Reading Pickering is like taking a walk with your oldest, wittiest friend, said Smithsonian magazine. Living to Prowl, Sam Pickering's ninth collection of essays, finds the acclaimed author walking familiar paths, taking time to enjoy family, friends, nature, and other simple pleasures. Like Pickering's earlier books, this collection records in highly personal and idiosyncratic terms a year in the life of a man with a tenacious commitment to pausing and wondering. Moving easily between humor and seriousness, the mundane and the philosophical, stark truth and evocative fictions, his essays saunter through life and rummage through lives. As Pickering himself puts it, Living to Prowl is meant to make people "turn away from the 'razzleum-dazzleum' of dream and abstraction to see the rich greens and blues at their doorsteps."

Talk about a bad-hair day! Sophie Garou is a master at taming her inner beast, which comes in handy since she’s a werewolf. With a big promotion at work and a supersexy boyfriend, Heath (whom she recently spotted leaving a jewelry store with a beguiling ring box), she’s one happy girl. But when Heath starts spending long nights at the office with his new associate–a dead-ringer for Career Day Barbie–Sophie smells trouble. And when her professional relationship with her big new client–who also happens to be Texas’s brilliantly blue-eyed most eligible bachelor–begins to sizzle, she wonders if her animal instincts are leading her in the wrong direction. Just when it seems that things can’t get any more complicated, they do. The Houston werewolf pack has sniffed Sophie out, and their message is chillingly clear: you’re either with us or against us. And unless she can prove that she’s with them, the next full moon may just be her last. From the Paperback edition.

On the Prowl has developed a regular daily following on Facebook of more than 100,000 cat lovers from around the world. In On the Prowl the best of Rupert Fawcett's brilliantly observed, touchingly true cartoons come together in book form for the first time. Featuring the secret thoughts and conversations of cats of every size, shape and breed, this gorgeous book is a celebration of our favourite feline friends.

When Karl Lundberg, a retired wildlife scientist who has spent most of his life in Africa, finds he has Parkinson's Disease, he faces a difficult decision. To stay in the USA, with good medical care, or to head back to his beloved Africa where the elderly are honored and treated with great respect. This novel tells the story of Karl's choice to return to Africa, as well as giving an insider's perspective on the steady advance of Parkinson's Disease. Told with sensitivity and hope, this book will encourage those who do have Parkinson's to challenge themselves to adventurous living. It's also a tale to warm the hearts of anyone who has lived in Africa.

Big cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars fascinate us like few other creatures. They are enduring symbols of natural majesty and power. Yet despite the magnetic appeal of the big cats, their origins and evolutionary history remain poorly understood—and human activity threatens to put an end to the big cats’ glory. On the Prowl is a fully illustrated and approachable guide to the evolution of the big cats and what it portends for their conservation today. Mark Hallett and John M. Harris trace the origins of these iconic carnivores, venturing down the evolutionary pathways that produced the diversity of big cat species that have walked the earth. They place the evolution and paleobiology of these species in the context of ancient ecosystems and climates, explaining what made big cats such efficient predators and analyzing their competition with other animals. Hallett and Harris pay close attention to human impact, from the evidence of cave paintings and analysis of ancient extinctions up to present-day crises. Their engaging and carefully documented account is brought to life through Hallett’s detailed, vivid illustrations, based on the most recent research by leading paleontologists. Offering a fresh look at the rise of these majestic animals, On the Prowl also makes a powerful case for renewed efforts to protect big cats and their habitats before it is too late.

The stone toad is back! From the author of Diary of a Mad Brownie, this follow-up to the bestselling Goblins in the Castle blends laugh-out-loud humor with fantasy and edge-of-your-seat adventure. In the year since William and Fauna freed the goblins from imprisonment in Toad-in-a-Cage Castle, peace has reigned over both the human and goblin kingdoms. Then one cold night William receives a strange book from an unknown visitor, a book that leads him and Fauna to the mysterious stone toad that sits in the castle’s Great Hall. When an accidental spell brings the stone creature to life, the giant toad hops away—with William between its jaws! Fauna is no match for a ten-foot-tall frog made of rock, but she has magic—and a good amount of grit—on her side. Determined to save her friend, Fauna ventures forth on a journey through dangerous lands filled with fearsome giants, talking bears, and packs of rogue goblins. And in order to save William and reveal the mystery behind the stone toad, Fauna might have to divulge a secret that could turn her friends against her forever.