Book picks similar to
This Wild Spirit: Women in the Rocky Mountains of Canada by Colleen Skidmore
canada
non-fiction
mountaineering
nosotras
Patient 71
Julie Randall - 2017
Out of the blue she went from a fit, healthy, fun-loving wife and mother of two, to not knowing what had happened. Or why.Rushed to hospital by ambulance, it was discovered Julie had a malignant brain tumour. Diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Advanced Melanoma, she was told to get her affairs in order because she didn't have long to live.After getting over the initial shock, Julie fought off the fear and started searching for hope. She found an American experimental drug trial, but was told there was only room for 70 patients and the numbers were full. Julie had promised her teenage daughters that she would find a way to 'fix it' so she refused to take no for an answer. Her tenacity paid off and she flew to Oregon and the Providence Cancer Center. She became PATIENT 71.Not everyone survives a cancer diagnosis. Julie is one of the lucky ones. She discovered that when you push the boundaries, refuse to give up and never lose sight of your goal... extraordinary things can happen.
The Shake 'n Bake Sergeant: True Story of Infantry Sergeants in Vietnam
Jerry Horton - 2010
Horton's experiences being thrown into heavy combat after just a few months of training. Recommended reading for all. Survival against all odds - in the trenches of Vietnam - I still can't believe they get out of there alive - couldn't put it down. This first person narrative of hand-to-hand combat in the trenches of Vietnam left me scared, glad to be alive and eternally grateful to those who died for my freedom Could not put it down - A friend had mentioned this book to me. Once I received it I could not put it down. Jerry Horton joined the army to simply be able to afford to go to college. 40 years later he has a PHD and multiple degrees but they were earned at a heavy price for this patriot. Jerry shares his experiences in Vietnam in an articulate, honest and direct assessment of his time in Vietnam, the men he served with and the horrors of war. Incredible story of leadership and survival. Shake N Bake Sergeant aka Instant NCO - Jerry Horton absolutely nailed the life of a "Shake 'n Bake" Sergeant when he tells the story of dedicated soldiers trained at Fort Benning, GA and then follows them to Vietnam. This book is not only absolutely dead on accurate but gives the reader every aspect of what it was like to experience the war as a Shake 'n Bake Sergeant. Instant NCO's were trained for only one reason - to lead United States soldiers into combat and they did it with heroic efficiency and effectiveness with limited resources. This book is not just a home run - it is a Grand Slam. Interesting, accurate, full of suspense and you can't put it down. This book should be required reading for everyone so they can understand that Freedom is not Free. There is a cost and sometimes that cost is heavy. Horton brings it all across in a nonstop action format. It is a great read! If you really want to know what it was like...This has to be the most realistic 'must read' book to come out of the VN war. If you ever read any book about this war - this is the one to read. You won't put it down and you won't ever forget it! From the book's review by the late COL(R) David Hackworth (most-decorated Vietnam veteran): "In 1968, the U.S. Army was running out of sergeants in Vietnam. Throughout military history, as least as far back as the Revolutionary War, sergeants were the backbone of the Army. This shortage of sergeants meant disaster in Vietnam. The NCO candidate school was created to solve this serious problem by doing one thing - train soldiers to lead men in combat. It was modeled after the Officer's candidate school but streamlined to meet this critical need for leaders in half the time. Graduates were known by most as "Shake 'n Bake Sergeants" or "Instant NCOs" since they got their rank fast from going to school. This book is the first time this important part of American history has ever been published. It is the first time anyone has given credit to Shake 'n Bake Sergeants - a credit that they so greatly deserved. At the time there were many who said they would fail. It seemed many did not respect them even though all were destined for front line positions. The book documents how they proved their worth over and over again as front line infantry leaders even though for thirty some years their sacrifices have been unknown." An unforgettable mixture of vivid realism, poignant sadness and unexpected humor. Once you begin reading The Shake 'n Bake Sergeant, you will find it hard to put it down. See www.shakenbakesergeant.com.
Run Mummy Run
Leanne Davies - 2018
Gathering the very best of the advice and tips from the Run Mummy Run network, Leanne and co-writer Lucy have created this comprehensive beginner's guide to running that includes sections on: From starting with a Couch To 5k plan to building up the confidence to race. Fitting in running around work and family life. Overcoming barriers to exercise. How to keep on running when motivation wanes, and much more! Not just your average practical go-to, this book is filled with down-to-earth advice, training schedules and inspirational stories that'll help you to be fit, healthy and happy.
Slash
Paul Stenning - 2007
This work tells the story of this one-off guitarist who came to prominence through the debauchery and stellar chart success of the American west coast's Guns N' Roses. Full description
The Fall of the Roman Umpire
Ron Luciano - 1986
Illustrated with 16 pages of photographs.
Sky Spy, Memoirs of a U-2 Pilot
Jim Carter - 2015
The book describes his zany squadron mates in the C-130 and their travels around the world; then his experiences teaching students to fly high performance jets. He reached his goal and details what it was like to fly the world's most exotic aircraft.
Summit 8000: Life and death with Australia's greatest mountaineer
Andrew Lock - 2014
Andrew’s story is one of extraordinary passion, self-motivation, perseverance and resilience, as he leads us through his sixteen-year odyssey to achieve the Grand Slam of Himalayan mountaineering. We are taken through the victories, the near-misses and the great tragedies. The intense human drama of the expeditions infuses the book—sometimes funny, sometimes fierce and always fascinating stories about survival, climbing rivalries and mountaineering politics. The remote and stunning landscapes and cultures that Andrew encounters on his journeys add rich texture to his tale, culminating in his 2014 trip to Everest, where he was witness to the deadliest avalanche in the peak’s history. Ultimately, we learn ‘why does he do it?’ Why does anyone take on such a challenge, knowing how easily they might be killed? Andrew’s story is both candid and inspiring.Andrew Lock is the most accomplished high-altitude mountaineer in Australian history. He is the only Australian, the first person in the Commonwealth, and just the 18th man in the world to climb all fourteen of the world’s 8000-metre mountains. His achievements encompass eighteen summits of those 8000-metre peaks, including Mt Everest (twice) more than four times that of any other Australian, placing him in a select group of the world’s best alpinists. Additionally, Andrew accomplished the first Australian ascent of six of those mountains, a record that can never be broken. Andrew Lock is a professional motivational and keynote speaker. He can be found at www.andrew-lock.com.
The Canadian Manifesto
Conrad Black - 2019
It is our turn," writes Conrad Black in this scintillating manifesto for how Canada can achieve an exalted role in world affairs. For over 400 years we have toiled in the shadows of our potential and achieved an indifferent recognition among other nations. Chipper, patient, and courteous, we have pursued an improbable destiny as a splendid nation in the northern section of the new world, a demi-continent of relatively good and ably self-governing people, but most would agree we have neither developed a vivid national personality nor realized our true potential. Our main chance, writes Black, is now before us and it is not in the usual realms of military or economic dominance. With the rest of the West engaged in a sterile and platitudinous left-right tug of war, Canada has the opportunity to lead the advanced world to its next stage of development in the arts of government. By transforming itself into a controlled and sensible public policy laboratory, it can forge new solutions to the tiresome problems besetting welfare, education, health care, foreign policy, and other governmental sectors the world over, and make an enormous contribution to the welfare of mankind. Canada has no excuse not to lead in this field, argues Black, who offers nineteen visionary policy proposals of his own. "This is the destiny, and the vocation, Canada could have, not in the next century, but in the next five years of imaginative government.
In Some Lost Place: The first ascent of Nanga Parbat’s Mazeno Ridge
Sandy Allan - 2015
At ten kilometres in length, the Mazeno is the longest route to the summit of an 8,000-metre peak. Ten expeditions had tried and failed to climb this enormous ridge. Eleven days later two of the team, Sandy Allan and Rick Allen, both in their late fifties, reached the summit. They had run out of food and water and began hallucinating wildly from the effects of altitude and exhaustion. Heavy snow conditions meant they would need another three days to descend the far side of the ‘killer mountain’. ‘I began to wonder whether what we were doing was humanly possible. We had climbed the Mazeno and reached the summit, but we both knew we had wasted too much energy. In among the conflicting emotions, the exhaustion and the elation, we knew our bodies could not sustain this amount of time at altitude indefinitely, especially now we had no water. The slow trickle of attrition had turned into a flood; it was simply a matter of time before our bodies stopped functioning. Which one of us would succumb first?’ In Some Lost Place is Sandy Allan’s epic account of an incredible feat of endurance and commitment at the very limits of survival – and the first ascent of one of the last challenges in the Himalaya.
Unguarded: My Autobiography
Jonathan Trott - 2016
Yet shortly after reaching those heights, he started to crumble, and famously left the 2012-13 Ashes tour of Australia suffering from a stress related illness. His story is the story of Team England - it encompasses the life-cycle of a team that started out united by ambition, went on to achieve some of the greatest days in the team's history but then, bodies and minds broken, fell apart amid acrimony.Having seen all of this from the inside, Jonathan's autobiography takes readers to the heart of the England dressing room, and to the heart of what it is to be a professional sportsman. Not only does it provide a unique perspective on a remarkably successful period in English cricket and its subsequent reversal, it also offers a fascinating insight into the rewards and risks faced as a sportsman carrying the hope and expectation of a team and a nation. And it's a salutary tale of the dangers pressure can bring in any walk of life, and the perils of piling unrealistic expecations on yourself.
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.