Books in The World As Home series

For eons, female members of the Porcupine caribou herd have made the 2,800-mile journey from their winter feeding grounds to their summer calving grounds. They once roamed borderless wilderness; now they trek from Canada, where they're protected, to the United States, where they are not. What's more, beneath the calving grounds lay vast reserves of oil. Determined to convey both the enormity of the caribous’ migration and the delicacy of their habitat, Karsten Heuer and his wife spent their honeymoon following the herd. For five months, they traveled an uncharted course on foot over mountains, through snow, and across frozen rivers, with only three semi-scheduled food drops for support. As with the caribou, Heuer and his wife faced dwindling fat reserves and stalking by ravenous grizzlies and wolves just awakened from hibernation. Both a rousing adventure story and a sober ecological meditation, Being Caribou vividly conveys this magnificent animal's world.

Travelogue, cultural meditation, and love story, On the Ice casts a panoramic view on one of the oddest communities in one of the most extreme places on earth. Sent to Antarctica as an observer by the National Science Foundation, Gretchen Legler arrives at McMurdo Station in midwinter, a time of -70 degree temperatures and months of near-total darkness. A lesbian struggling with a tumultuous past, she hopes to escape her own demons and present an intimate view of a place few will ever visit. What she discovers is a community of people stripped of any excess by the necessities of existence in a harsh land, where revered scientists are referred to as “beakers”; where cherished belongings are left without regret in a communal lost-and-found; and where women are rare but lesbians in high proportion. Forced to confront her own fears, Legler experiences firsthand how landscape and community allow a life to reset.

A waterside home is a home that lies next to, or floats on, a sea, a river, a lake, or a canal. This exciting new book looks at homes built beside, over, or on top of water in cities such as Venice and Hong Kong, and high in the Andes Mountains on Lake Titicaca. Detailed photography shows what these kinds of homes are made from and what they look like inside. Other interesting topics include working, going to school, and getting around on water, and how people living near water are affected by flooding, soil erosion, hurricanes, and water pollution. A world map identifies the cities and countries featured in the book.

A waterside home is a home that lies next to, or floats on, a sea, a river, a lake, or a canal. This exciting new book looks at homes built beside, over, or on top of water in cities such as Venice and Hong Kong, and high in the Andes Mountains on Lake Titicaca. Detailed photography shows what these kinds of homes are made from and what they look like inside. Other interesting topics include working, going to school, and getting around on water, and how people living near water are affected by flooding, soil erosion, hurricanes, and water pollution. A world map identifies the cities and countries featured in the book.

An island is a piece of land that is surrounded by water. This intriguing new book looks at homes on big islands, such as Japan, as well as small islands, such as Cebu in the Philippines. From houses made of concrete and steel to houses built on stilts with thatched roofs, detailed photography shows what these kinds of homes are made from and what they look like inside. Other interesting topics include work, education, and transportation on an island, as well as how people living on islands are affected by extreme temperatures, volcanoes, hurricanes, and rising sea levels. A world map identifies the cities and countries featured in the book.