In 1926, two years after the plane crash death of his best friend, he attempted a solo flight record in a refitted Curtiss Jenny. Then, with half the journey completed, his plane was caught in a storm, went down, and for seventeen years he was missing, presumed dead. "The Longest Winter" is a fictional biography of John Robert Shaw's life. His story is one of despair and courage, tragedy and triumph. Stranded on an uncharted rocky island, his body broken by the crash, John Robert is adopted into a tribe of Eskimos. In this amazing tale, the author captures the Native American culture and vividly depicts one man's struggle to retain his sanity in a harsh, heartless environment.

    The book opens with Leaf Fielding's arrest in a pre-dawn police raid and ends five years later with his release from jail.The narrative moves back and forth between the harsh world of prison and his previous life - from a childhood at a brutal boarding school onto undergraduate days and his LSD epiphany in the summer of love, 1967.Acid transformed him in an instant from nerdy scholar to footloose freak. His ten years of adventures in the hippie underground gave the title to this book - a quote from a Bob Dylan song - they also took him across Europe, to the Andes, to Indochina and on to the edge of the known universe. They also led inexorably to his downfall.

    Andrew’s story is one of extraordinary passion, self-motivation, perseverance and resilience, as he leads us through his sixteen-year odyssey to achieve the Grand Slam of Himalayan mountaineering. We are taken through the victories, the near-misses and the great tragedies. The intense human drama of the expeditions infuses the book—sometimes funny, sometimes fierce and always fascinating stories about survival, climbing rivalries and mountaineering politics. The remote and stunning landscapes and cultures that Andrew encounters on his journeys add rich texture to his tale, culminating in his 2014 trip to Everest, where he was witness to the deadliest avalanche in the peak’s history. Ultimately, we learn ‘why does he do it?’ Why does anyone take on such a challenge, knowing how easily they might be killed? Andrew’s story is both candid and inspiring.Andrew Lock is the most accomplished high-altitude mountaineer in Australian history. He is the only Australian, the first person in the Commonwealth, and just the 18th man in the world to climb all fourteen of the world’s 8000-metre mountains. His achievements encompass eighteen summits of those 8000-metre peaks, including Mt Everest (twice) more than four times that of any other Australian, placing him in a select group of the world’s best alpinists. Additionally, Andrew accomplished the first Australian ascent of six of those mountains, a record that can never be broken. Andrew Lock is a professional motivational and keynote speaker. He can be found at www.andrew-lock.com.

    She decided to pack up her life and head for the Yukon.Driving alone across the country from her home just north of Toronto, describing the land as it changes from Precambrian Shield to open prairie, Jill finds that solitude in the wilds is not what she expected. She is actively engaged by nature, her moods reflected in the changing landscape and weather. Camping in her tent as she travels, she begins to let go of the world she’s leaving and to enter the realm of the solitary traveller. There are many challenges in store. She has booked a place on a two-week sea-kayaking trip in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia; though she owns a canoe, she has never been in a kayak. As the departure nears, she dreads it. Nor does it work any miracle charm on her, as she is isolated from her fellow travellers; yet the landscape and wild beauty of the old hunt camps gradually affects her. Halfway, as she begins to have energy left at the end of the day’s exertions, she notes: “This is as relaxed as I have ever been, as free from anxious future-thinking as I have ever managed.”From there she heads north, taking ferries up the Inside Passage and using her bicycle and tent to explore the wet, mountainous places along the way. Again, she feels self-conscious when alone in public, but once she strikes out into nature, the wilderness begins to work its magic on her, and she begins to feel a bond with the land and a kind of serenity. Moreover, she comes to realize that this self-reliance is an important step. Many travel narratives involve some kind of inner journey, a seeking of knowledge and of self. Set in the same part of the world, Jonathan Raban’s A Passage to Juneau ended up being “an exploration into the wilderness of the human heart.” Kevin Patterson used his months sailing from Vancouver to Tahiti to consider his life in The Water in Between, while the Bhutanese landscape worked a profound transformation on Jamie Zeppa in Beyond the Sky and the Earth. In This Cold Heaven, Gretel Ehrlich chose not to put herself into the story, but described the landscape with a similar hunger and intensity, while Sharon Butala has written deeply and personally about her physical and spiritual connection with the prairies in The Perfection of the Morning and other work.In Starting Out in the Afternoon, Frayne struggles to come to terms with her vulnerabilities and begins to find peace. In beautifully spare but potent language, she delivers an inspiring, contemplative memoir of the middle passage of a woman’s life and an eloquent meditation on the solace of living close to the wild land. Eventually what has begun as a three-month trip becomes a personal journey of several years, during which she is on the move and testing herself in the wilderness. She conquers her fears and begins a new relationship with nature, exuberant at becoming a competent outdoorswoman. “Despite a late start I expect to spend the rest of my life dashing off the highway, pursuing this know-how, plumbing the outdoors side of life.”

    Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present. Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-travelling professional eater and drinker, Bourdain compares and contrasts what he's seen and what he's seeing, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food. And always he returns to the question: 'Why cook?' Or the harder one to answer: 'Why cook well?' Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs he compares to a Mafia summit, Bourdain, in his distinctive, no-holds-barred style, cuts to the bone on every subject he tackles.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    You white people just have affairs. You lie and cheat. At least we're honest.' Lenuta 'Hellen' Nadolu has led a tumultuous life. A strong willed free spirit, she was born and raised in communist Romania, where women were supposed to know their place. At the age of nineteen, her life changed when she began an affair with a handsome African doctor named Victor and fell pregnant.To avoid the wrath of Hellen's domineering father and an unforgiving community, the couple married and then, against everyone's advice, moved to Ghana. But Africa was nothing like Hellen had imagined: Victor considered her merely a possession with few rights and expected her to turn a blind eye to his affairs. Pushed to the brink, she made a desperate decision - she would get a divorce and smuggle her three children out of the country. But no Western woman had ever divorced a Ghanaian man - let alone been granted custody of the children - and Victor's powerful family would not give her up without a fight ... Give Me Courage is an astonishing true story of bravery, resilience and determination.

    One of punk rock's foundational documents, the archetype for indie obsession and all but disowned by its author, The Modern Lovers was an album doomed by its own coolness from day one. Powered by the two-chord wonder “Roadrunner” and its proclamation that “I'm in love with rock 'n' roll,”The Modern Lovers is the essential document of American alienation, an escape route from the cultural wasteland of postwar suburbia. The Modern Lovers is the bridge connecting the Velvet Underground and the Sex Pistols; they were peers of the New York Dolls and friends with Gram Parsons and they would splinter into Talking Heads, The Cars, and The Real Kids.But The Modern Lovers was never meant to be an album. A collection of demos, recorded in fits and starts as Jonathan Richman and his band negotiate modernity and the music industry. It is a collection of songs about a city and a society in flux, grappling with ancient corruptions and bright-eyed idealism. Richman observes a city all but abandoned by adults, ravaged by white flight and urban renewal, veering towards anarchy as old world social moors collide with new attitudes. It is a city stands in stark contrast to the the ranchstyle bedroom community where he was raised. All of these conflicts are churned through Richman's intellectual acuity and emotional unrest to create one of the 20th century's most enduring documents of post-adolescent malaise.

    Eager to reach his destination and unable to secure any other form of transport, he had to resort to singlehanded seamanship. After an ignominious scene in the harbor, where a tangled anchor led him to take an early dip, he spent ten days learning the rudiments of navigation and sailing from a book, before embarking on the 9,000 mile journey aboard the 20-foot Pagan. Ahead lay a mission that was to reveal in him elements not only of astounding courage and determination, but also of incredible foolhardiness. Within 500 miles of Panama John Caldwell had already been shipwrecked once and had his boat's engine and cockpit destroyed by an angry shark. Indefatigable, he decided to press on towards his goal.He endured the terrors and discomforts of life on the high seas and enjoyed the triumphs of fighting and winning against the elements. This is more than an exciting tale of sea-adventure. It is as compelling and unpredictable as a thriller. It is the story, witty and moving, of a man, motivated initially by love, and ultimately by his own fierce determination to survive.

    In this true story, career policeman Jerry Speziale chronicles his fast-living years as one of the youngest recruits for the US Drug Enforcement Administration's task force - an odyssey of undercover intrigue, Colombian kingpins, amazing take-downs and nerve-jangling narrow escapes.

    At the State Department in Washington, a freshman congressman who knows the Arab world makes a secret offer that may be the last remaining hope. So begins Evan Kendrick's odyssey. He works alone in a nightmare world of violence. His only condition is anonymity, his only wish, to finish the job and return to private life. But for Kendrick, Masqat is only the beginning. He is marked for things beyond his understanding.

    He was immediately inspired – but it was a huge undertaking and he’d hardly been on a bike in years. Could he really cycle all the way round the world, solo and unsupported?Six months later, after completing a punishing training schedule and packing up everything he owned into boxes, Sean was in Greenwich Park on the start line of the adventure of a lifetime. Soon he was way ahead of schedule, averaging 180 miles per day, and on course to break the round the world cycling record. But then disaster struck, and Sean was forced to confront the possibility that he may not be able to complete the race...In the course of his 16,000-mile journey, Sean travelled the famous pan-American highway across the Atacama Desert, outran tornados, relied on fellow travellers to ferry water across the Australian outback, and inadvertently joined a cycle club in Mumbai. He learnt things about himself he didn’t know and rediscovered a spirit of adventure that changed everything. This is a book about an amazing and sometimes incredibly difficult journey, but it’s also a book about never giving up when there’s an opportunity to follow your dreams.

    . .But instead she opened the door to HellRomantic novelist Mandy Freeman thinks all her dreams have come true when she becomes the new owner of Summer Cottage, the former home of her idol, bestselling author Ellen Grace. With her new life starting and love on the horizon, Mandy's future is looking bright.But as Mandy begins to learn, all is not as it seems at Summer Cottage. As a series of increasingly disturbing and sinister events forces her to delve into the mysterious past of its former owner Ellen Grace, Mandy finds herself caught up in a horrifying nightmare that threatens to destroy her sanity . . . and perhaps claim her life.