In Illumination in the Flatwoods, Joe Hutto unveiled the secret lives of wild turkeys to great critical acclaim, which resulted in the Emmy Award–winning PSB documentary My Life as a Turkey. Now Hutto has done it again. Touching the Wild is the enchanting story about one man who has lived with a herd of mule deer in the Rockies for almost seven years. Due to the intense curiosity of one groundbreaking deer, and the resulting introduction to an entire herd, Joe Hutto has been allowed unprecedented access and insight into the minds and behavior of this special animal. Spending every day embedded among the herd, he develops an uncanny connection with the deer, witnessing individual and group dynamics never before observed and recorded, unveiling just how much we have in common with these delicate beings. Each season brings joy as fawns are born, and heartache as hunters, predators, development, and a pollution all take their toll. The mule deer of the West are in trouble, and Hutto is their most fervent advocate. Touching the Wild is proof that we have so much to learn from wild animals about their world, ourselves, and the fragile planet we share. Full color photos throughout.

Just like with people, connections with our natural world are made through personal contact. Being a lifelong lover of the outdoors, especially wild places, John Highlen has a tendency for mingling with nature in a variety of fashions. Across the seasons, through backyard surprises, extended wilderness treks, exploring Lake Superior by kayak, scaling vertical ice formations, building a rustic log cabin, or simply taking a hike. This book is a collection of adventures from the author's close and personal contact with the wilds of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

To Touch a Wild Dolphin is the first intimate account of dolphin life in the wild. In 1982 Rachel Smolker traveled to Monkey Mia, a remote beach on the west coast of Australia where wild dolphins regularly interact with humans. Over the next fifteen years, Smolker and a team of fellow scientists were able to explore the lives of dolphins as they had never been explored before: up close, in their natural environment, with a definite recognition of individual dolphin identities. Smolker came to know the relationships, histories, and "personalities" of the dolphins. In To Touch a Wild Dolphin she offers delightful portraits of dolphins she became close to, ranging from the playful and incredibly silly to the slightly crazy, moody, and unpredictable. This develops into an examination of dolphin society and the diversity of characters that inhabit it. And ultimately from the intriguing, sometimes violent differences between the sexes to the nature of mother-infant relationships, to the wide repertoire of sounds used for social communication Smolker is able to reveal the inner workings of dolphin life with unprecedented clarity. Smolker was initially attracted to dolphins for the reasons that attract so many people to them: an elusive sense of their intelligence and their social and emotional complexity, a sense that despite the fact that we live in such entirely different worlds, dolphins are somehow like us. Now, after years of fascinating, inspiring, sometimes troubling, and occasionally heartbreaking experiences with the dolphins of Monkey Mia, Smolker is able to unravel many of the mysteries surrounding these beloved animals. To Touch a Wild Dolphin is a personal book in many ways, at the level of the dolphins and also at the level of the scientist. It is an important book, one that greatly enhances our understanding of dolphins and of ourselves, and as such it will take its place alongside such classics as Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf and Jane Goodall's In the Shadow of Man.

A spicy hot Van Helsing sister adventure, featuring Mariah Van Helsing. I don't mingle with the monsters. Sorry, creatures and beasts. They're not "monsters" unless they prey on humanity. Except, it's just a matter of time for most of them, right? Then a frustratingly helpful and sinfully handsome werewolf walks in my door, and I can't help thinking that maybe I'm wrong to paint all the magical creatures with the same brush. Maybe I'm into a man with more than a touch of wild inside him. Warning from the author: This book contains steamy, sexy "monster"-human shenanigans, enough naughty words to make someone (not me) blush, and a monster hunter who needs to open her eyes enough to see the man in front of her who's more than the beastly bite that infected him. A Touch of Wild is an approximately 5,500-word (22-page) short story with a happy-for-now ending.