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Crimes
by Alberto Barrera TyszkaUnexplained blood stains appear in a young couple's apartment; a disembodied hand is found in a rubbish dump; political prisoners resort to horrific measures in order to make a point.In this brilliant new collection of stories, Alberto Barrera Tyszka casts an eye on the violence that afflicts Latin America, and in particular its intimate effects on the individuals who suffer and inflict it.Mixing the surreal with the quotidian, the banal with the unspeakable, Tyszka has created a fragmentary panorama of man's misdeeds against his own kind. These windingly elliptical stories are ceaselessly surprising, and will bury themselves into your subconscious long after the final page is turned.
The Dress Thief: one secret could destroy everything she holds dear...
by Natalie Meg EvansAlix Gower may be poor but she's also ambitious, and she'd do anything to secure her dream job in one of Paris's premier fashion houses. But Alix also has a secret: she supports her family by stealing from the very houses she so adores. But can Alix risk her reputation and her relationships forever? And is the handsome English reporter she keeps bumping into really to be trusted? 'Wonderful! I didn't want to put this book down' Amazon reviewer. Perfect for fans of The Keeper of Lost Things, Island of Secrets and Amy Snow.
The Santiago Pilgrimage: Walking the Immortal Way
by Jean-Christophe Rufin"Whenever I was asked: 'Why did you go to Santiago?', I had a hard time answering. How could I explain to those who had not done it that the way has the effect - if not the virtue - to make you forget all reasons that led you to become involved in it in the first place."Each year, tens of thousands of backpackers (Christian pilgrims and many others) set out from either their front doorstep or from popular starting points across Europe, to Santiago de Compostela. Most travel by foot, others ride a bicycle, and a few of them travel as did some of their medieval counterparts, on horseback or with a donkey. In addition to those who undertake a religious pilgrimage, the majority are hikers who walk the way for non-religious reasons: travel, sport, or simply the challenge of spending weeks walking in a foreign land. Also, many consider the experience as a spiritual adventure, with a view to removing themselves from the bustle of modern life. Jean-Christophe Rufin followed this "Northern Way" to Santiago de Compostela by foot, on over eight hundred kilometers. Much less crowded than the usual pilgrimage route, this one runs along the Basque and Cantabrian coasts in Spain and through the wild mountains of Asturias and Galicia.Translated from the French by Malcolm Imrie and Martina Dervis
The Wednesday Club
by Kjell Westö1938. Hitler's expansionist policies are arousing both anger and admiration, not least in Helsinki's Wednesday Club. The members of this relaxed gentleman's club are old friends of lawyer Claes Thune. But this year it is apparent that the political unrest in Europe is having an effect on the cohesion of the group.Thune has recently divorced and is at something of a loss, running his law practice with no great enthusiasm. Luckily he has the assistance of an efficient new secretary, Matilda Wiik. But behind her polished exterior Mrs Wiik is tormented by memories of the Finnish Civil War, when she experienced horrors she has been trying to forget ever since. And one evening, with the Wednesday Club gathered in Thune's office, she hears a voice she hoped she would never hear again.She is suddenly plunged back into the past. But this time she is no longer a helpless victim . . .
Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth
by James M. TaborThe deepest cave on earth was a prize that had remained unclaimed for centuries, long after every other ultimate discovery had been made. This is the story of the men and women who risked everything to find it, earning their place in history beside the likes of Peary, Amundsen, Hillary, and Armstrong.In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. Bold, American Bill Stone was committed to the vast Cheve Cave, located in southern Mexico and deadly even by supercave standards. On the other side of the globe, legendary Ukrainian explorer Alexander Klimchouk - Stone's opposite in temperament and style - had targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the Republic of Georgia.Blind Descent explores both the brightest and darkest aspects of the timeless human urge to discover - to be first. It is also a thrilling epic about a pursuit that makes even extreme mountaineering and ocean exploration pale by comparison. These supercavers spent months in multiple camps almost two vertical miles deep and many more miles from their caves' exits. They had to contend with thousand-foot drops, deadly flooded tunnels, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and much more. Perhaps even worse were the psychological horrors produced by weeks plunged into absolute, perpetual darkness, beyond all hope of rescue, including a particularly insidious derangement called 'The Rapture'.Blind Descent is a testament to human survival and endurance - and to two extraordinary men whose relentless pursuit of greatness led them to heights of triumph and depths of tragedy neither could have imagined.
Survivor: The Autobiography (Brief Histories Ser.)
by Jon E. LewisThis collection of classic tales comprises over 50 accounts of true-life adventure taken from contemporary memoirs, letters and journals. They span the years 1800 to the end of the 20th century, in a period which can be termed the modern age of exploration. Inspired by Ernest Shackleton's 1914-15 escape from the bitter clutches of Antarctica, this book is by turn inspirational, harrowing, tragic and unimaginable. It recounts stories of ordinary mortals who achieved extraordinary things. From the ice-locked poles and endless deserts of Arabia to the storm-tossed South Atlantic, the rainforests of the Amazon and sheer peaks of the Himalayas, the world's most famous adventurers recount their experiences.Includes accounts from some of the greatest ever explorers and adventurers: Captain Scott, Ernest Shackleton; John Franklin, Edmund Hilary, Laurens Van der Post, Thor Heyerdahl, John Blashford-Snell, Ranulp Fiennes, Chay Blyth, Jacques Cousteau, Nick Danziger,; Charles Lindbergh, Peter Fleming and many more.
Sisu: The Finnish Art of Courage
by Joanna NylundDiscover the Finnish quality of sisu and how cultivating it can help you lead a life of greater purpose and happiness.This ancient Finnish word describes an attitude of courage, resilience, grit, tenacity and perseverance. This key psychological competence enables extraordinary action in times of adversity. To have sisu confers a further dimension of doing so with honesty, integrity and humility.By cultivating sisu you can: Face life's challenges with courage and determination Enhance your wellbeing and find your focus Communicate confidently and resolve conflicts effectively Cultivate endurance and achieve your fitness goals Raise kind and resilient children Act with integrity and fight for what you believe inSisu is a universal trait. It may have been bottled and labelled by the Finns, but it is within reach of everyone. It lies within you, and you are very likely to have used it already.
Head Over Heel: Seduced by Southern Italy
by Chris Harrison'A perfect read for a Mediterannean beach' Daily TelegraphWhen Chris travelled from Sydney to Dublin, he never dreamed his life was about to change forever. There he meets Daniela - one L, smile as you say it to pronounce it correctly - and it's amore at first sight. Before he can say si, he's uprooted to follow her to her sun-kissed hometown of Andrano, Puglia, tucked in the heel of southern Italy.The whitewashed houses, olive groves and cobblestone lanes are beautiful, but soon Chris is getting to grips with everyday Italian life. There's infuriating bureaucracy, an anarchic road system and - biggest challenge of all - Daniela's mamma, who's determined to convert him to the Catholic faith and build an extension on her house where the couple might live la dolce vita.WINNER OF THE GROLLO RUZZENE FOUNDATION PRIZE
Left For Dead In The Outback: How I Survived 71 Days Lost in a Desert Hell
by Greg McLean Ricky Megee'No shoes, no vehicle, no food, no water and no idea. I'd always been one of those blokes who ragged on people who found themselves lost in the desert. Now I was one of those people. It was hard, desolate country for a man all alone in bare feet. Nevertheless, I started to walk. And walk. The more I walked, I figured, the less distance I'd have to travel to get found. It was faulty logic, but it was the best I could come up with. In April 2006 the news broke of an amazing feat of survival by a white man in one of the most inhospitable areas of Australia. Ricky Megee was found sheltering by a dam on a remote cattle property in the Northern Territory. After being abducted on the Buntine Highway, drugged, then left for dead, Ricky had walked for ten days in bare feet through unforgiving terrain in blistering heat. Stumbling upon a dam, he set up camp there and survived for almost three months on leeches, grasshoppers, frogs and plants, losing 60 kg in body weight the process. In "Left for Dead in the Outback", Ricky Megee gives a full and frank account of his abduction and survival, for the first time since his extraordinary rescue. Vividly told, its a gripping yet inspiring story of how one man endures a terrible ordeal and lives to tell the tale.
This Is Not A Drill: Just Another Glorious Day in the Oilfield
by Paul CarterThe outrageous sequel to Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs (She Thinks I m a Piano Player in a Whorehouse) brings more great stories from the far side of civilization - hilarious, full of humour, colourful characters and dramatic action! Just another glorious day in the oilfield for Paul Carter! He s stuck in the middle of the Russian sea on a rig staffed by a crew from Azerbaijan. The choppers are older than him and can only fly by line of sight, turning back regularly due to the weather which gets particuarly interesting when they are past the point of no return with half there fuel gone and they are committed to finding the rig in a fog that s thicker than a Big Brother housemate. The closest thing to a hotel for miles around is the Asylum , a former soviet mental institution that now houses offshore personnel en-route to the rig, where his room mates are Vodka Bob - who drinks Guinness for breakfast when he s not on the rig - Sick Boy, who snores like a pit bull being hot-waxed and Sealbasher . In his inimitable style Paul Carter regales us with his colourful adventures from the front line of thee oil industry and the far side of civilization!
Seized!: A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Pirates and Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters
by Max HardbergerCapt. Max Hardberger uses every trick, tool and tactic at his disposal to right wrongs and out-pirate pirates in this action-packed exposé of the seedy underworld of international shipping. As a professional ship extractor, he risks death and imprisonment in dangerous third-world ports to steal ships from modern buccaneers and corrupt governments and deliver them back to their rightful owners. In the course of his adventures, he's had to outwit resourceful crime families, subdue armed soldiers, and turn the tables on clever con artists. He's escaped imprisonment in Venezuela and avoided death at the hands of the Russian mafia. Because Max shuns the use of force, the ingenious methods he must use to accomplish his missions are the stuff of legend he's employed a witch doctor in Haiti, tricked armed guards off a ship in Honduras, and rented a brothel in Mexico, all to thwart the designs of ship-thieves. Seized! is an intense, fast-paced window on the underbelly of ocean shipping, where all power comes from the barrel of a gun, and the only law is the law of survival.
My Mercedes Is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou - An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara
by Jeroen van BergeijkMy Mercedes Is Not for Sale is a rollicking, witty and insightful tale of an innocent abroad which captures the high-spirited adventure of a young journalist and paints a vivid portrait of West Africa through a surprise-filled journey into its thriving car cult. It has all the wit and charm of John Mole s bestselling Its All Greek to Me! and Peter Allison s Don t Run, Whatever You Do and the philosophical underpinnings of Robert Pirsig s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Dutch journalist Jeroen van Bergeijk came up with what seemed like a great scheme for making a quick profit: buy an old banger in Amsterdam and resell it in the Third World, where a market for clapped-out cars still thrives. His chariot of choice is a rusty 1988 Mercedes 190D with 140,000 miles on the clock; his route takes him from Holland through Morocco, across the Sahara, and into some of the least trodden parts of Africa. Van Bergeijk finds himself facing a driving challenge akin to a Dakar Road Rally but encounters obstacles never dreamed of by race-car drivers: active minefields, occasional banditry mostly by the border guards and a teenaged, chain-smoking desert guide with a fondness for Tupac lyrics. Food and water are scarce, sandstorms are frequent, and all he has to patch up his many car breakdowns thousands of miles from civilization is a bar of soap, some duct tape, and a pair of women's tights. Then there's the coup he lived through. My Mercedes Is Not for Sale captures more than the adventure it vividly portrays the impact of globalization on Africa through an adventurous and sometimes dangerous journey into its thriving car culture.
Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer
by Margot Morrell Stephanie CapparellSir Ernest Shackleton has been called 'the greatest leader that ever came on God's earth, bar none' for saving the lives of the twenty-seven men stranded with him on an Antarctic ice floe for almost two years. Written by two veteran business observers, Shackleton's Way details universal leadership tactics set against the thrilling survival story of the Endurance expedition. Whether it's hiring good workers, supporting and inspiring employees to do their best, managing a crisis with limited personnel and resources, creating order out of chaos, or leading by personal example with optimism, egalitarianism, humour, strength, ingenuity, intelligence and compassion, Ernest Shackleton set an example we can all follow. Illustrated with photographer Frank Hurley's masterpieces and other rarely seen photos, Shackleton's Way is filled with fascinating and practical lessons of a leader who succeeded by putting people first and triumphing brilliantly when all the odds were against him.
Paris in Love: A Memoir
by Eloisa JamesA New York Times Bestseller. After years of living vicariously through the heroines in her novels, bestselling author Eloisa James takes a leap that most of us can only daydream about. She sells her house, leaves her job as a Shakespeare professor, and packs her husband and two protesting children off to Paris. Grand plans are abandoned as she falls under the spell of daily life as a Parisienne exquisite food, long walks by the Seine, reading in bed, displays of effortless chic around every corner, and being reminded of what really matters in a place where people seem to kiss all the time. Against one of the world s most picturesque backdrops, she copes with her Italian husband s notions of quality time; her two hilarious children, ages eleven and fifteen, as they navigate schools not to mention puberty in a foreign language; and her formidable mother-in-law, Marina, who believes dogs should be fed prosciutto and wives should live in the kitchen. An irresistible love letter to a city that will make you want to head there, Paris in Love is also a joyful testament to the pleasures of savouring life.
The Timbuktu School for Nomads: Lessons from the People of the Desert
by Nicholas JubberThe Sahara: a dream-like, far away landscape of Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger, The English Patient and Star Wars, and home to nomadic communities whose ways of life stretch back millennia. Today it's a teeth-janglingly dangerous destination, where the threat of jihadists lurks just over the horizon. Following in the footsteps of 16th century traveller Leo Africanus, Nicholas Jubber went on a turbulent adventure to the forgotten places of North Africa and the legendary Timbuktu.Once the seat of African civilization and home to the richest man who ever lived, this mythic city is now scarred by terrorist occupation and is so remote its own inhabitants hail you with the greeting, 'Welcome to the middle of nowhere'. From the cattle markets of the Atlas, across the Western Sahara and up the Niger river, Nicholas joins the camps of the Tuareg, Fulani, Berbers, and other communities, to learn about their craft, their values and their place in the world.The Timbuktu School for Nomads is a unique look at a resilient city and how the nomads pit ancient ways of life against the challenges of the 21st century.
Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran
by Lois Pryce'Warm, funny . . . It's had my whole family howling with laughter and shedding a few tears' - Shappi Khorsandi, Guardian'A proper travelogue - a joyful, moving and stereotype-busting tale' - National Geographic Traveller, Books of the YearIn 2011, at the height of tension between the British and Iranian governments, travel writer Lois Pryce found a note left on her motorcycle outside the Iranian Embassy in London:... I wish that you will visit Iran so you will see for yourself about my country. WE ARE NOT TERRORISTS!!! Please come to my city, Shiraz. It is very famous as the friendliest city in Iran, it is the city of poetry and gardens and wine!!!Your Persian friend,HabibIntrigued, Lois decides to ignore the official warnings against travel (and the warnings of her friends and family) and sets off alone on a 3,000 mile ride from Tabriz to Shiraz, to try to uncover the heart of this most complex and incongruous country. Along the way, she meets carpet sellers and drug addicts, war veterans and housewives, doctors and teachers - people living ordinary lives under the rule of an extraordinarily strict Islamic government.Revolutionary Ride is the story of a people and a country. Religious and hedonistic, practical and poetic, modern and rooted in tradition - and with a wild sense of humour and appreciation of beauty despite the comparative lack of freedom - this is real contemporary Iran.*Shortlisted for the Adventure Travel Book of the Year Award*'Within a few pages I'd recognised a kindred spirit' - Dervla Murphy, author of Full Tilt
Gatecrashing Paradise: Misadventure in the Real Maldives
by Tom ChesshyreAway from the five-star hotels and beyond luxury hideaways, Tom Chesshyre travels to see the real, unexplored Maldives, skirting around the archipelago's periphery, staying at simple guesthouses, and using cargo ships and ferries. He discovers that beyond the glossy brochures lies an almost undiscovered country that is brimming with life, yet also a paradise teetering on the brink of trouble.In the Maldives outsiders used to be banned from islands not officially endorsed as tourist resorts, but now a thousand sandy shores can be visited in this remote nation deep in the Indian Ocean the flattest on Earth.This is island-hopping for the twenty-first century, sailing around 600 miles of the most beautiful islands and atolls on Earth, often to communities that have not seen an outsider for decades, ...and gatecrashing the odd posh hotel.
When I Fell From The Sky: The True Story of One Woman's Miraculous Survival
by Juliane KoepckeOn December 24th 1971, the teenage Juliane boarded the packed flight in Peru to meet her father for Christmas. She and her mother fought to get some of the last seats available and felt thankful to have made the flight. The LANSA airplane flew into a heavy thunderstorm and went down in dense Amazon jungle hundreds of miles from civilization.She fell two miles from the sky, still strapped to her plane seat, into the jungle. She was the sole survivor among the 92 passengers, which included her mother, and Juliane s unexplainable survival has been called a modern-day miracle.With incredible courage, instinct and ingenuity, she crawled and walked alone for eleven days in the green hell of the Amazon. She survived using the skills she d learned in assisting her parents on their research trips into the jungle before coming across a loggers hut, and, with it, safety. Now she tells her fascinating story for the first time and on its 40th anniversary she shares not only the private moments of her survival and rescue but her inspiring life in the wake of the disaster.
Walking the Woods and the Water: In Patrick Leigh Fermor's Footsteps from the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn
by Nick HuntIn 1933, the eighteen year old Patrick Leigh Fermor set out in a pair of hobnailed boots to chance and charm his way across Europe, like a tramp, a pilgrim or a wandering scholar. The books he later wrote about this walk, A Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water, and the posthumous The Broken Road are a half-remembered, half-reimagined journey through cultures now extinct, landscapes irrevocably altered by the traumas of the twentieth century. Aged eighteen, Nick Hunt read A Time of Gifts and dreamed of following in Fermor's footsteps.In 2011 he began his own great trudge - on foot all the way to Istanbul. He walked across Europe through eight countries, following two major rivers and crossing three mountain ranges. Using Fermor's books as his only travel guide, he trekked some 2,500 miles through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. His aim? To have an old-fashioned adventure. To slow down and linger in a world where we pass by so much, so fast. To discover for himself what remained of hospitality, kindness to strangers, freedom, wildness, adventure, the mysterious, the unknown, the deeper currents of myth and story that still flow beneath Europe's surface.
Ride Like Hell and You'll Get There: Detours into mayhem
by Paul CarterATTEMPTING 300KPH on an untested experimental motorcycle could be considered a perfect way to kill yourself, but Paul Carter is still, well, PAUL CARTER and danger at high speed is his second name. Whether discovering that being dyslexic means delivering your lines to camera back to front in the midst of filming a TV series, or starting a new business and travelling the world, or dealing with life's more sober moments like the birth of a son or the loss of a father, Paul Carter is still the funniest man in the bar and the nicest 'alpha male' you'll ever meet as he risks all for the sake of a cracking yarn. SO STRAP YOURSELF IN and HOLD ON TIGHT for his FOURTH BOOK - we just have to hope that he won't be institutionalised before completing his fifth!
The Gilded Chalet: Off-piste in Literary Switzerland
by Padraig RooneyIn the summer of 1816 paparazzi trained their telescopes on Byron and the Shelleys across Lake Geneva. Mary Shelley babysat and wrote Frankenstein. Byron dieted and penned The Prisoner of Chillon. His doctor, Polidori, was dreaming up The Vampyre. Together they put Switzerland on the map.From Rousseau to Nabokov, le Carré to Conan Doyle, Hemingway to Hesse to Highsmith, Switzerland has always provided a refuge for writers as an escape from world wars, oppression, tuberculosis... or marriage. For Swiss writers from the country was like a gilded prison. The Romantics, the utopians and other spiritual seekers viewed Switzerland as a land of milk and honey, as nature's paradise. In the twentieth century, spying in neutral Switzerland spawned the finest espionage and crime fiction.Part detective work, part treasure chest, The Gilded Chalet takes you on a grand tour of the birthplace of our best-loved stories, revealing how Switzerland became the landscape of our imagination.
The Photographer's Field Guide: The Essential Handbook for Travelling with your Digital SLR Camera (Field Guide)
by Michael FreemanWhether on a weekend city break or a month-long trekking vacation, more and more of us are travelling with the hope of taking striking photos that capture the essence of our time away. Often these are more than just photos for our friends and family to enjoy, with an increasing number of talented amateurs uploading their images to photo agencies and earning extra income from selling rights. So whether you're a keen amateur photographer travelling for business or pleasure, or a budding professional with a specific assignment, The Photographer's Field Guide has all the information you need to help you successfully capture the many photographic opportunities that await. Divided into five sections, the book will help you to prepare for the trip, provide invaluable practical advice for when you're travelling and offer - through superb images from one of the world's most respected travel photographers - guidance on how, what and when to photograph.
Eventscapes: Transforming Place, Space and Experiences
by Graham BrownEventscapes: Transforming Place, Space and Experiences directly examines the interrelation between events’ simultaneous dependence on and transformation of the places in which they are held. This event–environment nexus is analysed through a variety of international case studies including different kinds of well-known sporting and cultural events such as Vivid Sydney, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and the Tour Down Under international cycle race, among others. Chapters focusing on visual design explore the opportunities, at different spatial scales, to develop an event ‘look’ and the ways in which an event experience can be enhanced through connecting and engaging with the local culture and community. As well as the planning and management of events, the book draws on event experience, dramaturgically examining the roles played by authors, actors and the audience, and emphasises the participation of multiple groups in the co-creation of event experiences. This will be invaluable reading for those studying events and the environment. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, it also draws on geography, urban and cultural studies, image studies, architecture and design, environmental psychology, and event management, and will be of use to a broad academic audience.
Eventscapes: Transforming Place, Space and Experiences
by Graham BrownEventscapes: Transforming Place, Space and Experiences directly examines the interrelation between events’ simultaneous dependence on and transformation of the places in which they are held. This event–environment nexus is analysed through a variety of international case studies including different kinds of well-known sporting and cultural events such as Vivid Sydney, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and the Tour Down Under international cycle race, among others. Chapters focusing on visual design explore the opportunities, at different spatial scales, to develop an event ‘look’ and the ways in which an event experience can be enhanced through connecting and engaging with the local culture and community. As well as the planning and management of events, the book draws on event experience, dramaturgically examining the roles played by authors, actors and the audience, and emphasises the participation of multiple groups in the co-creation of event experiences. This will be invaluable reading for those studying events and the environment. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, it also draws on geography, urban and cultural studies, image studies, architecture and design, environmental psychology, and event management, and will be of use to a broad academic audience.
Social Media Marketing in Tourism and Hospitality
by Roberta MinazziThis book describes ongoing developments in social media within the tourism and hospitality sector, highlighting impacts on both the demand and the supply side. It offers a combination of theory and practice, with discussion of real-life business experiences. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which provides an overview of recent trends in social media and user-generated content, clarifies concepts that are often used in an overlapping way and examines the “digitization of word of mouth” via online networks. The second part analyzes the impacts that social media can have on traveler behavior for each step in the travel process and also on suppliers, highlighting opportunities, threats and strategies. In the third part of the book, future potential trends deriving from the mobile marketing technologies are explored and possible methods for social monitoring by means of key performance indicators are examined. It is considered how engaging customers and prospects by means of social media might increase customer loyalty, foster electronic word-of-mouth communication, and consequently have important effects on corporate sales and revenues. The discussion encompasses methods to measure company performance on each of the social media in order to understand the optimal mix that will support and improve business strategies.