The best fly anglers in the world—Lefty Kreh, Stu Apte, Ted Williams, Tom Evans, Billy Pate and others—all gathered together to chase the same Holy Grail: The world record for the world’s most glamorous and sought-after fly rod species, the tarpon. The anglers would meet each morning for breakfast. They would compete out on the water during the day, eat dinner together at night, socialize and party.  Some harder than others. The world record fell nearly every year. But records weren’t the only things that were broken. Hooks, lines, rods, reels, hearts and marriages didn’t survive, either. The egos involved made the atmosphere electric. The difficulty of the quest made it legitimate. The drugs and romantic entanglements that were swept in with the tide would finally make it all veer out of control. It was a confluence of people and place that had never happened before in the world of fishing and will never happen again.  It was a collision of the top anglers and the top species of fish which would lead to smashed lives for nearly all involved, man and fish alike. In Lords of the Fly, Burke, an obsessed tarpon fly angler himself, delves into this incredible moment.  He examines the growing popularity of the tarpon, an amazing fish has been around for 50 million years, can live to 80 years old and can grow to 300 pounds in weight. It is a massive, leaping, bullet train of a fish.  When hooked in shallow water, it produces “immediate unreality,” as the late poet and tarpon obsessive, Richard Brautigan, once described it. Burke also chronicles the heartbreaking destruction that exists as a result—brought on by greed, environmental degradation and the shenanigans of a notorious Miami gangster—and how all of it has shaped our contemporary fishery. Filled with larger-than-life characters and vivid prose, Lords of the Fly is not only a must read for anglers of all stripes, but also for those interested in the desperate yearning of the human condition.

    Written in diary form, the book offers a rare insight into the ways of life that have existed since the dawn of time and are about to disappear forever. Illness, accidents and all manner of unforeseen mishaps test Parry's strength every step of the way.

    Bidwell offers her firsthand experience and advice on Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills — including the Southern Hills, the Badlands, and Keystone. Bidwell provides unique travel strategies such as Best Hiking Trails, Viewing Wildlife, and Fossil Collecting in the Parks, Grasslands, and National Forest. Expert tips include the best sights for dining, shopping, accommodations, and camping, providing travelers with the tools they need for a more personal and memorable visit to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills.

    It was a journey that would take him from the ultimate source of the Amazon high in the Andes to its mouth on the Atlantic coast of South America - a distance of over 7000 kilometres along the length of the world's wildest river.The journey from source to sea had only ever been completed by two expeditions, both of them assisted by first-class training, state-of-the-art equipment and major budgets. Ben, the Australian on the team, Colin Angus from Canada and Scott Borthwick from South Africa - all in their mid-twenties - were attempting the epic journey with fifteen thousand Australian dollars between them, some second-hand camping gear, a grand total of five afternoons' training in whitewater rafting and a large dose of blind optimism.Five months later they arrived at the Atlantic Ocean, having survived some of the planet's most dangerous whitewater, wild storms, disgusting tropical diseases, several hundred species of venomous insects and reptiles, not to mention being pursued and shot at by guerrillas from Peru's murderous Shining Path rebel movement and mistaken by paramilitary police for drug smugglers.Three Men in a Raft is the account of their extraordinary journey. It's both a travel book and an adventure story, laced with humour, danger and vivid description - unlikely, endearing and enthralling.

    He just never had the money. Until he realised he could do it on the world’s most expensive luxury cruise.Mischievous and entertaining, this is the first book to be written about a new phenomenon – the strange and unreported world of small luxury cruise ships, so exclusive that if you need to ask how much they cost, you probably can't afford them. So don’t act like the Cruise Queen Bee who, when she received her invitation to the Captain’s table, wrote back giving her apologies and explaining, ‘I cannot accept your invitation as, on principle, I never eat with the staff.’ Buy the book and take your place as Hugh serves up tales that are clear-sighted about the rich and observant of the new world opening up on our horizons, powered by a supercharged 32,000 ton luxury liner, a microcosm of 21st-century life, with its superb engineering that almost, but not quite, overcomes all the indignities the natural world can throw at it.Hugh’s previous books have been acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic – ‘Everywhere Thomson goes, he finds good stories to tell’ New York Times Book Review – and this new book will delight his many fans.

    Incorporated in the textbook are useful illustrations and exceptional photographs of complex sailing concepts. There are also quizzes at the end of each chapter, and a glossary to help those new to sailing to navigate their way through the extensive nautical terminology.

    It embodies all the practical paramilitary knowledge collected and studied by dissident groups through-out America.

    Whether you’re planning to spend an occasional overnight in a parking lot or an extended stay in the wilderness, you’ll learn how to equip your rig for boondocking, find great campsites, manage and conserve electricity and water, and camp in complete RV comfort and convenience. Increase your independence by learning how to camp "off the grid" Save money by finding cheap or free campsites anywhere--even in large cities Ensure your comfort, convenience, and safety when camping in the boonies Learn how to conserve and manage electricity, water, and waste, and to establish reliable communications Enjoy the quiet, solitude, and beauty of nature by getting away from crowded RV campgrounds

    How has the climate changed in the past?How is it changing now?How do we know?And what kind of a future do we want to create?

    In this brief, gloriously bold novel, Brian Kiteley lays bare the unquiet soul of an amateur entomologist, giving voice to our own deepest intimations of immortality.

    Through Abbey's own writings and personal papers, as well as interviews with friends and acquaintances, Bishop gives us a penetrating, compelling, no-holds-barred view of tile life and accomplishments of this controversial figure.

    . . . Steffy meets the burden by demonstrating that corporate behemoth BP (formerly British Petroleum) could have prevented the 11 deaths on April 20, 2010, aboard the Deepwater Horizon. . . . The deaths and the gigantic oil spill following the sinking of Deepwater Horizon will surely become a landmark of corporate ineptness and greed for the remainder of human history, thanks in part to Steffy's remarkable account." San Antonio Express-News "Steffy has produced a fascinating, gripping, revealing account. . . . The book details events aboard the Deepwater Horizon in April of 2010 to start, but it digs deeper into what is revealed as a culture of cost-cutting boiling over within BP. Steffy documents years of incidents and poor management decisions, detailing the rise of key characters like John Browne and Tony Hayward alongside riveting outlines of horrifying events in Texas City and at other BP locations. . . . The book reads like fiction at times, with the author's heavily-detailed accounts of explosions and conversations creating vivid, nearly fantastical images. The tragic history of BP is all-too-real, though, as the lost lives and environmental damage certainly attest to.. . . Steffy is a thorough, straightforward author. His concerns largely lie with the loss of life and the general culture of cost-cutting of BP, painting an apt and terrifying picture of rampant, steady, costly neglect." Seattle Post Intelligencer "Steffy provides valuable insight and crucial corporate context in explaining how so much oil ended up in the Gulf of Mexico." BusinessWeek "[Steffy's] investigations reveal a corporate culture of cost-cutting initiatives that put profits ahead of workers' lives and the environment, with repeated safety violations and an abysmal accident history. . . . Steffy details how, in the context of BP's record, the disaster was just part of a pattern of poor decision making in the relentless pursuit by BP to become the largest and most profitable oil company in the world." Booklist About the BookAs night settled on April 20, 2010, a series of explosions rocked Deepwater Horizon, the immense semisubmersible drilling platform leased by British Petroleum, located 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. The ensuing inferno claimed 11 lives, and it would rage uncontained for two days, until its wreckage sank to a final resting place nearly a mile beneath the waves. On the ocean floor, the unit's wellhead erupted. Over the next ten weeks, as repeated attempts to cap the geyser failed, an estimated 200 million gallons of oil--the equivalent of 20 Exxon Valdez spills--spewed into the Gulf of Mexico, eventually lapping up on beaches as far away as Florida.Drowning in Oil, by award-winning Houston Chronicle business reporter and columnist Loren Steffy--considered by many to be the writer with the best access to the story--is an unprecedented and gripping narrative of this catastrophe and how BP's winner-take-all business culture made it all but inevitable.Through never-before-published interviews with BP executives and employees, environmental experts, and oil industry insiders, Steffy takes us behind the scenes of 100 years of BP corporate history. Beginning with the conglomerate's early gambits in the Middle East to its recent ascent among energy titans, Steff unearths the roots of the Gulf oil spill in the unwritten bargain between oil producers and consumers, whose insatiable appetites drive the search for new supplies faster, farther, and deeper.Beyond this, the Deepwater Horizon disaster took place after a history of cost cutting in pursuit of profits, particularly under the guidance of its two most recent ex-CEOs, John Browne and Anthony Hayward.Exhaustively researched and documented, Drowning in Oil is the first in-depth examination of how a lack of corporate responsibility and government oversight led to the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. It is an objective, no-punches-pulled account of the energy industry: its environmental impact and the intense competition among stakeholders in today's oil markets.This book puts all the pieces together, offering a definitive account of BP's pursuit of outsized profits as the industrial world awakens to the grim realities of Peak Oil."They fumbled around the darkened room and found an instruction manual. By flashlight, they read the starting procedures. They were doing everything right. After five or six futile tries, they gave up and headed back toward the bridge. Back on the bridge, alarms were shrieking and the captain knew they were running out of time. The subsea engineer had hit the emergency disconnect for the well, and although the control panel showed the rig should be free, it wasn't. The hydraulics were dead. Fire continued to shoot from the top of the derrick. The rig had no power, and without power, it had no pumps for the firefighting equipment, no way to shut off the flow of gas from the well, and no way to disconnect the rig from the flaming umbilical that had it tethered to the wellhead." --from Drowning in Oil

    Then night fell and the world ended. For many, it was a long, slow, lingering death. For others, it came quickly, full of terror and agony. Few survived. The ones that did watched the setting sun with a rising panic. Out of the ashes of humankind’s demise rose the night runners. They were death loping down darkened streets, their shrieks echoing off empty buildings. Untold Stories is a series of short stories depicting the experiences of some who faced the fall of civilization as we know it. A scream in the night… And terror poured forth…

     The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to Beekeeping has all the information a begin­ning beekeeper needs to know to start a hive and keep it buzzing. Expert beekeepers Dean Stiglitz and Laurie Herboldsheimer, owners of Golden Rule Honey, take readers step by step through the entire process-from information on the inhabitants of a hive and how it works to collecting bees, keeping them healthy, raising a queen, harvesting honey and wax, and stor­ing hives for the off- season.

    Ella’s growing consciousness begins to shake the foundations of her life, and she comes to the realization that she is irrevocably changed—and that to be true to herself, she must make painful choices.First published in 1972, Ella Price's Journal is a deeply authentic literary rendering of a woman’s struggle to give voice to what Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique called “the problem that has no name,” and a novel that affirms the possibility of growth toward a richly intense and authentic life at any age.