Best Selling Books by David M. Carroll

The purpose of this publication is to show how most columns of discolored and decayed wood associated with trunk wounds in trees are compartmentalized.

Winner of the John Burroughs Medal: An “admission ticket to a secret corner of the world” (Bill McKibben). Naturalist David Carroll has dedicated his life to art and to wetlands. He is as passionate about swamps, bogs, vernal ponds, and the creatures who live in them as most of us are about our families and closest friends. He knows frogs and snakes, muskrats and minks, dragonflies, water lilies, cattails, sedges—everything that swims, flies, trudges, slithers, or sinks its roots in wet places. In this “intimate and wise book,” Carroll takes us on a lively, unforgettable yearlong journey, illustrated with his own elegant drawings, through the wetlands and reveals why they are so important to his life and ours—and to all life on Earth (Sue Hubbell). “Carroll covers four seasons of wading through marshes, swamps, bogs, and fens. [His] eye for detail serves him well, whether he’s spying on a tiny garter snake struggling to suck down a much larger wood frog or watching a raccoon savagely digging a turtle out of its shell.” —Entertainment Weekly “In my pantheon of nature writers, David Carroll walks on water.” —Robert Michael Pyle

A nature journal of New Hampshire wetlands life, from an author Annie Dillard calls “a national treasure.” Following the Water is the intensely observed chronicle of a naturalist’s annual March-to-November wetlands immersion—from the joy of the first turtle sighting in March to the gorgeously described, vibrant trilling of tree frogs in late May to the ancient sense of love and loss experienced each autumn, when it is time once again to part with open water. Illustrated with the author’s fine pen-and-ink drawings, Following the Water is a gorgeous evocation of nature, illuminating the ecology and life histories of hawks, foxes, rare wood and spotted turtles, and more, from an author who was a recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant” as well as a John Burroughs Medal for his book Swampwalker’s Journal.

A renowned artist, author, and naturalist, David M. Carroll is exceptionally skilled at capturing nature on the page. In Self-Portrait with Turtles, he reflects on his own life, recounting the crucial moments that shaped his passions and abilities. Beginning with his first sighting of a wild turtle at age eight, Carroll describes his lifelong fascination with swamps and the creatures that inhabit them. He also traces his evolution as an artist, from the words of encouragement he received in high school to his college days in Boston to his life with his wife and family. Self-Portrait with Turtles is a remarkable memoir, a marvelous and exhilarating account of a life well lived.

Charlie Collins has been many things since the dead began to rise. Survivor, failure, friend, leader, target, and some would say a hero. But now he's something new. Homeless.The counsel, having been exiled from their home, sit in the watchtower, observing Jericho, the new leader, as he destroys everything they had spent the last four months building. Charlie still isn't sure if they are watching their old home in order to make sure they are capable of surviving on their own, or if they are watching for an opening to take back what is theirs.Then there's the New American Army. An armored column with the muscle of a tank backing them up. A group who have been moving from settlement to settlement, taking supplies and conscripts as they go. They have arrived in Johnson City looking for two things. Supplies and Charlie Collins. The one man who Drecker, the army's leader, has labeled to be almost as dangerous as he is. With their old home and the lives of their friends in danger. Charlie and the others must find a way to defeat an army that is almost untouchable. To complicate matters further he must work hand in hand with a group of survivors from his past who want him dead as much as they want to see the army destroyed.With everything on the line, Charlie's fractured mind begins to crack further under the pressure. The ghost of Jim and the memory of his mentor, Jack, both appearing to him in a battle to usher in, or stop, his decent into madness.In a war that will break friendships and end lives, Charlie has to decide how far he is willing to go to win this conflict, and which of the counsel members he's willing to walk away from in order to do what he feels needs to be done.

The author guides the reader through a year in the life of freshwater turtles that have been in existence for close to 200 million years. Focusing on painted, spotted and snapping turtles, he explores not only their yearly cycle but also the flora and fauna that inhabit the same marshland.