This, however, is his boldest journey yet. Accompanied by Lary Shaffer--an American friend and animal behaviorist, a man of imperfect health and brave decency--he enters the unmapped swamp-forests of the People's Republic of the Congo, in search of a dinosaur rumored to have survived in a remote prehistoric lake.The flora and fauna of the Congo are unrivalled, and with matchless passion O'Hanlon describes scores of rare and fascinating animals: eagles and parrots, gorillas and chimpanzees, swamp antelope and forest elephants. But as he was repeatedly warned, the night belongs to Africa, and threats both natural (cobras, crocodiles, lethal insects) and supernatural (from all-powerful sorcerers to Samal�, a beast whose three-clawed hands rip you across the back) make this a saga of much fear and trembling. Omnipresent too are ecological depredations, political and tribal brutality, terrible illness and unnecessary suffering among the forest pygmies, and an appalling waste of human life throughout this little-explored region.An elegant, disturbing and deeply compassionate evocation of a vanishing world, extraordinary in its depth, scope and range of characters, No Mercy is destined to become a landmark work of travel, adventure and natural history. A quest for the meaning of magic and the purpose of religion, and a celebration of the comforts and mysteries of science, it is also--and above all--a powerful guide to the humanity that prevails even in the very heart of darkness.

    Its loneliness is so extreme it is said thatmigratory birds will land beside travelers, just for the company. William Langewiesche came to the Sahara to see it as its inhabitants do, riding its public transport, braving its natural and human dangers, depending on its sparse sustenance and suspect hospitality. From his journey, which took him across the desert's hyperarid core from Algiers to Dakar, he has crafted a contemporary classic of travel writing.In a narrative studded with gemlike discourses on subjects that range from the physics of sand dunes to the history of the Tuareg nomads, Langewiesche introduces us to the Sahara's merchants, smugglers, fixers, and expatriates. Eloquent and precise, Sahara Unveiled blends history and reportage, anthropology and anecdote, into an unforgettable portrait of the world's most romanticized yet most forbidding desert.

    After eleven years in the remote Mahlangeni region they are transferred, first to Crocodile Bridge and then to Pretorius Kop. Fully at peace in the wild and lonely landscapes of the North, Kobie fears she will never adapt to the relatively people-populated southern area. It takes time, but eventually she is able to acknowlege that the move has shown her "other Edens" and has given her a store of the new and precious memories. Foremost among these memories is the unique experience of raising Leo, an abandoned lion cub. It is a facinating and emotional encounter with the king of the beasts, which brings her and her family equal measures of joy and sorrow.

    

    Mukhtar Masood was in Tehran as the Secretary-General of Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD)

    It's not just a story about travel, but also about the human condition, about growth and fulfillment.

    From the crumbling palaces of maharajas to the slums of Calcutta; from the ashrams of holy men to a millionaire drug dealer's heavily guarded fortress on India's border with China, Roberts captures the lure of this enigmatic land?this empire of the soul. "India is a harsh mistress," he writes. "She seems to appreciate individual sacrifice so little. Yet she has never wanted for lovers..."

    Stretching from the outskirts of Los Angeles to the psychic fringes of Las Vegas, it contains such archetypal American spots as Death Valley, Edwards Air Force Base, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Panamint Mountains (where the forty-niners found silver and the Manson family prepared for Helter Skelter). From the twisted silhouette of the Joshua tree to the pencil-straight blacktop of Route 66, the Mojave is a place of contradictions: a region of apparent openness that retains a palpable air of mystery; an empty, inhospitable land that has been thoroughly scoured by people; a stark and oppressive environment that dispenses a feeling of liberation. It encompasses not only intriguing natural history but stubborn human aspiration - a blue-skied, blue-jeaned kingdom of high-speed jet fighters and UFO watchers, dirt-bike racers and endangered tortoises, secret drug labs and health food preachers, nuclear waste dumps and nudist squatters, plucky ranchers and corporate gold miners.

    The text gives the reader an understanding of ancient Egypts social, political and spiritual organization. Sacred texts, hieroglyphs, and the daily life of the people are explained, described and illustrated with drawings, charts, diagrams of interiors, maps of ancient sites, a time line of Egyptian history, an illustrated foldout map of the Nile, and throughout, many photographs.