Books with author Richard Ford

Richard Fortey—one of the world’s most gifted natural scientists and acclaimed author of Life, Trilobite and Earth—describes this splendid new book as a museum of the mind. But it is, as well, a perfect behind-the-scenes guide to a legendary place. Within its pages, London’s Natural History Museum, a home of treasures—plants from the voyage of Captain Cook, barnacles to which Charles Darwin devoted years of study, hidden accursed jewels—pulses with life and miraculous surprises. In an elegant and illuminating narrative, Fortey acquaints the reader with the extraordinary people, meticulous research and driving passions that helped to create the timeless experiences of wonder that fill the museum. And with the museum’s hallways and collection rooms providing a dazzling framework, Fortey offers an often eye-opening social history of the scientific accomplishments of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries.Fortey’s scholarship dances with wit. Here is a book that is utterly entertaining from its first page to its last.

Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard has always dreamt of becoming an explorer. So in the spring of 1910, when Captain Robert Falcon Scott offers young “Cherry” the position of Assistant Zoologist aboard the Terra Nova, Cherry considers himself the luckiest man alive. Cherry’s luck, however, will soon change. Far off in the icy unknown of Antarctica, where temperatures plummet below –77°F, exploration is synonymous with a struggle for life. Frostbite, scurvy, hidden ice chasms, and packs of hungry killer whales are very real dangers. But even these perils don’t prepare Cherry for the expedition he and two other crew members embark upon to collect the eggs of Emperor penguins. Along the way, he will face the elements head-on, risking life and limb in the name of science. Rife with captivating details of survival in an icy wilderness, and illustrated with dozens of photographs from the actual journey, this reimagining of the famous 1910 expedition to the South Pole, told in Cherry’s voice, is an unforgettable tale of courage and camaraderie.

Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics is a study and encyclopedia of plants with a difference: all flora in this book are paired with the famous myths and folklore they are associated with. Richard Folkard wrote his unique thesis in order to organize and present many legends and folk stories with the plants to whom they are associated. The correlations between the attributes of these old stories, and the plants themselves, are meticulously examined over the course of sixteen chapters. This book is characterized by a bold eclecticism, wherein flora in folklore is examined and interpreted from multiple angles. Folkard aptly begins with the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, noting how plants acquired significance in mythology during earliest antiquity. The significance which the ancients applied to the plants they encountered, in particular the phenomena of the sacred trees and groves, are greatly expounded upon. We are also told how early naturalists connected certain plants to animals, providing a fertile ground from which mythic lore could root. Mythic creatures as diverse as wood nymphs, fairies, naiades and witches feature in Folkard's inquiry. The continuing significance of these mythic entities, and their relation to flora, is encapsulated in quoted verse which succinctly captures their essence and purpose. Furthermore, Folkard discusses at length how the natural world became inextricably linked with the paganism and polytheism of the ancient world, as well as to early healing and folk remedies. The second half of the book is an encyclopedia of plants, arranged alphabetically. Designed for ease of reference, this lengthy list contains poetic references to mythic lore, as well as the physical and botanic characteristics of these plants. Their introduction to different locales, and the myths in which they feature most prominently, make this encyclopedic portion a wealth of assembled knowledge. A unique melding of scientific knowledge with folklore and wisdom, Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics is as valuable a source on its topic today as when it first appeared in the 1880s. Richard Folkard took great pride in his work, personally presenting it to Queen Victoria for the Royal Collection in 1884; an era in which the English interest in plants blossomed with the introduction of greenhouses as both public works and private projects. This new edition of Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics is presented with all of the original illustrations and diagrams first appended by Folkard.

In a galaxy controlled by massive corporations, few worlds are truly free. When explorers find a priceless wormhole near Sidonia, the hostile attention of the Aquitaine Corporation focuses on the small, backwater kingdom. To protect their world, Sidonia’s royalty rush seventeen year old Princess Cosima into an arranged marriage, one that will guarantee a treaty and shield Sidonia from Aquitaine’s clutches. But Cosima never asked for the honor of becoming the next queen to a man she doesn’t love. With the fate the planet in the balance, a team of deadly assassins targets Cosima. The best killers money can buy will see the Princess dead before her wedding day. Cosima will need her wits to uncover the identity of the assassins targeting her, and her courage to stay alive in the middle of an interstellar power struggle. If you like space opera novels with intrigue, a fast-paced plot and a tale of survival against impossible odds, then read The Queen of Sidonia today!

Upon the discontinuance of the journal, I resolved to classify and arrange the plant lore thus accumulated, with a view to its subsequent publication, and I have since been enabled to enrich the coU edtion with much Continental and Indian lore (which I believe is quite unknown to the great majority of English readers) from the vast store to be found inS igner De Gubernatis volumes on plant tradition, a French edition of which appeared two years ago, under the title of La Mythologie des Plantes. To render the present work comprehensive and at the same time easy of reference, I have divided the volume into two sedtions, the first of which is, in point of fadl, a digest of the second; and I have endeavoured to enhance its interest by introducing some few reprodudtions of curious illustrations pertaining to the subje 5ts treated of. Whilst preferring no claim for an3rthing beyond the exercise of considerable industry, I would state that great care and attention has been paid to the revision of the work, and that as I am both author and printer of my book, I am debarred in that dual capacity from even palliating my mistakes by describing them as errors of the press. In tendering my acknowledgments toP rof. De Gubernatis and other authors I have consulted on the various branches of my subjedt, I would draw attention to the annexed list of the principal works to which reference is made in these pages. RICHARD FOLKARD, Jun. Cricklkwood, A tigiisl, 1884.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original form

Captain Bear and his crew are going fishing. During their trip, help them find their friends' missing kite! While learning about boats and harbors, children will find flaps, levers, and pop-ups throughout the book! Children will also learn helpful vocabulary on each page. Look for the missing kite with Captain Bear and his crew on their Amazing Pop-Up Boat! All aboard, and enjoy the ride on the Amazing Pop-Up Fire Engine, School Bus, Train, and Boat! While learning about different vehicles, and the people who work on them, children will have fun with interactive flaps, levers, and pop-ups throughout the book! Each page will help children build thier vocabularies. Features: Innovative product format Charming illustrations and entertaining storylines 10 pages of interactive flaps and tabs Builds vocabulary skills Large pop-up Enhances imagination and creativity

THE analogy existing between the vegetable and animal worlds, and the resemblances between human and tree life, have been observed by man from the most remote periods of which we have any records. Primitive man, watching the marvellous changes in trees and plants, which accurately marked not only the seasons of the year, but even the periods of time in a day, could not fail to be struck with a feeling of awe at the mysterious invisible power which silently guided such wondrous and incomprehensible operations. Hence it is not astonishing that the early inhabitants of the earth should have invested with supernatural attributes the tree, which in the gloom and chill of Winter stood gaunt, bare, and sterile, but in the early Spring hastened to greet the welcome warmth-giving Sun by investing itself with a brilliant canopy of verdure, and in the scorching heat of Summer afforded a refreshing shade beneath its leafy boughs. So we find these men of old, who had learnt to reverence the mysteries of vegetation, forming conceptions of vast cosmogonic world-or cloud-trees overshadowing the universe; mystically typifying creation and regeneration, and yielding the divine ambrosia or food of immortality, the refreshing and life-inspiring rain, and the mystic fruit which imparted knowledge and wisdom to those who partook of it. So, again, we find these nebulous overspreading world-trees connected with the mysteries of death, and giving shelter to the souls of the departed in the solemn shade of their dense foliage. Looking upon vegetation as symbolical of life and generation, man, in course of time, connected the origin of his species with these shadowy cloud-trees, and hence arose the belief that humankind first sprang from Ash and Oak-trees, or derived their being from Holda, the cloud-goddess who combined in her person the form of a lovely woman and the trunk of a mighty tree. In after years trees were almost universally regarded either as sentient beings or as constituting the abiding places of spirits whose existence was bound up in the lives of the trees they inhabited. Hence arose the conceptions of Hamadryads, Dryads, Sylvans, Tree-nymphs, Elves, Fairies, and other beneficent spirits who peopled forests and dwelt in individual trees—not only in the Old World, but in the dense woods of North America, where the Mik-amwes, like Puck, has from time immemorial frolicked by moonlight in the forest openings. Hence, also, sprang up the morbid notion of trees being haunted by demons, mischievous imps, ghosts, nats, and evil spirits, whom it was deemed by the ignorant and superstitious necessary to propitiate by sacrifices, offerings, and mysterious rites and dances. Remnants of this superstitious tree-worship are still extant in some European countries. The Irminsul of the Germans and the Central Oak of the Druids were of the same family as the Asherah of the Semitic nations. In England, this primeval superstition has its descendants in the village maypole bedizened with ribbons and flowers, and the Jack-in-the-Green with its attendant devotees and whirling dancers. The modern Christmas-tree, too, although but slightly known in Germany at the beginning of the present century, is evidently a remnant of the pagan tree-worship; and it is somewhat remarkable that a similar tree is common among the Burmese, who call it the Padaytha-bin. This Turanian Christmas-tree is made by the inhabitants of towns, who deck its Bamboo twigs with all sorts of presents, and pile its roots with blankets, cloth, earthenware, and other useful articles.