding cultural diversity. The book's coverage extends beyond just characters, as it also includes entries devoted to creators, publishers, titles, and even comic book related phenomena that have had enduring significance.

This extraordinary book, written from material gathered over half a century ago, will almost certainly be the last fine-grained account of traditional Aboriginal life in settled south-eastern Australia. It recreates the world of the Yaraldi group of the Kukabrak or Narrinyeri people of the Lower Murray and Lakes region of South Australia. In 1939 Albert Karloan, a Yaraldi man, urged a young ethnologist, Ronald Berndt, to set up camp at Murray Bridge and to record the story of his people. Karloan and Pinkie Mack, a Yaraldi woman, possessed through personal experience, not merely through hearsay, an all but complete knowledge of traditional life. They were virtually the last custodians of that knowledge and they felt the burden of their unique situation. This book represents their concerted efforts to pass on the story to future generations. For Ronald and Catherine Berndt, this was their first fieldwork together in an illustrious joint career of almost fifty years. During long periods, principally until 1943, they laboured with pencil and paper to put it all down - a far cry from the recording techniques of today's oral historians. Their fieldnotes were worked into a rough draft of what would become, but not until recently, the finished manuscript. The book's range is encyclopaedic and engrossing - sometimes dramatic. It encompasses relations between and among individuals and clan groups, land tenure, kinship, the subsistence economy, trade, ceremony, councils, fighting and warfare, rites of passage from conception to death, myths, and beliefs and practices concerning healing and the supernatural. Not least, it is a record of the dramatic changes following European colonization. A World That Was is a unique contribution to Australia's cultural history. There is simply no comparable body of work, nor is there ever likely to be.