Book picks similar to
Shadows of Africa by Peter Matthiessen
5-star-books
africa
nature
not-read
Afghan Heat: SAS Operations in Afghanistan
Steve Stone - 2013
The book follows individual operations where special forces, aircraft, and the latest surveillance technology are fused together - in order to capture key figures or simply take out an enemy stronghold.The books account is both gritty and graphical as it follows the SAS, battling at times against overwhelming odds in a hostile country. Fighting a war hardened enemy with years of experience fighting occupying forces. Even these elite soldiers with advanced weaponry and immense fire support at their disposal are put to the ultimate test of skill and courage fighting in the 'Stan.'
Songs of Unreason
Jim Harrison - 2011
Here Harrison—forthright, testy, funny, and profoundly discerning—a gruff romantic and a sage realist, tells tales about himself, from his dangerous obsession with Federico García Lorca to how he touched a bear’s head, reflects on his dance with the trickster age, and shares magnetizing visions of dogs, horses, birds, and rivers. Oscillating between drenching experience and intellectual musings, Harrison celebrates movement as the pulse of life, and art, which ‘scrubs the soul fresh.’” —Booklist“Harrison has written a nearly pitch-perfect book of poems, shining with the elemental force of Neruda's Odes or Matisse's paper cutouts....In Songs of Unreason,, his finest book of verse, Harrison has stripped his voice to the bare essentials--to what must be said, and only what must be said." —The Wichita Eagle“Songs of Unreason, Harrison’s latest collection of poetry, is a wonderful defense of the possibilities of living.… His are hard won lines, but never bitter, just broken in and thankful for the chance to have seen it all.” —The Industrial Worker Book Review“Unlike many contemporary poets, Harrison is philosophical, but his philosophy is nature-based and idiosyncratic: ‘Much that you see/ isn’t with your eyes./ Throughout the body are eyes.’… As in all good poetry, Harrison’s lines linger to be ruminated upon a third or fourth time, with each new reading revealing more substance and raising more questions.” —Library Journal“It wouldn’t be a Harrison collection without the poet, novelist, and food critic’s reverence for rivers, dogs, and women…his poems stun us simply, with the richness of the clarity, detail, and the immediacy of Harrison’s voice.” —Publishers WeeklyJim Harrison's compelling and provocative Songs of Unreason explores what it means to inhabit the world in atavistic, primitive, and totemistic ways. "This can be disturbing to the learned," Harrison admits. Using interconnected suites, brief lyrics, and rollicking narratives, Harrison's passions and concerns—creeks, thickets, time's effervescence, familial love—emerge by turns painful and celebratory, localized and exiled.
Building the Better Guitar Scale
Michael Pillitiere - 2010
What is needed is a clear and simple method of learning one scale in all positions, and of learning all scales in one position. Guitarists need to be able to call up any scale to their fingertips instantaneously regardless of key, mode, string, or position and they need to be able to do so without memorizing hundreds of pages of diagrams. Fortunately, this is not only possible, but it is also incredibly simple. This booklet will teach you how.
Rules Of Engagement: A John Chase Short Story
Dirk Patton - 2014
He is part of the US Army's Delta Force. In Crucifixion: Voodoo Plague Book Two he mentions a flashback to running through a Central American jungle with Spetsnaz in pursuit. This is that story. Note that this is a short story and does not need to be read in any particular sequence with the Voodoo Plague series. All events are prior to the attacks and events that occur in the series and this will not spoil that timeline.
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?
When Empires Collide
Andrew Wareham - 2016
Never far from his mind is his ‘Monkey’ otherwise known as squire’s daughter, Grace; friends since Tommy returned from America with his aircraft designer father, over time their friendship blossoms into something deeper. With the conflict and speculation about his shadowy half-brother intensifying, Tommy is eventually sent to France as the Corps makes its first haphazard attempts to engage the enemy in the skies over Europe. Books best read in series order. About the Series The Royal Flying Corps grew from the amateur hobbyists flying the earliest and most dangerous machines. Mostly drawn from the Army and Navy, the pilots regarded themselves as gentlemen members of a new club. The Great War saw the death of amateurism - except in the higher ranks - and the unplanned, fortuitous creation of a professional force. Innocents at War follows the career of Anglo-American flier, Tommy Stark, an enthusiastic boy forced to grow up quickly as many around him die. His deep affection for squire’s daughter, Grace is his only certainty as the bitter conflict threatens to strip the world of its innocence. Published by The Electronic Book Company
Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human
Richard E. Leakey - 1992
Richard Leakey's personal account of his fossil hunting and landmark discoveries at Lake Turkana, his reassessment of human prehistory based on new evidence and analytic techniques, and his profound pondering of how we became "human" and what being "human" really means.
Creative Nature and Outdoor Photography
Brenda Tharp - 2003
Author Brenda Tharp’s inspiring approach has garnered fans all over the world, as she teaches that magical skill no camera can do for you: learn how to “see.” Readers expand their photographic vision and discover deep wellsprings of creativity as they learn to use light, balance, color, design, pattern, texture, composition, and many simple techniques to take a photo from ordinary to high-impact.Featuring more than 150 stunning, all-new images, Creative Nature & Outdoor Photography, Revised Edition is for anyone who understands the basic technical side to photography but wants to wake up their creative vision.
All In
Joel Goldman - 2015
Together they go all in to take down a brutal swindler on the high seas in bestselling author Joel Goldman’s thriller.,“Think you can put down All In once you start reading? Don’t bet on it!” Rebecca Cantrell, New York Times bestselling author of The Tesla LegacyCassie and Jake are up against ruthless, mega-rich Alan Kendrick who plays for keeps. He’s ripped off the wrong people this time – and now Ireland and Carter will take him down.From New York to Buenos Aires to the Mediterranean, Cassie and Jake risk everything, including their lives, in a game with the highest stakes and no rules. Who is the hunter and who is the prey?“A phenomenal debut for a promising series!” David Ellis, Edgar Award Winning author of The Hidden Man“A wild ride!” Robert Dugoni, bestselling author of My Sister’s GraveDon’t miss All In! Buy it today!
Don't Eat the Puffin: Tales From a Travel Writer's Life
Jules Brown - 2018
Get paid to travel and write about it.Only no one told Jules that it would mean eating oily seabirds, repeatedly falling off a husky sled, getting stranded on a Mediterranean island, and crash-landing in Iran.The exotic destinations come thick and fast – Hong Kong, Hawaii, Huddersfield – as Jules navigates what it means to be a travel writer in a world with endless surprises up its sleeve.Add in a cast of larger-than-life characters – Elvis, Captain Cook, his own travel-mad Dad – and an eye for the ridiculous, and this journey with Jules is one you won’t want to miss.
After All...
Maria Trautman - 2020
Can a young girl escape a loveless home to seize elusive peace?Portugal. As a baby, Maria Trautman was abandoned at birth by her mother and was raised by her adoring grandmother. But when her grandmother passed away, the distressed child was sent to live with her cruel and cold-hearted mother.After enduring years of physical and emotional attacks, Maria built up the courage to leave her country and emigrated to Canada to seek sanctuary with her aunt. But when her uncle continued the very abuse she was so desperate to stop, Maria feared she would be forever trapped in a never-ending cycle of violence.In a passionate true account exposing unimaginably damaging upheavals, this heartfelt narrative follows Maria’s entry to adulthood and her quest to find one thing that always evaded her: happiness. And through vivid recollection of her own daunting challenges and tragic memories, Maria creates a beautiful tribute to the resilience of the human spirit.Discover the poignant truth of a courageous woman seeking healing through tremendous faith and forgiveness.If you like moving personal accounts, testaments of perseverance and powerful journeys, then you’ll love Maria Trautman’s memoir. Follow her heart wrenching story as she goes from suffering to living in happiness in her shocking memoir, After All...After All... Winner of the Literary Titan Gold book awardBuy After All… to reach the freedom that lies ahead today!
Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers
John Gierach - 2020
Now, in his latest fresh and original collection, Gierach shows us why fly-fishing is the perfect antidote to everything that is wrong with the world. “Gierach’s deceptively laconic prose masks an accomplished storyteller...His alert and slightly off-kilter observations place him in the general neighborhood of Mark Twain and James Thurber” (Publishers Weekly). In Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers, Gierach looks back to the long-ago day when he bought his first resident fishing license in Colorado, where the fishing season never ends, and just knew he was in the right place. And he succinctly sums up part of the appeal of his sport when he writes that it is “an acquired taste that reintroduces the chaos of uncertainty back into our well-regulated lives.” Lifelong fisherman though he is, Gierach can write with self-deprecating humor about his own fishing misadventures, confessing that despite all his experience, he is still capable of blowing a strike by a fish “in the usual amateur way.” The “voice of the common angler” (The Wall Street Journal), he offers witty, trenchant observations not just about fly-fishing itself but also about how one’s love of fly-fishing shapes the world that we choose to make for ourselves.
At the Mercy of the Mountains: True Stories of Survival and Tragedy in New York's Adirondacks
Peter Bronski - 2006
In the tradition of Eiger Dreams, In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories from the Mountaineering World, and Not Without Peril, comes a new book that examines the thrills and perils of outdoor adventure in the “East’s greatest wilderness,” the Adirondacks.
Fat Woman on the Mountain: How I Lost Half of Myself and Found Happiness
Kara Richardson Whitely - 2010
She lost 120 pounds and found happiness along the way. Kara Richardson Whitely has been a journalist for the past decade. She has been featured in Self, American Hiker and Redbook magazines.