Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.They weren’t alone, not with over a hundred quirky animals to care for, each lost and hurt in its own way: a pair of suicidal, bra-stealing monkeys, a frustrated parrot desperate to fly, and a pig with a wicked sense of humor. The humans, too, were cause for laughter and tears. There were animal whisperers, committed staff, wildly devoted volunteers, handsome heartbreakers, and a machete-wielding prom queen who carried Laura through. Most of all, there were the jungle—lyrical and alive—and Wayra, who would ultimately teach Laura so much about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming.Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.

    It is a book of wilderness adventure, it is an education in the ingenuities of wilderness housekeeping, filled with practical details about making do, building and rebuilding, gardening for fun and for food, even advice about getting away from getting-away-from-it-all.

    

    Welcome to Colombia, where life is cheap and so are the drugs. In 2006, Matt Thompson travelled to Colombia in search of the life he might have led. Born to American parents, Matt's father was offered a post which would have taken the family to Bogota, but he turned it down because it was too high risk.Instead they came to Australia – low-risk, even paradisaic, and the land that nearly drove Matt to a slow death from boredom. One day he quits his job, picks up his bag and decides to go experience life in the country that's not only the most dangerous in South America, but possibly the world. This is the story of what happened next.

    57 full-color photographs; 10 black-and-white drawings.

    Before sisters Sue and Linda inherit a village house in the hills they have little interest in Spain, but on travelling out to see their new possession they begin to warm to the idea of spending time there with their husbands Paul and Bill. After an enjoyable summer holiday the prospect of living in the village becomes irresistible and this book describes their transition from visitors to residents and the diverse selection of people they meet along the way. This amusing and informative memoir is an ideal read for those interested in the possibilities of expat life in rural Spain.

    Their experience included reading a few books, watching a couple of instructional videos, and sailing once a week for a year. They were land-lubberly, middle-class twentysomethings, audacious and in love. All they wanted was to be together and do something extraordinary. They quit their jobs, bought a boat that was categorically considered "too small" for ocean sailing, and left Portland, Oregon for the Sea of Cortez.The Box Wine Sailors tells the true story of a couple's ramshackle trip down the coast, with all the exulting highs and terrifying lows of sailing a small boat on the Pacific. From nearly being rammed by a pair of whales on Thanksgiving morning and the terrifying experience of rounding Punta Gorda—hanging on to the mast for dear life and looking about at what seemed like the apocalypse—to having their tiller snap off while accidentally surfing coastal breakers and finding ultimate joy in a $5 Little Caesar's pizza. It also tells the story of two very normal people doing what most people only dream of, settling the argument that if you want something bad enough you can make it happen.

    when, finally reconciled to the inevitable, they returned to Italy one last time.Which, as they say, is another story.Also includes chapters on the idiosyncrasies of the Italian language and the Italian driving experience.

    Her teenage son, Yeats, is just beginning high school. Yeats has always struggled against the system, against the pressure to conform. He is a poet at heart: acutely sensitive, highly intelligent, and solitary by nature. Lynn and Yeats have always been close, but after fourteen years as a stay-at-home mom Lynn is going back to work for her husband, Ben, who has just opened his own bookstore.When Lynn and Yeats take a trip to Vancouver Island, they discover a mutual love of bird watching. Lynn is the only other person Yeats has found who loves nature and watching birds. Plus, she has a car. Lynn describes in wondrous detail the many trips she and Yeats take, from the Wye Marsh and Pelee Island in Ontario, to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, to an ill-fated trip to the Galapagos Islands. The two grow closer with each bird-watching expedition. At the same time, Lynn notices that her son is beginning to pull away — and she must learn to let go.Birding with Yeats is a delicate, sensitive, and gentle reflection on the unique bond between a mother and son, and the magic that is the natural world.

    As he wanders the land year upon year, Raymo gathers the revelations embedded in the geological and cultural history of this wild and ancient place. "When I called out for the Absolute, I was answered by the wind," Raymo writes. "If it was God's voice in the wind, then I heard it." In poetic prose grounded in a mind trained to discover fact, Honey from Stone enters the wonder of the material world in search of our deepest nature.

    Phoebe Snetsinger had planned to be a scientist, but, like most women who got married in the 1950s, she ended up keeping house, with four kids and a home in the suburbs by her mid-thirties. Numb and isolated, she turned to bird-watching, but she soon tired of the birds near home and yearned to travel the world. Then her life took a crushing turn: At forty-nine, she was diagnosed with cancer and told that she had less than a year to live. Devastated, she began crisscrossing the globe, finding rare and spectacular birds that brought her to the heights of spiritual ecstasy. But as it turned out, she beat the cancer. She eventually went to more than a hundred countries, had frequent brushes with danger, became a hero in the birding world, and set a record for the most species seen. Life List is a powerful portrait of a woman who found refuge from society’s expectations in a dangerous and soul-stirring obsession.

    He found it on Blackfish Sound ("Blackfish" is the Kwakiutl Indian word for the killer whale) in the Inside Passage, the rugged coastline between Seattle and Alaska. Leaving his home in Aspen, which had become a false Shangri-La for him, Modzelewski settled on a desolate island in the Inside Passage, a place which "after seducing you with beauty would shake you with fear. An unpredictable place that kept you always prepared, honed to the keen edge of life." Here he lived alone for months on end. Inside Passage describes his experiences in this unspoiled setting, where the sky is his ceiling, mountains are his walls, and physical challenges test him down to the marrow. He also forms unusual friendships with passing yachters, salmon fishermen, Kwakiutl Indians, loners, and the owner of the house he is staying at, Will Malloff, a man of oversized personality -- a healer, builder, woodsman, and thinker. Modzelewski writes with a love for nature and gentle humor about his interactions with the native animals (eagles, whales, wolves), local animals (cats, dogs, "tame" wild boars), and other settlers. Inside Passage is the powerful story of one man learning the ways of self-reliance in a soul-filled search through the northern wilderness.

    In Made in Reality, Stephanie gives an exclusive insight into the trials and tribulations of life on reality TV, taking us behind the scenes of The Hills, Made in Chelsea and even the Big Brother House. Nothing is off-limits, from the drama of her relationship with Spencer Matthews, to her issues with her brother Spencer Pratt. But there is more to Stephanie than the glamour of Beverly Hills and the Kings Road. For the first time, she shares her struggles with drug addiction, eating disorders, and the pressures of fame in the internet age.Inspiring, fascinating, and insightful throughout, this is an honest account of the truth behind reality.

    Lonely Planet Belize Spy on the rare red-footed booby before diving into the Blue HoleBuzz across treetops on a zip-line at Jaguar Paw Jungle ResortHear howler monkeys stake their territory as dawn breaks in the Spanish Creek Wildlife SanctuaryTake a riverboat through the jungle to the magnificent Maya ruins of Lamanai In This Guide Two authors, 60 days of in-country research, 50 more pages of coverage and reviewsThe best snorkel and dive sites of the second-longest coral reef system in the worldVisit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveler insights

    Two journalists and their crazy terrier Wallace are in their second year of their riotous adventure, living in the Mani, southern Greece, sharing an olive grove with their new Greek landlords.The location is perfect, apart from Greeks on the edge, a gun-toting neighbour and Wallace faces his biggest health drama yet. The couple find time to explore more of the region: the island of Kythera and a visit to the house of the late Patrick Leigh Fermor, the famous British travel writer.But soon enough, the couple are pulled into the chaos of the economic crisis with some of the original village characters from Feta, as Greece faces bankruptcy. This candid memoir is also the story of the author's passion for Greece. Woven into the narrative is Marjory's back story from another dark time, during the military dictatorship in 1970s Athens. It will reveal as much about Greece as it does about her own journey. This memoir was chosen as expat book of the year, 2015, by the expat website thedisplacednation.com This edition also includes some of the author's own photographs of Greece. Book 3 of this series, A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree, charts the couple's second long odyssey in Greece, this time in the Messinian peninsula.