"Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history." "Drawing on Antonina's diary and other historical sources, Diane Ackerman re-creates Antonina's life as "the zookeeper's wife," responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their "Guests" - Resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled...

A collection of poems that tells how such animals as alligators, bats, penguins, bumble bees, and skunks use their different senses.

The most ambitious and enlightening work to date from the bestselling author of A Natural History of the Senses, An Alchemy of Mind combines an artist's eye with a scientist's erudition to illuminate, as never before, the magic and mysteries of the human mind. Long treasured by literary readers for her uncommon ability to bridge the gap between art and science, celebrated scholar-artist Diane Ackerman returns with the book she was born to write. Her...

The author describes her work as a telephone crisis counselor and the desperate, anonymous people with whom she deals in terms of her close observation of the wild creatures that live their lives on the edge in her own backyard.

Poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman discusses her garden and uses it as a metaphor, exploring beauty and the human condition.

Zookeepers Antonina and Jan Zabinski risk their lives to save hundreds of people and animals during the German invasion of Warsaw in World War II.