In captivating prose, Dowden spins tales of cults and commerce in Senegal and traditional spirituality in Sierra Leone; analyzes the impact of oil and the internet on Nigeria and aid on Sudan; and examines what has gone so badly wrong in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo. From the individual stories of failure and success comes a surprising portrait of a new Africa emerging--an Africa that, Dowden argues, can only be developed by its own people. Dowden's master work is an attempt to explain why Africa is the way it is and calls for a re-examination of the perception of Africa as "the dark continent." He reveals it as a place of inspiration and tremendous humanity.

    An electrician by trade, Frank’s experience of sailing amounted to not very much – an unpleasant spell on a Scottish fishing trawler as a young man and a brief holiday on someone else’s yacht off the coast of Mozambique a couple of years before. Never one to be daunted by a challenge or to be resisted in any way, he took his nine year old twins, Robert and Nicky, out of school, persuaded his wife Maureen that they would all learn how to sail and cope with life on the open seas as they went, and prepared to follow his dream of circumnavigating the world. Facing real danger from the elements and at first having to live more by their wits than their skills, the Stilwell family set off boldly, determined to become part of a community of sailors and adventurers who spend more time on the ocean than they do on dry land. Thinking Up a Hurricane is the unique coming of age memoir of Martinique Stilwell’s recounting of her true life gypsy childhood. It is poignant and funny and heartbreaking all at the same time. With the wisdom and innocence of a child’s point of view, it is a powerful yet tender story of physical and emotional adversity, of family dysfunction and the ties that bind, and of the shackles and exhilarating freedom of growing up different.

    But as one investigator digs deeper, he finds evidence that suggests the First Lady was really the target. But his superiors ignore him and he has to go it alone. Within a few short hours, he is elbow-deep in government agents, hired thugs, lying witnesses and enough killers to stock a small country. As he gets closer and closer to the secret cabal behind the assassination, they fight back. To stay alive, the investigator goes on the run--but where do you go when there's no place to hide. Chock full of intrigue, romance, sexy, hot women, action, pursuits and plenty of desk-level hard work. If you can put down FIRST LADY DOWN after you start reading, you will be the first reader to do it.

    Within months, she is the wife of a French safari guide and the stepmother of an eleven-year-old. The year that follows is a test of courage and resilience as each member of the family struggles to make a place for himself in a tantalizing and dangerous world. Part love story, part adventure saga, Our House in Arusha explores the meaning of second chances.

    Filled with enthusiasm for their new life, the couple and their young son set off for an African adventure. Very soon, however, Veronica began to realise that life in the Congo was not what she had imagined.

    War is raging between the mages and seventeen-year-old Sara Fairchild will be right in the middle of it.She just doesn't know it yet.Sara is the daughter of a disgraced imperial commander, executed for desertion. Sara is also the best duelist and hand-to-hand combatant in Sandrin. She lives quietly with her family’s shame but when challenged about her family’s honor, her opponent inevitably loses.On the night she finds out her father’s true last actions, she takes the Mercenary Guilds’ vows to serve in the emperor’s army. Using her quick wits and fierce fighting skills, she earns a spot in the first division. There she discovers secrets the mages on both sides would prefer stay hidden. Dark enemies hunt her and soon it's not just Sara questioning the motivation behind this war.While fighting mages, blackmailing merchants and discovering new friends, Sara comes across something she’s never had before - passion. The question is - can she fight for her empress against a mage who might unwittingly claim her heart?This is year one of the Initiate Wars. Sara is hoping it doesn't become the year she dies.

    Her future will be measured not in years, but in months. Nicki makes a decision: in the time she has left, she is determined to live. Accompanied by friends, Nicki embarcks on a last-fling cruise to the Greek Islands--she wants to fill her days with as much beauty and pleasure as she can. But when she meets Michael Schuster, a handsome British photographer, she realizes she's found the last thing she'd ever thought she'd find--true love. Deciding to hide her illness, Nicki hopes to spare the man she loves the truth she cannot avoid. Can a life time of love be had in only a few weeks? And is love strong enough to overcome everything--even death? Nicki is about to find out....Twenty years old, smart, gorgeous and hip, college valedictorian Nicki McBain is on the fast track, poised to begin a high-powered law carreer when she hears devastating news: Her future will be measured not in years, but in months. Her body has dealt her a death sentance, but in the time she has left, Nicki has decided to live. Accompanied by friends, Nicki embarks on a last-fling cruise to the Greek islands, determined to fill her last days with as much beauty and pleasure as she can grab. But when she meets Michael Schuster, a handsome British photographer, she realizes she's found the last thing she was looking for: true love. By hiding her illness, Nicki hopes to spare the man she loves the truth she cannot avoid, and to experience a lifetime of love, if only for a few weeks.Twenty years old, smart, gorgeous and hip, college valedictorian Nicki McBain is on the fast track, poised to begin a high-powered law carreer when she hears devastating news: Her future will be measured not in years, but in months. Her body has dealt her a death sentance, but in the time she has left, Nicki has decided to live.Accompanied by friends, Nicki embarks on a last-fling cruise to the Greek islands, determined to fill her last days with as much beauty and pleasure as she can grab. But when she meets Michael Schuster, a handsome British photographer, she realizes she's found the last thing she was looking for: true love. By hiding her illness, Nicki hopes to spare the man she loves the truth she cannot avoid, and to experience a lifetime of love, if only for a few weeks.

    

    But with over one trillion photos taken each year, why are there so few successes? Why do so many fail? With advances in camera technology, it is not because the images lack focus or proper exposure; the camera does that so well these days. Photographer David duChemin believes the majority of our images fall short because they lack soul. And without soul, the images have no ability to resonate with others. They simply cannot connect with the viewer, or even--if we're being truthful--with ourselves.In The Soul of the Camera: The Photographer's Place in Picture-Making, David explores what it means to make better photographs. Illustrated with a beautiful collection of black-and-white photographs, the book's essays speak to topics such as craft, mastery, vision, audience, discipline, story, and authenticity. The Soul of the Camera is a personal and deeply pragmatic book that quietly yet forcefully challenges the idea that our cameras, lenses, and settings are anything more than dumb and mute tools. It is the photographer, not the camera, that can and must learn to make better photographs--photographs that convey our vision; that connect with others; that, at their core, contain our humanity.

    Calm in the face of the horde gathering below, they know it's a good day for dying... but a better one for killing. At the centre of their formation a tall, broad-shouldered man surveys his troops. Only at his command will they rise and engage the enemy. He is Shaka, his men are Zulu – the best trained foot soldiers in Africa – and the blood spilled in the coming battle will write the opening chapter of their legend.Following in Shaka's footsteps, AmaZulu sweeps across the burned hills of south east Africa's interior, charting the dawn of the Zulu nation through the eyes of the Induna, a battle-scarred captain, and his eleven-year-old apprentice. Aflame with conflict and intrigue, nobility and treachery, it tells the story of an unquenchable thirst for revenge and a genius for warfare that forged an empire as powerful and revered as Napoleon's France or Caesar's Rome.

    Caught between interventionists at home and fundamentalists abroad, a prime minister flounders as his ministers betray him, alliances fall apart, and a runaway general makes policy in the field. As the media accuse Western soldiers of barbarity and a region slides into chaos, the armies of God clash on an ancient river and an accidental empire arises.This is not the Middle East of the early twenty-first century. It is Africa in the late nineteenth century, when the river Nile became the setting for an extraordinary collision between Europeans, Arabs, and Africans. A human and religious drama, the conflict defined the modern relationship between the West and the Islamic world. The story is not only essential for understanding the modern clash of civilizations but is also a gripping, epic, tragic adventure."Three Empires on the Nile" tells of the rise of the first modern Islamic state and its fateful encounter with the British Empire of Queen Victoria. Ever since the self-proclaimed Islamic messiah known as the Mahdi gathered an army in the Sudan and besieged and captured Khartoum under its British overlord Charles Gordon, the dream of a new caliphate has haunted modern Islamists. Today, Shiite insurgents call themselves the Mahdi Army, and Sudan remains one of the great fault lines of battle between Muslims and Christians, blacks and Arabs. The nineteenth-century origins of it all were even more dramatic and strange than today's headlines.In the hands of Dominic Green, the story of the Nile's three empires is an epic in the tradition of Kipling, the bard of empire, and Winston Churchill, who fought in the final destruction of the Mahdi's army. It is a sweeping and very modern tale of God and globalization, slavers and strategists, missionaries and messianists. A pro-Western regime collapses from its own corruption, a jihad threatens the global economy, a liberation movement degenerates into a tyrannical cult, military intervention goes wrong, and a temporary occupation lasts for decades. In the rise and fall of empires, we see a parable for our own times and a reminder that, while American military involvement in the Islamic world is the beginning of a new era for America, it is only the latest chapter in an older story for the people of the region.

    

    It’s a necessary commodity that is quite heavy and thus very expensive to launch into space, especially when you require enough of it to support a large crew for an extensive journey. That universal resource is water and there’s one little outpost in the Kuiper Belt that holds the contract for mining and supplying this valuable commodity.Theophilus has spent his entire life aboard the vastly populated Oort Station along with thousands of others who were merely a byproduct of their ancestor’s occupation. When his older brother stows away on a departing Galactic Cruiser to chase after a possible conspiracy, he winds up becoming another statistic in the mystery of the missing ships. It would be years before Theo would discover that his brother may not have been so crazy after all and that indeed; ships were heading out of the system, but they weren’t going to Ophidian or Legacy. And sometimes, the ships weren’t returning at all.A follow-up to Ghosts of Ophidian brought to you by the international bestselling author of the Mystic Saga. With over 150,000 books downloaded worldwide, Scott McElhaney continues to prove that 99 cents is the future of Kindle publishing no matter how many books the author has sold.

    He is based at Yokota Air Base, in Japan, and becomes comfortable flying generals and other VIPs around Asia in his Sabreliner executive jet. He is adjusting to his new marriage, and aside from the stress of TDY assignments, life is placid.But the war returns with a vengeance when Hamfist suffers a personal loss at the hands of the North Vietnamese. Hamfist knows that the only way he can find inner peace is to go back for another combat tour, to try to bring the horrific war to a speedy end. And this time, he will fly a fighter, the top-of-the-line F-4 Phantom II.Hamfist checks out in the F-4 and arrives at his base in Thailand just in time for the start of Operation Linebacker, the bombing offensive over Hanoi. He soon finds himself flying over the most heavily defended area in the world, dodging Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) and dueling with enemy aircraft, the vaunted MiG-series fighters. And along the way he has picked up two new goals: completing 100 missions over North Vietnam and defeating a MiG in aerial combat.Only time will tell if Hamfist will achieve his 100 missions, score a victory over a MiG and, most important, help end the war.