Marooned in Los Angeles by the pandemic, a marine biologist rediscovers the delights and wonders of the natural world in her own backyard.&34;Stranded reminds us of what we all too easily forget: the sustaining delights of finding beauty and wonder all around us.&34; -Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix and HeartbreakConservationist and marine biologist Maddalena Bearzi made her career studying the wild creatures of the deep, but when COVID-19 made landfall on the California coast this seafaring scientist found herself shuttered up ashore, her wide blue world constricted by pandemic lockdown. Never good at sitting idle, she despaired at the confines of her Los Angeles flat&8212;until she began to find wonder in the wilderness of her own backyard.Stranded charts Bearzi's discovery of both rapture and resilience in the unsung wildlife of urban LA. With a green thumb and a canine sidekick named Genghis, she finds as much to marvel at in her garden&8217;s singing blackbirds, night-blooming cacti, and industrious wasps as in the whales, dolphins, and sea lions at the center of her maritime adventures.