The 800-kilometer journey along the Camino Frances provides a scenic backdrop to ponder midlife crisis and chronic illness, an empty nest and marital woes, military service and posttraumatic stress, rage and grief, heartbreak and fear - And the way forward. El Camino de Santiago, known fondly as The Way, is a matrix of trails with starting points across Europe leading to the sacred relics of Saint James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Often considered a Catholic pilgrimage, this ancient route predates Christianity. The Way continues to evolve, attracting spiritual seekers with and without religion, thru-hikers, fitness junkies, history buffs, and the curious. Armed with humor and grit and a backpack named little Agnus, Lockhart tackles emotional and physical obstacles, shares adventures with pilgrims from all over the world, mothers traveling teens, endures blisters and bicycle seats and embraces the glory of Mother Nature and the intrinsic spirituality of peregrination. She finds herself transcending from a human being on a spiritual quest to a spiritual being on a human quest.

    A highly personal account of a remarkable journey that pushed the author to the brink

     Returning home to a job I didn’t enjoy, that dream burned at my mind until, as a mature student in 1999, I was given the opportunity to take a year out and decided now was my time. This was at a time of huge advances in communication technology but I chose to journey without a mobile phone or any other means of communicating with the outside world – something we might struggle to comprehend these days. If I got into trouble, if I got injured, if I became lost, it was up to me to sort myself out. No close friends were willing to leave the comforts of home, so the fledgling internet did at least prove useful in finding a travel companion. But within nine days of the start of my journey I found myself alone, close to the bottom of the world and with many thousands of miles of the unknown still ahead. This book tells how the desire to fulfil a burning ten-year dream helped me overcome illness, injury, exhaustion, loneliness and so much more; how I, a normal guy from a working-class family in Leeds – among many other adventures – found myself singing to bears to keep them at bay, ran out of water crossing the driest desert in the world, had a volcano rain ash down on me and found myself hiding out from bandits most nights while pedalling through Mexico.

    Bruce Bryden's tales of 27 years in the service of our most famous park make a gripping and entertaining read, abounding with encounters with elephant, lion, buffalo, leopard and rhino, whether darting for research, managing culling operations by helicopter or stalking on foot. In the best tradition of bushveld stories, there is a great deal of shooting, and a fair amount of running away; there are meetings with extraordinary characters among the rangers; memorable gatherings; hilarious mishaps and narrow escapes; and throughout, a great love and respect for both the wilderness and the creatures that inhabit it.

    They were miles away from any neighbors, surrounded on all sides by wolves, bears and other wildlife, entering the world of subsistence living in an uninviting land of dangerous weather and storms; yet the Neilsons were able to make themselves a home where few others would have found possible. Led by a jack-of-all-trades handyman for a father and a mother who was afraid of everything in the wilderness, Tara and her four siblings cleared the rough terrain to build atop the blackened, rusty ruins a new way of life that was completely their own.From a young age, Tara learned that anything was possible, so long as one can imagine it and then make it happen. When given her mother's impractical design of a six-bedroom house, her father picked up his tools and crafted it into a reality. To reach the closest community, they built a wooden boat sixteen feet long for the perilous journey on the water. The Alaska wilds required independence and self-sufficiency from the family, and in return it provided a natural landscape that inspired romantic passion and unlimited dreams. With endless forest on one side and the wide ocean on the other, Tara embraced the lonesomeness of the burned cannery ruins that she called home, and often wondered what it once was with its people inside, their stories, where they went, and what happened to them.Beautifully poignant and completely original, Raised in Ruins escapes into the wilderness to discover a piece of Alaskan history wrapped in an incredible family adventure fueled by love, strength, hard work, endurance, and boundless imagination.

    Glamour, too. And love. But there were other things lurking--danger, death, personal loss--that I did not foresee. Most of all, there was war.- Growing up in 1960s Detroit, Lynda Schuster felt convinced that life was happening somewhere else and she was determined to find it. And find it she did. DIRTY WARS AND POLISHED SILVER is the story of her life abroad as a foreign correspondent in war-torn countries, and as the wife of a U. S. Ambassador. It chronicles her experiences reporting on uprisings in the jungles of Mexico, dodging rocket fire in Lebanon, being held hostage in the wastelands of Angola, and grieving the loss of her first husband, Los Angeles Times reporter Dial Torgrson, who was killed on assignment at the Honduran-Nicaraguan border. But even after her second marriage, when she traded in the bombs and bravado of journalism for the supposedly safer life as the wife of U. S. diplomat, all the black-tie parties and personal staff and genteel grooming at -Ambassatrix School- in the world could not protect her from the violence of war. Told with great good humor, DIRTY WARS AND POLISHED SILVER is the gripping yet charming story of one woman's journey to self-discovery, and about how she ultimately found herself where she least expected to be: in essentially the same place, only wiser, saner, more resolved--and all in one piece.

    As panicked motorists swerved out of her way, she continued for almost two miles. Blowing horns, flashing lights, and waving arms did nothing to deter her. Rounding a curve in the road, she rocketed head on into an oncoming SUV. The vehicles seemed to explode as they hit. The minivan plunged downhill and burst into flames as the SUV was pushed across two lanes and struck by another SUV. In the smoldering vehicle and twisted metal scattered along the highway, lay the bodies of eight people.Days later came the headlines;"Wrong Way Crash Mom Drunk and High!"

    With encouragement from family and friends, never having traveled outside the United States, the self-proclaimed homebody from Texas hopped on a plane at age 53 alone and headed for the Iberian Peninsula. It wasn’t just the beginning of a month-long journey, but also, as he would discover, the beginning of a new life. Facing fear, regret and reality When he arrived in Pamplona, home of the famous San Fermin Running of the Bulls Festival, Clark immediately began to regret his decision. To put it bluntly, he was scared to death. Possessed by an obsessive mind, he could not shake the idea that he was all alone in a foreign country, some 5,000 miles and an ocean’s distance away from home, about to go on a very long walk with nothing but a backpack full of basic supplies. His first impulse was to simply pack up and go back home, but somehow, though full of anxiety, he survived that first sleepless night in a hotel room near the Plaza del Castillo, and began his trek the following day. What did he discover? What happened to John Clark on his 500-mile pilgrimage? Did he make it? Find out when you crack open this colorful, insightful, and revelatory memoir full of tears and triumph. Be inspired as you experience this harrowing and heartwarming coming-of-age story that proves it’s never too late in life for a new adventure.

    Dennis Chalker was an original “plankowner” (founding member) of SEAL Team Six, and in One Perfect Op, he takes readers deep inside the remarkable world of America’s Special Forces operatives. With an introduction by Richard Marcinko of Rogue Warrior fame, One Perfect Op describes, step by breathtaking step, one extraordinary SEALs mission, shedding fascinating new light on the training, the planning, the courage and the skill of these exceptional warriors.

    This version has the original photographs returned.

    In between, there were four children (including actress Isabella Rossellini), three husbands, and passionate affairs with war photographer Robert Capa, Wizard of Oz director Victor Fleming, and Spellbound co-star Gregory Peck. Over her forty-seven-year career, Ingrid Bergman performed in fifty-five movies - in five languages and seven countries - and eleven stage productions, picking up three Oscars along the way. In the words of one biographer, she was "arguably the most international star in the history of entertainment." And, without a doubt, one of the most misunderstood.

    Aloha Magnum is a chronicle of Larry Manetti's wild childhood, his crazy days in Hollywood, his moonlighting as a prominent restaurateur, and his escapades with the rich, famous, and equally outrageous.

    To reconnect with his past. And to better understand the 19th-century Cascade Range advocate John Waldo, the state's answer to California's naturalist John Muir. Despite great expectations, near trails end Welch finds himself facing an unlikely challenge. Laughs. Blisters. And new friends from literally around the world-his PCT adventure offered it all. But he never foresaw the bittersweet ending.

    As workers in one of the world's most dangerous - and lucrative - professions, the crewmen in Nights of Ice face a constant onslaught of roaring waves, stories-high swells, and life-stealing ice. Within seconds, a vessel such as the forty-ton Tidings can fill with icy water and slip into the depths, hurling crewmen into the freezing ocean and entombing the skipper inside its sinking hull. A ship like the Mia Dawn can run aground on a piece of submerged rock and immediately ice over, sinking steadily as her crew, battered by hypothermia and ninety-mph winds, assembles a life raft to await helicopter rescue by the U.S. Coast Guard. Tested by the elements, ravaged by their own emotions, the seamen in these extraordinary stories battle both fear and the violent unpredictability of nature. As Spike Walker's deft narration reveals, they do so with courage, instinct, and an unrelenting will to survive.

    They would sell it all, downsize, leave their high-paying jobs, and go out to find and explore every corner of the world. They would take risks. In this book, written in a very present first-person style, Joe takes the reader on a journey through the decisions, challenges, and triumphs of embracing a minimalist lifestyle, and getting on the road full time. Full of practical insight and wisdom, and told in an almost folksy and very personal tone, Take Risks is a powerful ‘how-we-did-it’ tale that will inspire you and give you a starting place for your own journey. If you’ve ever wanted to move into a full-time RV lifestyle, this book is for you. Take your own risks, starting right now, and embrace the rewards that come with them. This is the book I wish I’d read two years ago. It’s less of a ‘how-to,’ and more of a ‘how we did it’ look at RV life.” —Kevin Tumlinson, Author & Podcast Host