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Queen Elizabeth II's Guide to Life
Karen Dolby - 2019
Now in her ninety-fourth year, this timely celebration sheds new light on the myriad attributes and personal qualities she brings to the nation. From fortitude in the face of adversity to standing as the nation's ambassador all over the world, no one could doubt the work ethic that powers this remarkable woman, even into her nineties. Equally, her love of family - from her rock of over sixty years' marriage, Prince Philip, to her great grandchildren - shines through. But what are the secrets of her success? How does she still approach her day-to-day with such vitality and aplomb, even when culture and society are changing rapidly all around her?The Queen on fame: When an MP commented that it must be a strain meeting so many strangers all the time, the Queen smiled, 'It is not as difficult as it might seem. You see, I don't have to introduce myself. They all seem to know who I am.'The Queen on fashion: In the late sixties when Mary Quant and the mini skirt came to epitomize all that was fashionable, Princess Anne suggested her mother might also consider shortening her hemline. The Queen was adamant, 'I am not a film star.' The Queen on family: As Great Britain's most famous great grandmother, it is no surprise that the Queen values family life. 'Marriage gains from the web of family relationships between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, cousins, aunts and uncles.'In this book Karen Dolby unpicks the key elements that make the Queen so special to - and so loved by - the nation and presents a guide to how you too could put into practice some of Her Majesty's traits to help overcome adversity, find inner strength and present yourself as wonderfully considered and calm, even when all about you seems in chaos.
CIA Super Pilot Spills The Beans: Flying Helicopters in Laos for Air America
Bill Collier - 2017
Captain Collier teamed up with his best Vietnam helicopter pilot buddy, Gary, and the two rascals shared enough true adventure to make any novel seem lame. Flying combat in mountainous and weather-hostile Laos was some of the most challenging ever experienced by any pilot, any time, any war. Making fabulous money and having airline benefits allowed them to live an exotic lifestyle, to travel the world on their monthly R&Rs, and to chase and capture more than a few stewardesses from several different airlines.War correspondent Anne Darling described the helicopter pilots for AIR AMERICA as "CIA Super Pilots" Captain Bill Collier was one of those "Super Pilots." This is his story.
My Father, My Monster: A True Story
McIntosh Polela - 2011
But behind a dazzling career, Polela’s troubled past haunts him. When he was a child, both his parents disappeared, leaving him and his sister Zinhle to suffer years of abuse. The story of Polela’s journey to uncover the truth, this candid autobiography shares the journalist’s turmoil as he confronts his father about his mother’s brutal death and faces the worst dilemma a son can ever confront: How can he possibly forgive when his father remains a remorseless, cruel, and heartless murderer?
Pedalling to Hawaii: A Human Powered Adventure
Stevie Smith - 2004
One rainy, miserable Monday he resolves to grab life with both hands and embark on an adventure: the first entirely human-powered journey around the world. Although he had never been on an expedition of any kind and had no money, Stevie and his friend Jason dreamed up a voyage that would take them from England to Hawaii by bicycle, inline skates and ocean-going pedal boat. For 111 days, they pedalled 7,500 kilometers across the Atlantic, and then crossed the United States to take on the challenge of the Pacific. Pedalling to Hawaii is hilarious, entertaining and refreshingly non-heroic, packed with thrills and spills as the intrepid and sometimes blundering duo make their way around the world. It is also a meditative account of a search for simplicity and integrity.
Voyageur: Across the Rocky Mountains in a Birchbark Canoe
Robert Twigger - 2006
Mackenzie travelled by bark canoe and had a cache of rum and a crew of Canadian voyageurs, hard-living backwoodsmen, for company. Two centuries later, in a spirit of organic authenticity, Robert Twigger follows in Mackenzie's wake. He too travels the traditional way, having painstakingly built a canoe from birch bark sewn together with pine roots, and assembled a crew made up of fellow travellers, ex-tree-planters and a former sailor from the US Navy. After the ice has melted, Twigger and his crew of wandering spirits finally nose out into the Athabasca River . . . Three Years . . . two thousand miles . . .over one thousand painfully towing the canoe against the current . . . several had tried before them but they were the first people to successfully complete Mackenzie's diabolical route over the Rockies in a birch bark canoe since 1793. Subsisting on a diet of porridge, elk and jackfish, supplemented with whisky and a bag of grass for the tree planters, and with an Indian medicine charm bestowed by the Cree People of Fox Lake, the voyageurs embark on an epic road trip by canoe . . . a journey to the remotest parts of the wilderness, through Native American reservations, over mountains, through rapids and across lakes, meeting descendants of Mackenzie and unhinged Canadian trappers, running out of food, getting lost and miraculously found again, disfigured for life (the ex-sailor loses his thumb), bears brown and black, docile and grizzly. Voyageur is a moving tale of contrasts from the bleak industrial backwaters of Canada to the desolate wonder of the Rocky Mountains.
India(ish): An Absurd And Awful Saga In A Country Like No Other (Gonzo Travel Books, #2)
Mark Walters - 2017
(Spoiler: That lasts two days.)Then it’s buttock-bruising buses and chock-a-block trains for a farcical journey around the country, across the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, through Maharashtra and Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; to super-cities like Delhi and Mumbai and Kolkata, and sacred spots like Amritsar and Varanasi and Rishikesh, and lesser-visited locations like Madurai and Madikeri and McLeod Ganj.Along the way, Mark sees the awful and the absurd and the awesome, encounters the horrors and riches of India, a country of extreme contrasts that he struggles to survive, strives to like. He has to laugh — it was either that or cry.He meets randy perverts and mystical madmen, sees bodies barbecued beside the Ganges, goes insane when he drinks bhang lassi, wears skinny jeans to a yoga class, and visits the cult of “The Mother”.For a country like no other, it’s a travel book like no other.(*Note*: If you like yoga or knitting or The Guardian, or are the sort of person that orders a korma, this book isn't for you — you'll hate it.)
ದೇವರು [Devaru]
A.N. Murthy Rao - 1991
N. Murthy Rao, caused a sensation in the literary world of Kannada, and won A. N. Murthy Rao admirers, enemies and the Pampa Award from the Karnataka Government. The thought provoking book gives expression to A. N. Murthy Rao's opinions about God, customs, rituals, traditions and Indian culture.
Quest and Crew
David Beaupre - 2014
‘Quest and Crew’ is the first book of a four book series. It begins twenty-four hours before a Category 5 hurricane devastates the south shore of Grenada. It’s a story about the many twists and turns that life can take. The sailboat Quest begins her new life with a full retrofit in North Carolina, followed by Quest’s launch in North Florida two years later. The job of becoming real sailors begins in North Palm Beach. On a clear starry night, we left South Florida on a hope enveloped by a dream. Finding ourselves only at the beginning of a new adventure, we set sail and anchored one island at a time through the Bahamas. The Caribbean is a few books away. Here is a glimpse into the powerful attraction of sailboats and sapphire water. ‘Quest and Crew’ is all about the joy of success as well as what it takes to overcome the occasional disaster. From beginning to end, the book is about transforming a rookie crew and beautiful old boat into a sailing adventure. Come for the hurricane, stay for the story.
Escape from Dubai
Herve Jaubert - 2009
From a life of luxury in the opulent city of Dubai to promised ruination, Jaubert tells a tale of espionage and escape that rivals any best selling novel on the market. Immersed in a luxury submarine business, Jaubert was hired as CEO by Dubai World to develop and design miniature subs for the wealthy. Once problems developed within the business, Herve Jaubert became the scapegoat of government officials and found himself ensnared in a web of police threats, extortion, human rights abuses and coercion. With no chance to make it through their biased legal system, Jaubert planned the escape of his life.
A Dream Worth Living: Finding Strength in the Depths of Struggle Along the Continental Divide
Andy Amick - 2017
In the span of a few hours, you can go from the brink of exhaustion in the worst possible conditions to an explosion of sunshine, amazing people, and breathtaking scenery.” On Friday the 13th, under a full moon and falling rain, Andy Amick completed the first day of the 2014 Tour Divide race. Even with a year of training and preparation, the the physical and mental challenges of the race pushed him further than he thought possible. During the 2700 mile race from Canada to Mexico, he climbed mountain after mountain, witnessed stunning sunsets, encountered the smiles and hospitality of countless people, crossed paths with a mountain lion, and rode through enough mud to last a lifetime. This is the story of one man’s dream to race the Tour Divide and his determination to reach the finish.
The Creek Side Bones: Reality is more horrifying than fiction
George Jared - 2017
A friend needed help with his car. What happened to Carl, Lisa, Gregory, and Felicia that night is worse than any fictional horror story you've ever read or seen on the big screen. Little girls should never have to live in a barrel ... Award-winning journalist and best-selling author George Jared takes readers on a gripping and chilling journey with his latest true-crime book, The Creek Side Bones ... Reality is more horrifying than fiction. The book details how the Elliott family in Dalton, Ark., lived in constant fear in the summer 1998. How they met their fates is ghastly. Jared covered two murder trials in connection with the case, and provides his own theories as to how and why the Elliott family was murdered. Four other murder cases are also detailed in the book. Sidney Nicole Randall was a beauty pageant queen, about to enter high school when a monster stole her away in the dark. Bridgett Sellers was a mother of three who vanished without a trace while on a walk down Peace Valley Road. Her fate is incomprehensible. Bob Castleman was a respected attorney and Vietnam War vet until the drugs, murder, a live copperhead snake; Native American artifact fraud consumed his life. The book also includes an update on the unsolved Rebekah Gould case. The 22-year-old college student was murdered Sept. 20, 2004, in Melbourne, Arkansas. There are suspects in the case, but to this day, no one has been jailed for her brutal death. Jared has won numerous first place awards for investigative journalism, feature writing, news stories, and others with the coveted Associated Press Managing Editors and the Arkansas Press Association. His first book Witches in West Memphis ... and another false confession detailed his coverage of the internationally famous "West Memphis Three" case. Three Marion, Ark., teens - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. - were convicted in the 1993 murders Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore. The boys' bodies were found nude and bound in a drainage ditch near their homes one day after they disappeared May 5, 1993. Prosecutors claimed the boys were sacrificed in a Satanic ceremony orchestrated by the convicted. There was only one problem. These three didn't do it. It took nearly 20 years to free them. Jared wrote more stories about the case than any journalist in the world. He was cited in Life After Death, a New York Times best-selling book about the case. He also received credit for in the Academy Award nominated documentary Paradise Lost Three ... Purgatory also about the case. Through the years, the longtime newsman has written thousands of stories on a wide range of topics. Get a copy of The Creek Side Bones today.
The McCandless Mecca: A Pilgrimage to the Magic Bus of the Stampede Trail
Ken Ilgunas - 2013
The Magic Bus is becoming a national shrine, a holy pilgrim site, a modern-day Mecca. And I was determined to see it, too." So writes author and adventurer Ken Ilgunas, who, in the summer of 2011, moved up to Alaska and, like thousands before him, embarked on pilgrimage to explore the storied bus of the Stampede Trail, the very bus in which Chris McCandless of "Into the Wild" died twenty years before. What was supposed to be little more than a "literary tour" to a bus from a book that Ilgunas had "merely enjoyed" would become a humorous, enthralling, and, at times, treacherous journey, leading him to the very heart of Alaska.
Brunetti's Venice: Walks with the City's Best-Loved Detective
Toni Sepeda - 2008
With his acute eye for change, his fascination with the past, his ear for language, his passion for food and drink, and his familiarity with the dark realities of crime and corruption, Brunetti is the perfect companion for any walk across Venice.Encompassing all six regions of the city as well as the lagoon, Brunetti's Venice will lead you down calli, over canali, and through campi. Important locations from the best-selling novels are highlighted and major themes and characters are explored, all accompanied by poignant excerpts from the novels. Brunetti's Venice is a must-have for lovers of Venice and Donna Leon’s wonderful mysteries alike.
Attempted Hippie
David Noonan - 2013
Just lots of pot and cheap beer and a half-baked desire to become a hippie. Welcome to the end of the 60’s era. In 1972, David Noonan dropped out of college for no good reason, worked nights in a gas station and days in a cemetery, then quit both jobs to hitchhike west and meet up with his brother John, a natural-born rambler and a certified member of the counterculture. Attempted Hippie is Noonan’s vivid account of his odyssey from New Jersey to California and back again. It’s a funny, un-romanticized tale of a young man with the wrong glasses and the wrong hair searching for himself …and his next ride.
The Insider's Guide to the Peace Corps: What to Know Before You Go
Dillion Banerjee - 2009
. . If you are interested in joining the Peace Corps, you probably have questions that run the gamut from "What is the application process like?" to "Is the Peace Corps effective as a development agency?" In this updated second edition, former Peace Corps volunteer Dillon Banerjee shares candid facts and insights about the experience in a practical question-and-answer format. With input from recently returned volunteers who served across the globe, this thorough guide presents valuable information including: • What Peace Corps recruiters look for in your application• Items you should--and shouldn't---pack for your two-year trip• Useful gadgets and technology that help volunteers stay connected from far away• Real answers to personal questions about culture shock, safety, dating, homesickness, and more Whether you're thinking of joining or have already been accepted and are preparing to leave, The Insider's Guide to the Peace Corps will help equip you for the unique challenges and rewards of the volunteer experience, regardless of your program area or country assignment. It's essential reading for anyone interested in "the toughest job you'll ever love."