Stories from a Theme Park Insider


Robert Niles - 2011
    What time is the 3:00 parade? Why does a child need to be 40 inches tall to ride a roller coaster? What happens when the president of France gets lost inside Pirates of the Caribbean? A former employee, or "cast member", at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom answers these and other questions while sharing humorous stories about working inside the world's most popular theme park."Stories from a Theme Park Insider" takes you inside the park's famous tunnels and backstage for a look at how theme parks really work, and the funny moments and embarrassments that can happen when your work is someone else's vacation.

A Rosie Life In Italy 2: What Have We Done?


Rosie Meleady - 2021
    Well, that is what Rosie did.Buying the house was an accident. She only went out for bananas.Rosie embarks on renovating her 22 room ‘new’ home in Italy with a non-negotiable move-in date of Christmas Eve.Surrounded by a cast of interesting characters, the Irish woman learns the Italian way of life and house renovating in the country she wants to call home. But when the project manager goes AWOL, non-Italian speaking Rosie has no option but to take control with the help of a translation app.With no heating, windows disappearing, mystery holes in the garden, water flooding down the stairs, a pandemic destroyed business and with a move-in date that seems more laughable than doable, Rosie begins to question if she was crazy to follow through on her fabulous midlife crisis dream of renovating a villa in Italy.

Volcanoes, Jungles and Leeches: A Glimpse of Indonesia


Gordon Alexander - 2018
     Join him for some laugh-out-loud moments as he island-hops across Indonesia. From Sumbawa’s Mount Tambora, the home of the largest eruption in human history, to Krakatoa, the creator of the loudest sound ever heard by modern man, Gordon works his way across the country, taking in some of the most remarkable, beautiful and downright scary places on Earth.

The Kindness of Strangers: Travel Stories That Make Your Heart Grow


Fearghal O'NuallainJulian Sayarer - 2018
    But what happens when we arrive home? How do our experiences shape us? 'The Kindness of Strangers' explores what it means to be vulnerable and to be helped by someone we've never met before. Someone who could have walked past, but chose not to. This is a collection of stories by accomplished travellers and adventurous souls like Sarah Outen, Benedict Allen, Ed Stafford and Al Humphreys, who have completed daring journeys through challenging terrain, adventuring from the Calais Jungle to the Amazon, from Land’s End to the Gobi Desert, from New Guinea to Iran and many other places in between. Each has a story to tell of a time when they were vulnerable, when they were in need and a kind stranger came to their rescue. These are stories that make our hearts grow, stories that will restore our faith in the world and remind us that, despite what the media says, the world isn't a scary place – rather, it is filled with Kind Strangers just like us. All royalties go directly to fund Oxfam’s work with refugees.

STORM PASSAGE: Alone Around Cape Horn


Webb Chiles - 1977
    Alone at sea for 310 days on his 37-foot cutter EGREGIOUS, he covered 38,000 miles in five difficult passages. He became the first American to round Cape Horn alone, complete one of the longest solo passages of all time, and make the fastest solo circumnavigation ever in a monohull.He writes at the outset: 'I will know defeat, despair, fear, beauty, serenity and peace. I will be tested far beyond anything I have ever imagined.' And tested he was--by storms, three capsizes, hurricane force winds, cyclones, week-long calms, sleet, snow, frostbite. He endured to experience exhilaration and accomplishment in solitude , and the peace of being in supreme harmony with the sea-world around him."STORM PASSAGE is about the first of legendary writer/sailor Webb Chiles' now five circumnavigations, all made without sponsorship, shore teams, PR agents, or any means of calling for help. Many talk loosely about living on the edge. Webb Chiles has for decades.

To Venice with Love: A Midlife Adventure


Philip Gwynne Jones - 2019
    Until they received some advice from a complete stranger in a pub.Their response was to sell everything in order to move to Venice, in search of a better, simpler life. They were wrong about the 'simpler' bit...To Venice with Love recounts how they arrived in Venice with ten pieces of luggage, no job, no friends and no long-term place to stay. From struggling with the language to battling bureaucracy; the terror of teaching English to Italian teenagers, the company of a modestly friendly cat... and finally, from debugging financial systems on an Edinburgh industrial estate, to building an ordinary life in an extraordinary city, To Venice with Love is a love-letter to a city that changed their lives. It's a story told through the history, music, art, architecture (and, of course, the food) of La Serenissima.

Two Million Steps: BAND-AIDS, COCKTAILS, AND FINDING PEACE ALONG SPAIN'S CAMINO DE SANTIAGO


Patrick Devaney - 2017
    He has a loving family, a successful career, and good friends. He is fortunate in many ways, and he knows it. But Pat also knows one other thing. Negativity had seized him; his life’s glass always seemed half empty. Despite the blessings of a prosperous life, Pat lives with a sense of dissatisfaction. He’s haunted by a feeling of purposelessness for which he cannot seem to find a solution. When a fateful phone call puts Pat on the proverbial edge, he knows he needs answers even if he doesn’t know the questions. Pat recalls hearing of the Camino de Santiago—the five-hundred-mile spiritual path through France and Spain that ends at the traditional burial site of James the Apostle. In his state of unrest and longing, Pat makes the bold decision to embark upon the ancient pilgrimage on foot. Two Million Steps captures Pat’s incredible journey of self-discovery along his trek through Europe and the places, people, and events he encounters along the way. For Pat, physical pain becomes a badge of honor, and every step he takes leads him closer to healing his soul and to becoming a new person.

Fundamentals of Photography: The Essential Handbook for Both Digital and Film Cameras


Tom Ang - 2008
    Here is everything you need to know: from the most practical advice (the fundamental facts about light sources) to the most sophisticated nuances (how light is measured through photometry), from the basics of the camera (which button controls which function) to the finer points of framing with an LCD viewfinder, featuring a selection of Ang’s most inspiring images. For users of film cameras, Ang explains the differences between types of film and details the various methods of processing and darkroom techniques.Ang delves into the development and transformation of photography by digital techniques. For the digital-camera contingent, there’s a specificity of previously unavailable information about the cameras and about processing, digitizing, and outputting the images. Ang also discusses subjects usually ignored in manuals but of interest to all photographers, including critical theory, the presentation of images, the function of the human eye in the perception of images, and ethical and copyright issues.Fundamentals of Photography is an essential book for every photographer.

Top 10 Venice (Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides)


Gillian Price - 2002
    Dozens of Top 10 lists provide vital information on each destination, as well as insider tips, from avoiding the crowds to finding out the freebies, The DK Top 10 Guides take the work out of planning any trip.

Grandma's on the Camino : Reflections on a 48-Day Walking Pilgrimage to Santiago


Mary O'Hara Wyman - 2012
    Herjourney takes her from St. Jean Pied de Port in France, across thePyrenees to Spain, then westward to the ancient spiritual destinationof Santiago de Compostela.Through back-home reflections based on journal entries and postcards sentto her grand daughter, Mary describes engaging encounters with pilgrimsof all ages and motivations, close-range observations of numerous animalson the trails, and the daily tasks of finding food and a bed each evening.Readers will gain keen insight into the physical day to day rigors facing awalking pilgrim, as Mary endured several falls on the trails, a serious footinjury, copious rain, mud and unseasonal cold and hot weather.Grandma’s On the Camino will inspire pilgrims and armchair readersof any age with Mary’s adventures and coping mechanisms, calmnessunder pressure, humorous outlook on life and truly spiritual approachto walking the Camino Frances to Santiago de Compostela. You willwalk as a pilgrim with Mary through every word in the book.

Costa Rica Chica: Retiring Early, Simplifying My Life, & Realizing That Less is Best


Jen Beck Seymour - 2014
    Find out what made them consider this in the first place, how they did it, and why they have no regrets! Bonus chapters include Jen’s special recipe for making bite-sized éclairs and a packing list for YOUR move to Costa Rica!

Eye to Eye: Photographs by Vivian Maier


Richard Cahan - 2014
    Her story—thousands of photo negatives and prints found in a storage locker and sold for pennies at auction—has stirred millions around the world. Maier was a painfully private woman who now speaks powerfully through the photographs she took only for herself. This new collection offers readers a chance to follow Maier as she travels the world, including images of France, Italy, Malaysia, Yemen, Puerto Rico, and America. These eye-to-eye portraits, published for the first time, are the single constant in her lifetime of photographic work. Maier is often cast as a quirky, antisocial character, moving on the outskirts of real connection. But these photographs show something more. Printed with the latest technology, the book utilizes a modified four-color process that produces images akin to traditional silver gelatin prints. Combined with 15u stochastic screening, Maier's 96 photographs in this volume are spectacularly sharp, full-range black-and-white reproductions.

Fatal Descent: Andreas Lubitz and the Crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 (Kindle Single)


Jeff Wise - 2015
    All 144 passengers and six crew members were killed. In the ensuing days, a picture of the flight’s harrowing final moments began to emerge. Shortly after reaching cruise altitude, a 27-year-old first officer named Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit, took control of the plane and deliberately caused its descent. In Fatal Descent, journalist and aviation expert Jeff Wise travels to Lubitz’s hometown in Germany and pieces together a definitive and haunting portrait of the killer and the system he betrayed, revealing in heart-pounding detail how a lifelong super-achiever like Lubitz could have committed such an unthinkable act, what actually happened inside the cockpit, and whether current airline regulations leave us vulnerable to similar attacks in the future.Jeff Wise is a science journalist specializing in aviation and psychology. He is the author of the bestselling Kindle Single The Plane That Wasn’t There, about the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. A licensed pilot of gliders and light airplanes, he also has stick time in powered paragliders, trikes, World War II fighter planes, Soviet jet fighters, gyroplanes, and zeppelins, as well as submarines, tanks, hovercraft, dog sleds, and swamp buggies. A contributing editor at Travel + Leisure magazine, he has written for New York, the New York Times, Time, Businessweek, Esquire, Details, and many others. His Popular Mechanics story on the fate of Air France 447 was named one of the Top 10 Longreads of 2011. His last book was Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger. A native of Massachusetts, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree at Harvard and now lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.Cover design by Kerry Ellis.

Who Ate My Cheese?: A Nauseating Treatise on Cheese and Its Comsumption


John W. Nichols - 2008
    Perhaps it even moved you. Now here's your chance for a fresh perspective, an opportunity to understand cheese from the bottom up.

Never Greater Slaughter: Brunanburh and the Birth of England


Michael Livingston - 2021
    On one side stood the shield-wall of the expanding kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons. On the other side stood a remarkable alliance of rival kings – at least two from across the sea – who'd come together to destroy them once and for all. The stakes were no less than the survival of the dream that would become England. The armies were massive. The violence, when it began, was enough to shock a violent age. Brunanburh may not today have the fame of Hastings, Crécy or Agincourt, but those later battles, fought for England, would not exist were it not for the blood spilled this day. Generations later it was still called, quite simply, the 'great battle'. But for centuries, its location has been lost. Today, an extraordinary effort, uniting enthusiasts, historians, archaeologists, linguists, and other researchers – amateurs and professionals, experienced and inexperienced alike – may well have found the site of the long-lost battle of Brunanburh, over a thousand years after its bloodied fields witnessed history. This groundbreaking new book tells the story of this remarkable discovery and delves into why and how the battle happened. Most importantly, though, it is about the men who fought and died at Brunanburh, and how much this forgotten struggle can tell us about who we are and how we relate to our past.