He had questions…he had doubts. So he began his search for answers along the Great Divide, a 2700 mile mountain bike route that traces the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico…and he set out alone. Cycling through a world of erratic weather, cramped bivy sacks, and overwhelming solitude, this long distance adventure threw Nathan from his comfort zone and into new perspectives. With both his future and past in mind, Nathan's revealing account illustrates the challenges of the route—and life—and how it's possible to find the strength and courage to overcome.

    Though I didn't regret anything, flat on my back in the doctor's office on the cusp of my fiftieth birthday, my health was crumbling.I no longer recognized myself.I turned my head and saw a calendar on the wall: Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah beckoned me with its mysterious sandstone hoodoos.A road trip traveling through the national parks was just what I needed to rediscover the girl I'd been. It could help me turn a corner into my new career as a writer, and my husband would enjoy a chance to photograph the natural wonders we saw. Sometimes, a twelve-thousand-mile road trip is also a personal quest. An absorbing travel narrative about defining and facing the limitations and opportunities of midlife. KIRKUS

    A perfect way for Royals fans, and baseball fans everywhere, to share that magic night with their children and commemorate it themselves with beautiful illustrations and clever rhymes.

    No one knew that the stage itself would steal her dream-and almost her life-during a rehearsal for the next big show.Just days before her opening night performance in The Wizard of Oz, sixteen-year- old Tasha took one step backward and fell sixteen feet through a trap door. On that day, Nov. 11, 1997, she landed on the concrete floor of the historic Sheldon Theater, breaking her neck, crushing her spinal cord, and fracturing her skull. She would never walk again.For the next three days, Tasha prepared for a surgery that would at best leave her a C-5 quadriplegic. Post-op complications turned Tasha's struggle and ultimate triumph into an unbelievable journey. From loss and grief to self-discovery and achievement, Tasha's faith, resilience, and honesty have allowed her to leave the old Tasha behind while she confronts the new Tasha's life from a state of the art wheelchair.Discover Tasha's remarkable spirit in My Last Step Backward, a poignant memoir that seeks to inspire you to welcome adversity and face your own trap door of opportunity.

    Is it for children, or for adults? Is it fantasy or a psychological novel? In its great range, it encompasses poetry and farce, comedy and tragedy -and sudden flights of schoolboy humour. White's `footnote to Malory' (his own phrase) resulted in the last major retelling of the story based on Malory's Morte Darthur, and Elisabeth Brewer explores the literary context of White's finest work as wellas considering his aims and achievement in writing it.White's story of Arthur begins with his `enfances', set in an imaginary medieval England, but it is far removed from the conventional historical novel. White was writing in wartime England, a country increasingly absorbed by a need to find an antidote to war. Through the medium of the Arthurian story he found his own voice, his unique contribution to keeping alive the flame of civilisation. Malory's chivalric virtues are rejected in favour of White's own twentieth-century values; the love affair of Lancelot and Guenever is interpreted in terms of modern psychology.The books which eventually made up The Once and Future Kingof 1958 appeared in distinctly different editions. In discussing these, Elisabeth Brewer looks at some of the ways in which White drew on his own personal experience at a deep psychological level, while also incorporating into his story material inspired by his antiquarian pursuits and by his years as a schoolmaster. She completes her study with an account of White's use of historical material, and the relationship of The Once and Future King to the Morte Darthur.ELISABETH BREWER lectured in English at Homerton College, Cambridge. She is the author of books and articles on Chaucer and the Arthurian legends

    Theis book could almost be a reference manual, training tool and recruitment handbook for any one interested in wearing a Smoky Bear hat. The author has lived and worked in parks ranging from USS Arizona in Hawaii to the Florida Everglades with most of her career at Grand Canyon.

    What ensued was a high-stakes international mission which very nearly didn't succeed.The ordeal riveted millions around the world. First came the awful news that twelve Thai boys aged 11 to 16 and their young coach were missing. Then the flickering video of the huddle of anxious and hungry boys found by a pair of British divers nine days later. But the most difficult part was yet to come. Monsoon rains had raised the water level in the cave system, and the 13 were caught in an air pocket, surrounded by rising muddy water, nearly four kilometres from the cave entrance. None of them knew how to dive.Expert Australian, British, American, Chinese and other international divers joined the Thai Navy SEALs and hundreds of local volunteers to mount one of the most risky and complex rescue operations the world has ever seen. Australian doctor Richard Harris and his dive partner Craig Challen were among the last out of the cave, 18 days later.This is the complete story of the remarkable rescue at Tham Luang cave.

    Until then, she had only ridden scooters around London. With more gear than sense, her 17,000 miles journey took her through the mayhem of Delhi traffic, the mountains of Kashmir, the deserts of Rajasthan, the beaches of Goa, the southern tip of India, the remote tracks of Nepal and the eerie Himalayan barrenness of Ladakh. She wanted an adventure to spice up a boring life and fulfil her wanderlust. She got that, and more.

    They ruled. They invented. They cured people. They killed people. They ran cities and businesses. The won races, athletic and political. They explored. They bankrolled explorers. They even bankrolled religions. Almost every organized religion, from Christianity to Buddhism to Quaker, has gotten off the ground thanks to the hard work and cold cash of women!Most traditional histories written by men ignore, obscure, or erase the role of women, especially those who challenge the status quo. But the evidence of their achievements exists everywhere: in writings, coins, artifacts, graffiti, music, portraits, legal transcripts, love notes, and hate mail. For more than twenty years, Vicki Leon has been examining this evidence, chasing clues however faint and unconventional, and reporting her findings in numerous books, including the delightful four volume Uppity Women series.4,000 Years of Uppity Women features the best of that series, chosen by Leon herself. It focuses not on legendary goddesses or literary characters but on real women (though many of them did become the subjects of poems, plays, and stories).

    Coco loved to write—and to get into scrapes—and her new diary gave her the opportunity to explain her side of the messes she created: “I’m in deep trouble through no fault of my own,” her entries frequently began. The daughter of a lumber baron, Coco grew up in a twenty-room mansion on fashionable Summit Avenue at the peak of the Jazz Age, a time when music, art, and women’s social status were all in a state of flux and the economy was still flying high.Coco’s diary carefully records her adventures, problems, and romances, written with a lively wit and a droll sense of humor. Whether sneaking out to a dance hall in her mother’s clothes or getting in trouble for telling an off-color joke, Coco and her escapades will captivate and delight preteen readers as well as their mothers and grandmothers.Peg Meier’s introduction describes St. Paul life in the 1920s and provides context for the privileged world that Coco inhabits, while an afterword tells what happens to Coco as an adult—and reveals surprises about some of the other characters in the diary.

    Bear witness as a generation continues its evolution, wired faster to dream higher. This is the Filipino youth at their most honest and most eloquent. Here is your password. Here are the messages that matter from the newspaper that started it all.Youngblood 3 is the young Filipino—unplugged.

     With no skills and very limited knowledge they built a life in the middle of nowhere by reading how-to books and doing things the hard way. In this lighthearted memoir they face the challenges of constructing their own home, providing their own water and electricity, and learning to live with the wildlife, including their few, but eccentric neighbors. This ten year journey from soft city dwellers to independent and self sufficient country bumpkins includes accidents, adventures, misadventures, how-not-to’s and blood, sweat and tears. Their relationship evolves, as together they discover an immensely satisfying and totally new way of living life—off the grid.

    An internationally known and respected journalist, Robertson had a knack for finding the interesting and exotic in seemingly humble or ordinary folk and a keen eye for human interest stories. his power of description and disarmingly straightforward narrative were the hallmarks of his writing.A loyal Southern son, Robertson cherished what he judged to be the South's best traditions: personal independence and responsibility, the rejection of crass materialism, a deep piety, and a love of freedom. He repeatedly lamented the region's many shortcomings: poverty, racial hierarchy, political impotence, lack of inttellectual curiosity, and its tendency to blame all of its twentieth-century problems on the defeat of the Confederacy.An informative and entertaining new introduction by Lacy K. Ford, Jr., associate professor of history at the University of South Carolina, provides fascinating new facts about Robertson's life and recasts his achievements in Red Hills and Cotton as social commentary. Ford captures the essence of Robertson's restless and questioning, but unfailingly Southern, spirit.

    I am 84 years old. I only had one year of schooling, but I am self-taught. I worked hard all my life. I plowed fields, cut timber, raised hogs, and managed several businesses. I got married 11 times. I buried two of my babies, but I brung up three children of my own and four step children. I met some of my husbands – and lots of boyfriends – while playing guitar, singing, and buck dancing at country jubilees. I have survived cancer, and one of my husbands choked me to death, but my sweet momma brought me back to life. I shot one husband a little bit, and later, when he was dying of cancer, he was stole from the hospital, and, to this day, I don’t know where he is buried at. I like to tell people I am a movie star, cause I played the wife of a coal miner in the movie October Sky. My life started out hard with poverty and abuse, but all-in-all it’s been a pretty good life. This is my story, and I’d like for you to hear it and learn that no matter how bad things gets, you can overcome and be happy.

    From the moment he could pick up a ball, he was learning to dribble and shoot. His basketball education was unique--a combination of lessons on basic fundamentals, one-on-one games against his dad, and observation and analysis of the world's best players. At age eighteen, Kobe was given the chance to prove his skills when he was drafted into the NBA. Fresh out of high school, Kobe showed that he had the talent and heart to make it in the pros.This biography traces Kobe's life from childhood to his part in the Lakers' 2000 NBA championship, giving readers a courtside seat to the greatest achievements of one of basketball's legends.