Diane Ackerman

The true story of how the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw -- and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Żabiński began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Żabińskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts....

The Anthropocene -- the Human Age -- provides Diane Ackerman with the subject for her 24th and most ambitious book. Ackerman has established herself over the past quarter of a century as one of our most adventurous, charismatic and engrossing public science writers. Since her 1990 breakout title, "A Natural History of the Senses,"she has demonstrated a rare versatility, a contagious curiosity and a gift for painting quick, memorable tableaus drawn...

Draws on sources ranging from meteorology and religion to history and organic farming to introduce bird music and other signs of avian intelligence, in a series of meditations that describe the author's migration-copying travels between New York and Florida.

The author gets to see bats close up as she accompanies bat expert and founder of Bat Conservation International, Merlin Tuttle, on a trip to study these often misunderstood mammals.