True Stories: Discovery / Historical / Scientific

Salmon, one of the most determined, single-minded creatures on earth, have for hundreds of thousands of years succeeded in returning from the sea to their birth rivers to spawn - no matter the conditions or obstacles. But in recent years increasingly fewer are returning due to st...eady incursions into their habitat from dams, industry, and climate change. The salmon of the Pacific Rim are set for near extinction, just like the salmon that once filled the Atlantic Ocean. An improbable and inspiring story, Stronghold takes the reader on a wild and at times dangerous adventure as we follow Guido from Oregon to Alaska to one of the world's last remaining salmon strongholds, in the Russian Far East - a landscape of ecological richness and diversity that is rapidly being developed for oil, gas, minerals, and timber. As Guido befriends and navigates scientists, conservationists, corrupt officials, Russian oligarchs, unexpected allies, and impenetrable bureaucracies, he reveals the astonishing natural history of the endangered salmon, a species whose demise will reverberate across the planet. And he sets into motion a plan that can secure their survival.
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On the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's successful navigation to the coast of Australia, this is Alistair MacLean's absorbing story of one of Britain's great national heroes, from his obscure beginnings to his sudden and violent death at the age of fifty-one.

THE TRUE STORY OF THE FIRST NHS BABY Hold On, Edna! is a nostalgic tale of community spirit, hardship and family ties, culminating in the greatest change to ordinary working families in modern history.

The author's account of how Zealandia, Wellington's world first pest free fenced eco-sanctuary, went from idea to reality and changed a city and a nation. An uplifting story of daring innovation, and the determination of a community that built a world famous conservation jewel.

Winner of the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize Truth can be stranger - and more heartbreaking and hilarious - than fiction. In this now classic work, Funder tells extraordinary stories from the most perfected surveillance state of all time, the former East Germany. She meets Miriam,... condemned as an enemy of the state at sixteen, and Frau Paul, for whom the Berlin Wall 'went through my heart'. She drinks with the legendary 'Mik Jegger' of the East, once declared by the authorities to 'no longer exist'. And she meets ex-Stasi - men who spied on their families and friends - still loyal to the deposed regime as they await the next revolution. Stasiland is a brilliant, timeless portrait of a Kafkaesque world as gripping as any thriller. In a world of total surveillance, its celebration of human conscience and courage is as potent as ever.
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