Dear Reader,
Thanks for stopping by my little nest in the electronic heavens. I’ll try to make your visit entertaining, comfortable and worthwhile – as long as you’re here, I’ll even pour you an imaginary cup of tea.
I have written about many things in my quarter-century in journalism, but as I’ve gotten older, I seem to be returning to the same things that stirred my soul when I was thirteen years old – the mysteries and majesties of the natural world; the ecstatic “aha” of discovery and exploration; and those fateful moments when human life collides with nature’s power.
That’s why my latest book, “Tornado Hunter,” is so close to my heart. I’m so convinced you’ll enjoy it that I’m giving away five free signed copies. All you need to do is add your name to my mailing list with a few convincing comments about why you’d like to receive it, and maybe I’ll send you one. I’d enjoy that!
Thanks again,
Stefan
P.S. By the way – want some sugar in that tea?
MR. HORNADAY’S WAR: How A Peculiar Victorian Zookeeper Waged A Lonely ‘War For Wildlife’ That Changed the World.
Buy Mr. Hornady’s War at Beacon Press or:
Amazon.com >
Barnesandnoble.com >
Indiebound.com>
How do you write about a man who was arguably one of the greatest conservationists of his day, who probably saved the bison from extinction… and who also exhibited an African man in a cage at the Bronx Zoo in 1906?
I have spent much of the last two years wrestling with the contradictions of this man’s loud, large, improbable life. (His name, by the way, was William Temple Hornaday – and I’ll bet you’ve never heard of him.) My new book, due out in 2012 from Beacon Press, is called “Mr. Hornaday’s War: How A Peculiar Victorian Zookeeper Waged A Lonely ‘War For Wildlife’ That Changed the World.” I’ve rummanged through the great written archive of Hornaday’s life– the repository of his papers at the Library of Congress runs to 39,000 items — yet I must say I’m still not quite sure what to make of him.
Though I have struggled to restore the breath to this once-famous, now-forgotten man, like some restless spook he has come to haunt me in ways I did not expect and cannot quite control.
More information about Mr. Hornaday’s War →
TORNADO HUNTER: Getting Inside The Most Violent Storms On Earth
Buy “Tornado Hunter” from Amazon.com →
TORNADO HUNTER: Getting Inside The Most Violent Storms On Earth is a sort of science action adventure, taking the reader along on a hair-raising journey into one of nature’s most awe-inspiring and deadly phenomena.
The book tells the story of boy genius Tim Samaras, who never went to college but has become one of the most persistent and successful tornado researchers in the world. Tim’s ingenious “turtle probes” have extracted more data and pictures from the tornadic core than anyone else, including researchers with advanced degrees in meteorology and engineering.
Tim’s probes, which look like a little UFO about the size of a manhole cover and are painted bright orange (for easy recovery in the rubble-strewn aftermath of a tornado strike), ,are fashioned of hardened steel and aerodynamically shaped to withstand the otherworldly winds at the cyclone’s core. They are embedded with meterological equipment and an array of “bullet cams,” or tiny hot dog-shaped video cameras. The goal is to deploy these probes directly in the path of an onrushing tornado at extreme close range, a task so dangerous and difficult that many severe-storm experts had concluded it was impossible.
More information and excerpts from Tornado Hunter →
DOGTOWN: Tales of Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Redemption
Buy “Dogtown” from Amazon.com →
DOGTOWN: Tales of Rescue, Rehabilitation and Redemption, tells the stories of 15 dogs who were saved from abuse and neglect, from puppy mills, dog hoarders, or the brink of death.
Many of these animals are so sick, abused or neglected that they would have been deemed unadoptable in other shelters – and anywhere but DogTown would be put to death, usually within three to five days.
These animals, scarred, shut-down and traumatized, have been coaxed out of their shells, trained to trust, and many of them adopted by loving families:
Rush, a stately German shepherd rescued from a war zone in Lebanon, learns to overcome a crippling post-traumatic stress disorder. Almost anywhere else, these stories would never have happened. But at DogTown, they happen every day.
More information and excerpts from Dogtown →
Praise for ‘Roar of the Heavens’
Buy “Roar of the Heavens” from Amazon.com →
“A riveting account of what it was like to live through the most intense hurricane ever to strike the U.S. mainland.”
– John Grisham
“Fascinating… I’ve never read a more gripping account of what must be expected when a hurricane strikes. Its compelling public appeal ranks well with other credible weather disaster descriptions such as Isaac’s Storm.”
– Dr. Robert Simpson, former director, National Hurricane Center
(and co-developer of the Saffir-Simpson Scale of hurricane intensity)
“This book should be owned by every household in hurricane-prone zones. A masterful job.”
– New Orleans meteorologist and hurricane forecaster Nash Roberts, Jr.
“A gripping story… stranger than fiction!”
– Willard Scott, The Today Show
