David Owen

The Masters. For any golf fan, the words evoke the immortal greats of the game and their quest for the most prized trophy of all-the green jacket of Augusta National Golf Club. But behind the legendary links and timeless traditions is one of the most overlooked and misunderstood figures in the history of the Masters and Augusta National: Clifford Roberts, the club's chairman from its founding in 1931 until shortly before his death in 1977. Roberts's...

Innumerable books have been published on the two most famous fighter aircraft of all time, the Supermarine Spitfire and the Messerschmitt Bf109. But books setting out to tell the story of both aircraft are very much rarer - probably fewer than the fingers of one hand. Yet their joint story is one which bears retelling since both were essential to the air campaigns of World War Two. Incredibly, the men who designed them lacked any experience of...

The tragic story of how ignorance, fear and lack of care led to the disappearance of the famous Tasmanian tiger. This updated edition includes the latest research on whether it could ever be cloned and returned to the wild. Is it still out there? People claim to keep seeing it still. Once the world's largest marsupial predator, the Tasmanian tiger roamed the Australian mainland. Then confined to Tasmania for thousands of years, it was deliberately...

Most Americans think of crowded cities as ecological nightmares-as wastelands of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams. Yet residents of compact urban centers, David Owen shows, individually consume less oil, electricity, and water than other Americans. They live in smaller spaces, discard less trash, and, most important of all, spend far less time in automobiles. Residents of Manhattan-the most densely populated place in North America-rank...

"Our sense of hearing makes it easy to connect with the world and the people around us. The human system for processing sound is a biological marvel, an intricate assembly of delicate membranes, bones, receptor cells, and neurons. Yet many people take their ears for granted, abusing them with loud restaurants, rock concerts, and Q-tips. And then, eventually, most of us start to go deaf. Millions of Americans suffer from hearing loss. Faced with the...

This splendid record takes the reader behind enemy lines not only in North Africa but in Italy, the Aegean and the Balkans. The Author, who commanded the LRDG, paints a vivid picture of the unit's colourful characters: for example, Ralph Bagnold who put to good use the knowledge he gained from his pre-war desert travels. The LRDG was truly international with New Zealanders and Rhodesians playing key roles. This classic book won acclaim from the...

Upending the environmentalist viewpoint that urban areas are "anti-green," New Yorker staff writer David Owen argues that sustainability is achieved in areas like New York City, while open space, backyard compost heaps, locavorism and high-tech gadgetry like solar panels and triple-paned windows are formulas for wasteful sprawl and green-washed consumerism.

The Colorado River is a crucial resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claimed by someone. David Owen traces all that water from the Colorado's headwaters to its parched terminus, once a verdant wetland but now a million-acre desert. He takes readers on an adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of waterways, reservoirs, power plants, farms, fracking sites, ghost towns, and RV parks,...