Mount Everest: Confessions of an Amateur Peak Bagger
Kevin Flynn - 2006
In May 2004, Flynn reached the summit of Mt. Everest--but not without tears, laughter, failures, near-death experiences and great friendships. If you'sve ever wondered what it would be like for a mere mortal to attempt Mt. Everest, this book is as close as it gets.
Japanese Demystified
Eriko Sato - 2008
This title takes the mystery and menace out of learning Japanese by walking readers step-by-step through the fundamentals of the language.
The White Masai
Corinne Hofmann - 1998
Corinne, a European entrepreneur, meets Lketinga, a Samburu warrior, while on vacation in Mombasa on Kenya's glamorous coast. Despite language and cultural barriers, they embark on an impossible love affair. Corinne uproots her life to move to Africa—not the romantic Africa of popular culture, but the Africa of the Masai, in the middle of the isolated bush, where five-foot-tall huts made from cow dung serve as homes. Undaunted by wild animals, hunger, and bouts with tropical diseases, she tries to forge a life with Lketinga. But slowly the dream starts to crumble when she can no longer ignore the chasm between their two vastly different cultures.A story that taps into our universal belief in the power of love, The White Masai is at once a hopelessly romantic love story, a gripping adventure yarn, and a compulsively good read.
For Duty and Honor
Leo J. Maloney - 2016
Maloney delivers a heartpounding tale as fast, cold, and sleek as a 9mm bullet . . .FOR DUTY AND HONORThe unthinkable has happened to operative Dan Morgan. Captured by the Russians. Imprisoned in the Gulag. Tortured by his cruelest, most sadistic enemy. But Morgan knows that every prisoner has a past—and every rival can be used. With the most unlikely of allies, Morgan hatches a plan. To save what’s important, he must risk everything. And that’s when the stakes go sky-high. Dan Morgan’s got to keep fighting. For duty. And honor. And even certain death . . .
The King in Exile
Sudha Shah - 2012
Exhaustively researched and gracefully written, The King in Exile tells a story of compelling human interest, filled with drama, pathos and tragedy... [It] heralds the arrival of a writer of non-fiction who is both uncommonly talented and exceptionally diligent... One of the great merits of [the book] is that it is completely free of jargon and theorizing. It is in essence a family story, centred on five women whose lives were waylaid by history' Amitav Ghosh in his blog 'The captivity of Burma's last king and the fall of the Konbaung dynasty: a compelling new account'. In 1879, as the king of Burma lay dying, one of his queens schemed for his forty-first son, Thibaw, to supersede his half brothers to the throne. For seven years, King Thibaw and Queen Supayalat ruled from the resplendent, intrigue-infused Golden Palace in Mandalay, where they were treated as demi-gods. After a war against Britain in 1885, their kingdom was lost, and the family exiled to the secluded town of Ratnagiri in British-occupied India. Here they lived, closely guarded, for over thirty-one years. The king's four daughters received almost no education, and their social interaction was restricted mainly to their staff. As the princesses grew, so did their hopes and frustrations. Two of them fell in love with 'highly inappropriate' men. In 1916, the heartbroken king died. Queen Supayalat and her daughters were permitted to return to Rangoon in 1919. In Burma, the old queen regained some of her feisty spirit as visitors came by daily to pay their respects. All the princesses, however, had to make numerous adjustments in a world they had no knowledge of. The impact of the deposition and exile echoed forever in each of their lives, as it did in the lives of their children. Written after years of meticulous research, and richly supplemented with photographs and illustrations, The King in Exile is an engrossing human-interest story of this forgotten but fascinating family.
Lenz
Georg Büchner - 1835
Lenz is a dispassionate account on the nervous system of a schizophrenic, perhaps the first third-person text ever written from the “inside” of insanity. At his death at the age of 23 in 1837, Georg Büchner also left behind Leonce and Lena, Woyzeck, and Danton’s Death—psychologically and politically acute plays well ahead of their time.Richard Sieburth’s translations include Hölderlin’s Hymns and Fragments, Walter Benjamin’s Moscow Diary, Gérard de Nerval’s Selected Writings and Henri Michaux’s Emergences/Resurgences. His English edition of the Nerval writings won the 2000 PEN Book-of-the-Month-Club Translation Prize.
Nights of the Long Knives
Hans Hellmut Kirst - 1967
Resistance Women
Jennifer Chiaverini - 2019
Lincoln’s Dressmaker, an enthralling historical saga that recreates the danger, romance, and sacrifice of an era and brings to life one courageous, passionate American—Mildred Fish Harnack—and her circle of women friends who waged a clandestine battle against Hitler in Nazi Berlin.After Wisconsin graduate student Mildred Fish marries brilliant German economist Arvid Harnack, she accompanies him to his German homeland, where a promising future awaits. In the thriving intellectual culture of 1930s Berlin, the newlyweds create a rich new life filled with love, friendships, and rewarding work—but the rise of a malevolent new political faction inexorably changes their fate.As Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party wield violence and lies to seize power, Mildred, Arvid, and their friends resolve to resist. Mildred gathers intelligence for her American contacts, including Martha Dodd, the vivacious and very modern daughter of the US ambassador. Her German friends, aspiring author Greta Kuckoff and literature student Sara Weitz, risk their lives to collect information from journalists, military officers, and officials within the highest levels of the Nazi regime.For years, Mildred’s network stealthily fights to bring down the Third Reich from within. But when Nazi radio operatives detect an errant Russian signal, the Harnack resistance cell is exposed, with fatal consequences.Inspired by actual events, Resistance Women is an enthralling, unforgettable story of ordinary people determined to resist the rise of evil, sacrificing their own lives and liberty to fight injustice and defend the oppressed.
The Underground Storyteller
Alex Day - 2014
Faced with the idea that this could happen to the tube, he set off to visit every station - all 270 of them - to see what stories they had to share and preserve them forever. Funny, fascinating and touching, this is a tale of one man's obsession, adventure and the human stories that are only a train ride away.
Here Speeching American: A Very Strange Guide to English as it is Garbled Around the World
Ross Petras - 2004
And if that’s too much to ask, remember the sage advice from the staff of a Taipei hotel: “If there is anything we can do to assist and help you, please do not contact us.”