Beaver Fever: A Toothy Environmental Solution

Every few years, the public crowns a new peoples’ princess of the animal kingdom. Remember all those “Save the Bees” slogans, stickers, license plates, hashtags, gift mugs, and graphic t-shirts a few years back? Remember the early 2010s, when people couldn’t get enough of narwhals and llamas? Kids these days obsess over snails and frogs (perhaps watching too many slime TikToks before their skulls fully fused did a number on their subconscious preferences). Well, now, in 2024, I predict another regime change. Once the current monarch falls, we will unanimously select a new ruler: the beaver.

My proposition comes on the tail of great publications of nature writing of the past few years, particularly Leila Philip’s Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America and Ben Goldfarb’s Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter. Plus, there’s the commercial powerhouse of Buc-ee’s, spreading through the Southeastern United States like a bad case of beaver fever. This beaver-themed chain of 120-pump gas stations attached to 74,000 square foot convenience stores has put many beaver-decorated hoodies, boxers, lunchboxes, sets of wrapping paper, plush toys, snack wrappers, baseball caps, ties, decorative cheeseboards, bathing suits, socks, and keychains into circulation. Perhaps my merch-and-literature case is shaky. Then, I also ask you also to consider how crucial beavers are to their environments. 

As Leila Philip explains, beavers are the only animals besides humans who create their own habitats. Their dams, built from trees and shrubs, reshape America’s rivers. Their resulting beaver ponds, where the beavers live, are rich in biodiversity, bringing in birds and bugs. “Pond” calls to mind something a step above a puddle, but beavers sequester, on average, a million gallons of water per pond. According to Philip, the ground underneath the ponds holds millions more gallons, which act as a reservoir during droughts. These earthy sponges also absorb excess floodwater, and filter out contaminants before the water can seep into aquifers.

Humans have a perilous history with this massive mammal. In the 16th century, European settlers trafficked heavily in beaver pelts from North America. According to Wikipedia, there was no tax or tariff imposed on these furs, and traders were further incentivized to hunt in America by the depleting beaver populations back in Europe. Philip says, this fur trade jumpstarted the North American economy, transatlantic trade, and westward expansion. The first American multimillionaire made his fortune in beaver pelts. But beavers are not infinite; overhunting nearly wiped them out.

In the present day, beavers are common again, and often treated as a nuisance. They ruin crops, roads, gardens, and more with their dam practices. But also, their role as environmental stewards is getting greater recognition. Consider the Beaver Drop of 1948. According to Wikipedia, post WWII, folks relocated from urban to rural areas of Idaho, bringing more people into contact with nuisance beavers. The state’s Department of Fish and Game was swamped with complaints of destroyed property. At the same time, central Idaho’s wetlands were in disarray, with beaver populations decimated by previous fur trade. For years, beavers had already been relocated between different parts of the state, but ground transportation proved stressful, with beavers overheating, freaking out, and even dying in the process. Then came the genius plan by Elmo W. Helm to reuse old parachutes and lidded boxes, WWII leftovers, to simply parachute the beavers from overpopulated Northwestern Idaho to the central, beaver-hungry parts of the state. A beaver named Geronimo was the first test subject, and so the rodents took flight. The operation proved successful: 76 beavers found a new home.

Geronimo! Beavers parachuting down.

 

 

 

Beaver safely landed.

Beavers are involved in other ambitious environmental plans. Philip describes beaver ponds in California acting as buffers against wildfires. A University of Wisconsin study concluded that bringing beavers into the Milwaukee River’s watershed would store nearly 1.7 trillion gallons of annual stormwater. Organizations like the Beaver Institute provide tips for coexistence with beavers: pond leveler, culvert diversion fence, sand-based beaver-deterring paint on trees.

Beavers are no angels. They spread giardiasis (a nasty intestinal infection colloquially called “beaver fever”) and rabies. They attack pets and humans when threatened, and even killed a man in Belarus. They exacerbate global warming by causing floods in the Arctic that melt permafrost (that’s supposed to be PERMANENT FROST), which then releases the greenhouse gas methane. But this rodent only does what it knows best: building, and staying busy. They are not at fault when their industriousness collides with our industry. We have much to learn from their environmental practices, and hopefully, we can continue to be co-conspirators in the fight against climate change. Beavers rule!

 Click below to buy beaver books from us:

Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America: https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9781538755204
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter: https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9781603589086

 

6 Things you may not realize that have a large impact on climate change.

Jamille Christman

You hear many buzzwords surrounding climate change. You may remember a time when the subject was "global warming," and you wonder why "climate change" has become the dominant term. What you may not realize is that warming is only one effect of several man-made factors that are changing our climate in dangerous ways. Aside from commonly understood factors like burning fossil fuels and CO2 emissions,  here are some other factors whose contribution to climate change may be less familiar. 

1. The Newest Space Race
Not only does spaceflight spill fuel into the atmosphere, contribute to rising CO2, but it also contaminates the stratosphere with soot. The soot lingers for up to five years, absorbing heat and damaging the ozone layer. The ozone layer protects us from dangerous UV light from the sun. Not only that, other chemicals are changing the stratosphere, and scientists currently don't know what effects that will have. In 2023 there were 211 global orbital launches. However, while rockets are bad for the environment, the aviation industry burns 100 times more fuel than all the rocket launches in a year combined. Luckily, they don't travel in the stratosphere, and soot dissipates quickly lower down in the troposphere.

2. Crypto Currency Mining
You normally may not think of crypto as having such a large environmental impact, but it's utilization of block chain mining lends it a large footprint. To explain how this is possible, Bitcoin and many other crypto are decentralized, which means they aren't controlled by one entity. It is set up to create strong security by having a network of several servers mining simultaneously. Every transaction could be sent through one of many server farms through out the world. This process keeps the ledgers of the coins and transactions accurate and very secure. The miners are incentivized by the newly created currency they receive. While it is a very sound financial ecosystem, the amount of power consumed by this system is vast. According to the UN, "if Bitcoin were it's own country it would rank 27th in power consumption and that is just one crypto currency. The resulting carbon footprint was equivalent to that of burning 84 billion pounds of coal or operating 190 natural gas-fired power plants". Some cryptos are now using incentives for using renewable energies and lessening their environmental impact. Ethereum, the second largest coin, offers an incentive called "staking," which involves gaining interest on coins you keep as opposed to mining new coins. They also started using a different protocol that uses far less energy, cutting down its use of power by 99%. There are other "green coins" out there, like Cardano, Algorand, Tezos and many more.

3. Roads
Asphalt is an air pollutant. While it might seem innocuous, asphalt is made of fossil fuels and releases semivolatile organic compounds that affect air quality. Asphalt releases the most contaminates at 140 degrees Celsius, the exact temperature it reaches while it is being paved. Even moderate sunlight increases emissions from asphalt by 300 percent. While roads in their current state can be bad for air pollution, they have the potential to be helpful in mitigating the heating effects of climate change. According to MIT, "Reflective pavements could lower air temperatures by over 2.5 °F and reduce the frequency of heatwaves by 41% across all U.S urban areas."

4. Deforestation
There are quite an abundance of bad affects resulting from deforestation: destruction of animal habitats, soil erosion leading to increased flooding, long lasting damage to biodiversity, and acidic oceans from carbon runoff. The big result for climate change comes from the fact that our forests are natural CO2 scrubbers. They take in CO2 and store it till it is used. Between 10 and 15% of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation.

Not only do forests help to prevent global warming and climate change, they can also mitigate the affects of rising temperatures. In fact, according to the EPA "Trees, green roofs, and vegetation can help reduce urban heat island effects by shading building surfaces, deflecting radiation from the sun, and releasing moisture into the atmosphere. Research shows that urban forests can be 2.9°F cooler than unforested urban areas, and can lower air temperatures by around 10°F."

5. Farming
In 2021, U.S. agriculture emitted 671.5 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent, with 46.6% as nitrous oxide, 41.5% as methane, and 11.9% as carbon dioxide. Methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas and has a higher global warming potential. However, it only lasts 12 years compared to CO2's centuries-long lifespan, so cutting back on meat farming would have a rapidly noticeable impact. Grazing grass-fed cattle also do damage to land and add to deforestation, and feeding the animals consumes far more food than is produced. It isn't just livestock farming; machinery, transportation and synthetic fertilizers all contribute a large footprint on our climate, and will lead us to number 5 on the list.

6. Eutrophication
Eutrophication is nutrient runoff into water sources by industry, farming, and human waste that causes a proliferation of algae bloom and other plants. These blooms use up all the oxygen in the water, making areas of the ecosystem hypoxic and killing off marine life. The algae and decomposition of marine life then releases methane and C02. In fact, over 100 years the world's lakes will increase atmospheric methane by 30-90 percent due to eutrophication. The decomposition also causes the pH balance to change, making our oceans more acidic. This also causes CO2 concentrations to rise. All of this is compounded by the heating of oceans. As you can see, this is a dangerous cycle that feeds into itself. What can we do to lessen the effects? Lessening deforestation, making farming more sustainable and reducing fertilizer use, remove phosphates at sewage treatment plants, and use advanced wastewater treatment methods to remove nitrates and phosphates could be a good start.

The Fool of April and their Origin Story


Easter is coming up fast and something that happens on Easter Monday this years is strange, unusual and some might say foolish. April Fools Day happens to fall on the same day! While Easter is an old holiday, it is relatively the new kid on the block in comparison to April Fool's Day. Not only does the holiday reach far back in history it is a tradition that exists in many cultures around the spring equinox.

In fact it is so old that its origins are merely speculated. Almost as if the whole holiday has lasted this long as a jape in and of itself. Many think of the origins of the Roman Empire due to a story about how Constantine made a jester an emperor for the day, but that story is largely thought to be as fake as an April fool's prank. However some of the origins might have started with the celebration of Hilaria which is the celebration of joy.

Most of the lore came from Middle Ages Europe. Rumors of where the origin came from was in the 1500s when half of France still celebrated March 25th as the beginning of the New Year after the edict of the move to January 1st. But evidence makes it seem like this is as false as a fish in a 3 piece suit, speaking of dapper fish in France, a tradition in France is poisson d'avril which means 'April's Fish'. Pranks and satire were carried out with Fish.

One of the oldest celebrations around April Fool's is from 536 BC from the Persian empire that is still celebrated today.  The lie of the 13 which are 13 days after the new year, around April 1st.  Pranking and fun celebrations are celebrated on April 1st and April 2nd even to this day in Iran.

While it has muddled origins it has shaped into a celebration that most every culture celebrates by tricking friends and loved ones.  It has worked it's way into media with news reports and radio station pranks.  Make sure you look at the date of a story before you believe it and as always use critical thinking when consuming news.

horoscopes for april fools

March 19th marks the new year, astrologically speaking. Aries season springs down upon us after the equinox. It’s the first sign of the Zodiac, signifying new beginnings. Harness the assertive energy of this sign to get ahead on your new new year’s resolutions (we know you’ve already abandoned the ones from January). Below are your horoscopes for the month ahead!



Aries: Happy birthday, past or upcoming. This is your season to celebrate! Your zodiac symbol is the ram, like the sheep. But let’s consider the other version of ram -- a computer’s RAM (Random Access Memory). Not only is that the name of French electronic music duo’s Daft Punk’s definitive best, and final, album, it’s also an apt metaphor for your upcoming month. Computers once had to cycle through all available data start to finish to retrieve a needed bit, but RAM allows them to access anything at random, speeding up the process. Like an old computer, you may feel compelled to wallow in nostalgia this month, running through your autobiography in chronological order over and over. Don’t do that. Randomly access whatever lessons you need from the past, and use that information only to direct your future.


Taurus: Spring cleaning time is upon us. This is the month to get all your affairs in order. Clean everything, top to bottom. Leave not a speck. Organize those drawers stuffed with used batteries and old receipts. Shampoo your carpets and bleach your bathroom. Once everything is tidy, you’ll find you can think clearer, and finally make those big decisions you’ve been weighing.


Gemini: This is the month to let your inner child roam free, get messy, and be wild! Do all the things you couldn’t do as a kid: roll in the mud and track dirt through the house, lick chocolate frosting off your hands, and fingerpaint with abandon. Better yet, do it at a Taurus’s house. They’re in need of some fun and inspiration.


Cancer: Have you noticed Scorpio is down in the dumps? You know, nothing cheers them up like April Fools’ Day. Here’s a classic prank: take a pastry with white frosting, scrape the frosting off, and pipe toothpaste on top instead --- the mintier the better. They’re sure to laugh and laugh after they bite into it, and not blame you at all. Overall, this is a good month for refreshing your approach to friendship, and leaning into your most jokey self.


Leo: Sun’s out, and what a better time to nap? It’s a month for luxuriating and marinating, for being slow and lazy. If anyone bothers you about extra work, dismiss them! You should catch up on sleep, or do your favorite low-key activities -- the puzzles and the TV binges and, of course, the books. Rest rejuvenates. Doctor’s orders.


Virgo: Can February March? No, but April May. What does this joke mean? No one really knows. It’s a satisfying format, for sure, taking something so mundane, and making us see humorous patterns it, like when you spot “HI” and “NO” in the alphabet’s arbitrary order. But the vagueness here, it leaves so many things unanswered. How can a month march? It is no person, not subject to timing its locomotion to an imperial rhythm. April may? It has the option to, it has free will? It can weigh options, roads taken and not, consider the full gravity of every consequence -- even I cannot do that. I just don’t know. I’m sorry. I wish I had some advice for you this month, but I doubt I’ve anything wise to say to anyone.


Libra: Has Pisces been acting extra friendly lately? Don’t fall for it, it’s all an act! You’re best advised to keep your distance from anyone vying too hard for your attention this month. Sometimes your cold shoulder is the best remedy for another’s hot head.


Scorpio: Feeling a bit blue lately? Don’t worry: a sweet surprise is coming soon from a Cancer. They are a pure soul with only your best intentions at heart, and no secret schemes to speak of. You can trust them fully. Overall, this is a good month to let others in, and believe people when they say nice things to you. It can be hard for you to take compliments, but I’m sorry, you’re going to have to learn.


Sagittarius: You’re perfect in every way and can do no wrong. Keep doing what you’re doing and please never change <3


Capricorn: With spring springing soon, there’s much to get done. Is your garden in need of extra preparation? Recruit a Leo to help you out. Hard work is good for the soul, and even better for the physique. This month is not one for rest, and not one for letting others rest. Your plans are extraordinary, and you’ll have no trouble convincing others to do the grunt work with you.


Aquarius: April’s showers bring May’s flowers. The saying has a literal edge: it originates from the UK, where the jet stream makes April a soggy month and flowers don’t bloom ‘til early May. There’s a deeper meaning too, as an idiom where one’s present suffering brings rewards in the future. I don’t agree with that sentiment, though. Climate change will alter the jet stream, affect flowers' blooming times, and throw seasons into disarray. Why must we toil for some unseen future benefit when soon there will be no difference between April or May or December? Don’t put off your pleasure for the future.


Pisces: Has Libra been acting extra distant lately? Don’t fall for it, it’s all an act! You’re best advised to keep pursuing anyone acting too cool and aloof this month. If you keep going, even the most reluctant people will RSVP to your inviting nature.

And if you’re looking for more astrological insights, I recommend checking out “Postcolonial Astrology: Reading the Planets through Capital, Power, and Labor” by one of my favorite astrologers of all time, Alice Sparkly Cat.


Click here to buy a copy from us: https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9781623175306

memoirs & me or: how i learned to stop worrying and to love the first person singular

There is nothing I love more on God’s green Earth than YouTube video essays. Specifically, ones on film theory. My greatest pleasure is scarfing Cheez-Its in bed while watching someone halfway through a bachelor’s degree in media studies dissect Ratatouille through a Marxist lens or something. Recently, I’ve been looking deeper into the idea of The Gaze.


Allow me to bore you with a paraphrased Wikipedia definition: gaze is simply how one perceives people, either others or themself. Looking looks like an innocent act. But to quote Ms Wikipedia summarizing Jean-Paul Sartre: “the act of gazing at another human being creates a subjective power difference, which is felt by the gazer and by the gazed because the person being gazed at is perceived as an object, not as a human being.”


The male gaze in particular often comes under scrutiny in my beloved video essays. When it comes to movies, many of us are familiar with common tropes.There’s the raunchy comedies that separate women into the beautiful and objectified, or dowdy and deplorable, with any shred of personality parceled into punchlines. There’s the indie films where blue-haired women with manic tendencies exist solely to lift a boring sad male protagonist from his misery. There’s the arthouse whatever where women are converted into vague metaphors. Action movies with bland heroines sent into battle with guns and no clothes. You get the gist.


I myself am a big fan of seeing pretty people on-screen. I don’t take issue with revealing clothes or suggestive dialogue. What worries me is objectification, and the passive worldview that comes from being the perceived, rather than the perceiver.


We’re all constantly perceiving each other through our own flawed lenses. It’s just that historically, some gazes get more screentime, more book pages. We are taught to experience the world through a limited number of eyes (there were but a few non-white-male authors in the canon of my childhood literary education). The “I” of the first-person narrative is limited in who gets to occupy it.


The “I” is active. The “I” gets to tell you about others. You have to take the “I” at face value, in books particularly, because the only vision of the world you get as a reader comes from the eyes of that “I.”


I myself moonlight as a writer when I’m not a bookseller, and I love the “I.” To write a story from the first-person point of view cements the narrator as an active agent. The world becomes filtered through one’s consciousness. People exist only in as far as the narrator perceives them.


I had for years been hesitant to write in the first person point of view. It seemed too revealing, sentimental, juvenile, like publishing diary pages. That was in the same era of life when I read many novels by male writers. Many of them were smart guys, exceptionally so. I nodded along to their observations on culture, politics, history, all peppered with punchy metaphors and cutting analyses. And then their gaze landed on someone other than a man, and our silver-tongued orators’ descriptive abilities slid down to third-grade levels of basic. If I tried to imagine my place as a young woman in their otherwise-astute worldview, I’d be relegating myself to a two-dimensional character. And I exist at the intersection of many privileged identities -- whiteness, able-bodiedness, being cisgender -- so I already get far more space as a subject (rather than object) than many others have historically had in literature.


Later, I developed a taste for memoirs, particularly those written not by men. Memoirs as a literary form provide a handy excuse to occupy the first person singular: “My life as I see it.” “The world through my eyes.” Memoirs can take many forms, perhaps most famously as the dishy maybe-ghostwritten tell-alls of celebrities. I indulge in these too, but am particularly fascinated by memoirs written as complex, deeply personal pieces of art. They inspire me to think of myself as an active participant in life, not someone else’s observation, to be an artist rather than a misperceived muse.


Below are two memoirs of note for Women’s History Month, recent reads I’ve adored. Tragic and funny, poignant and perplexing, detailed and poetic, these are by no means definitive, just ones I happen to really like.

Brutalities: A Love Story by Margo Steines

Our narrator is quarantined in a desert landscape, facing COVID and a high-risk pregnancy. Her memoir bounces between an arid, sun-dried, nervous, uncertain present, and a visceral, violent past. Since adolescence, she’s worked in brutal jobs: as a teenage dominatrix, a sheep-butchering farmer, a high-altitude welder, a writer chronicling wrestlers. She’d gone through abusive relationships, disordered eating, intense bouts of self-harm, extreme exercise obsession, and chronic illness. Now, living together and in love with the father of her baby, a MMA fighter who perfectly balances gentleness and power, Margo reflects on her past, and what it means for bringing new life into a perilous world. Her prose is packed with imagery you won’t forget. This is a memoir you might need to take a few breathers in the midst of, but the piercing beauty of it is so worth it.

 

Link to Buy: https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9781324050872

In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado

As a Machado fanatic, I’m biased; I’ll slurp up anything she serves with a spoon. I know I’m not alone in adoring this memoir though. Part of the appeal is its innovative structure: each chapter is a short snippet that represents a section of the nightmarish Dream House. Then there’s the fairy-tale imagery Machado weaves in with meticulous footnotes, and fables that bleed into her reality. Also key to its success is her chronicling an oft-silenced topic: abuse within queer relationships. Machado interpolates sequences of childhood, of a power-imbalanced connection with her youth pastor, a writing program in the midwest, friendships and meals and parties, but the overarching narrative concerns an ex-girlfriend who turned sour, switching from sweetheart to abuser. Along the way, Machado laments how her experience felt like a hidden narrative, as mysticized as her beloved fairy tales. To quote Roxanne Gay: “What makes this book truly exceptional is how Machado creates an archive where, shamefully, there is none.

 

Link to Buy: https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9781644450383

The Poetry of Tommy Pico

        Tommy Pico works very hard to avoid falling into stereotypes. As both an indigenous poet of the Kumeyaay Nation and a self-described “technology-addicted New Yorker,” much of his work attempts to square two identities which society perceives as incompatible. The second entry in his tetralogy of poetry books, Nature Poem, centers around his distaste for the titular form, the way it becomes “fodder for the noble savage / narrative.” Rather than reinforce the expectation that Native people should extol the beauty and power of nature, Pico writes that he would “slap a tree across the face” and promptly changes gears to a story about a hookup at a pizza parlor. He performs this move frequently throughout his poetry, uncomfortably juxtaposing digressions on nature and the genocide of his ancestors with his high-speed modern day life of dating apps and concerts. 

        Pico’s writing shows how he feels that he lacks the freedom to love nature without playing into a centuries-old system of oppression in which he is categorized as less than human. As someone who was raised to love and cherish nature and the outdoors, such a freedom feels like it should be a right for every person on this Earth. Hearing Pico’s concerns feels upsetting, as does the implicit question of whether my own “outdoorsy” upbringing would have transpired were it not for the historical subjugation of Native peoples. Pico’s poetry interests me precisely because it does not speak to my experience. In its determination to carve out space for its own voice, the poetry forces me as the reader to consider the larger forces shaping my lived experience and how they might affect others differently. While Pico’s tetralogy of poems is complete for the moment, I look forward to whatever future projects he turns his attention to next.

Buy Nature Poem here!

 

 

Journey to Monkey Beach with Eden Robinson

“You should not go to Graceland without an Elvis fan. It’s like Christmas without kids—you lose that sense of wonder. . .”

So writes Indigenous Canadian author Eden Robinson in Sasquatch at Home: Traditional Protocols & Modern Storytelling, a trilogy of short stories. In the second story, she uses fiction-prize money to take her Elvis-obsessed mother to The King’s old mansion Graceland in Tennessee. Witty and heartfelt, sharp and grounded, and so seriously quirky, it was quite the tale. I had to check out more of Robinson’s work.

Robinson is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations. Her profile on her publisher’s website lists her hobbies: “Shopping for the Apocalypse, using vocabulary as a weapon, nominating cousins to council while they’re out of town, chair yoga, looking up possible diseases or syndromes on the interwebs, perfecting gluten-free bannock and playing Mah-jong.” Stephanie Chou writes: “Eden Robinson has the most contagious laugh on this side of the globe. She shares a birthday with Edgar Allan Poe and Dolly Parton and is certain this affects her writing in some way. Combine these sensibilities with her early influences of Stephen King and David Cronenberg, and it’s natural that Eden’s writing is at once humorous and dark.”

“Humorous” and “dark” are certainly applicable adjectives for Robinson’s first novel, Monkey Beach. Wise men say only fools rush in, but I unfortunately couldn’t help falling in love with this book. Published in 2000, it follows the young Lisamarie (named for Elvis’ daughter) as she struggles with her little brother’s mysterious disappearance at sea. The novel swims into Lisa’s memories of a childhood on the Canadian coast, and interpolates Indigenous mythology into daily life. Lisa takes off to find her brother on the mysterious Monkey Beach, embarking on an oft-surreal journey of self-discovery and sasquatches. I’ve never before encountered “Northern Gothic” (as opposed to Southern Gothic) as a genre, and this was the best possible introduction.

Monkey Beach won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, awarded annually to a fiction writer from Yukon or B.C. In 2020, the novel was also adapted into a film that won multiple awards at the American Indian Film Festival. Emily St. John Mendel (author of the acclaimed Station Eleven, Sea of Tranquility, and The Glass Hotel) lists it among her favorite books. Mendel laments that it got little recognition outside of Canada -- it was not marketed much to U.S. audiences. I hope, however, that more readers get their hands on this wonderful book, in the U.S. and beyond. It certainly left me all shook up.

You can buy Monkey Beach from us at this link:

https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9780676973228