- Table View
- List View
The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest (Climb Ser. #Vol. 1)
by Anatoli Boukreev G. Weston DeWaltIn May 1996 a number of expeditions attempted to climb Mount Everest on the Southeast Ridge route. Each group contained world class climbers and relative novices, some of whom had paid tens of thousands of pounds for the climb. As they neared the summit twenty-three men and women, including the expedition leaders, were caught in a ferocious blizzard. Disorientated, out of oxygen and depleted of supplied, the climbers struggled to find their way to safety. Experienced high-altitude guide Anatoli Boukreev led an exhausted and terrified group of climbers back to safety before going back out into the blizzard to help others stranded on the mountain. Rescuing a number of people from certain death, he emerged a hero. The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev is an honest and gripping account of true endurance and contains interviews with most of the surviving climbers, medical personnel, Sherpa guides, and families of the dead who experienced the tragedy.This edition also includes the transcript of the Mountain Madness debriefing, recorded five days after the tragedy, as well as G. Weston de Walt's response to Jon Krakauer.
The Climb: The Autobiography
by Chris FroomeOn 26th July 2015, Chris Froome entered the record books. He won cycling's ultimate race - the Tour de France - for the second time.Taking a double Yellow Jersey was a staggering achievement. This memoir shows just how remarkable it was, given the uphill struggle Froome faced. Growing up in Kenya, biking down mile after mile of dusty road, and staying in a humble tin hut, he developed a fierce passion and determination to win.The road to Europe was long, gruelling and filled with setbacks - but it prepared him for teamwork as a domestique and then the leap to leader of Team Sky and a shot at winning the Tour de France. In The Climb, written with the renowned investigative reporter David Walsh, he vividly recounts the struggles, the rivalries, the battles, the comebacks. Finally he traces his path to triumph and his mission to help clean up cycling.Inspiring and exhilarating, it will leave you ready to face your own challenges in life, whatever they may be.'Engaging, vividly evoked' Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year'What Chris has done is phenomenal' Sir Chris Hoy
Climb to the Lost World: Through dense Guyanian rainforest to the towering summit of Mount Roraima with Don Whillans and Joe Brown
by Hamish MacInnesOver 9,000 feet up on the top of Mount Roraima is a twenty-five mile square plateau, at the point where Guyana’s border meets Venezuela and Brazil. In 1973, Scottish mountaineering legend Hamish MacInnes alongside climbing notoriety Don Whillans, Mo Anthoine and Joe Brown trekked through dense rainforest and swamp, and climbed the sheer overhanging sandstone wall of the great prow in order to conquer this Conan Doyle fantasy summit.As one of the last unexplored corners of the world, in order to reach the foot of the prow the motley yet vastly experienced expedition trudged through a saturated world of bizarre vegetation, fantastically contorted slime-coated trees and deep white mud; a world dominated by bushmaster snakes, scorpions and giant bird-eating spiders.This wasn’t the end of it, however. The stately prow itself posed extreme technical complications: the rock was streaming with water, and the few-and-far-between ledges were teeming with scorpion-haunted bromeliads. This was not a challenge to be taken lightly. However, if anyone was going to do it, it was going to be this group of UK climbing pioneers, backed by The Observer, supported by the Guyanan Government, and accompanied by a BBC camera team, their mission was very much in the public eye.Climb to the Lost World is a story of discovering an alien world of tortured rock formations, sunken gardens and magnificent waterfalls, combined with the trials and tribulations of day-to-day expedition life. MacInnes’ dry humour and perceptive observations of his companions, flora and fauna relay the story of this first ascent with passion and in true explorer style.
Climb Your Mountain: Everyday lessons from an extraordinary life
by Sir Ranulph Fiennes'Life is too short to waste time on second-class ambitions. Go for the big ones.' Now in his late seventies, Sir Ranulph Fiennes looks back on a lifetime of exploration, and draws powerful, inspiring lessons that we can all use when faced by the tribulations of everyday life. Having crossed both Polar ice caps on foot, climbed Everest and the Eiger, served in the SAS and circumnavigated the world along its polar axis - a 53,000 mile odyssey that has never been repeated - 'Ran' looks back from the summit of an incredible life and teaches us how to: - Learn self-discipline, and master fear - Plan for success, and make your own luck - Learn from failure and strive to succeed - Keep going, whatever life throws at you
Climbers: How the Kings of the Mountains conquered cycling
by Peter CossinsWhen, during the Pyrenean stages of the 1998 Tour de France, a journalist asked Marco Pantani why he rode so fast in the mountains, the elfin Italian, unmistakeable in the bandanna and hooped ear-rings that played up to his "Pirate" nickname, replied: "To shorten my agony."Drawing on the fervour for these men of the mountains, Climbers looks at what sets these athletes apart within the world of bike racing, about why we love and cherish them, how they make cycling beautiful, and how they see themselves and the feats they achieve.Working chronologically, Peter Cossins explores the evolution of mountain-climbing. He offers a comprehensive view of the sport, combining contemporary reports with fresh one-to-one interviews with high-profile riders from the last 50 years, such as Cyrille Guimard, Hennie Kuiper and Andy Schleck. And, unlike many other cycling books, Climbers also includes the stories of female racers across the world, from Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and Annemiek van Vleuten to Fabiana Luperini and Amanda Spratt.Climbers analyses the personalities of these racers, highlighting the individuality of climbing as an exercise and the fundamental fact that it's a solitary challenge undertaken in relentlessly unforgiving terrain that requires unremitting effort.Captivating and iconic, Climbers is the ultimate cycling book to understand what it takes both physically and mentally to take on the sport's hardest stages.
Climbing The Bookshelves: The autobiography of Shirley Williams
by Shirley WilliamsThe role of women in our society has changed out of all recognition. But it has changed least in the House of Commons. I want to describe those changes and the resistances to them through the magnifying glass of my own life, a life that coincides with our turbulent post-war history.'Shirley Williams was born to politics. As well as being influenced by her mother, Vera Brittian, her father George Caitlin, a leading political scientist, encouraged his daughter to have high ambitions for herself - including daring to climb the bookshelves in his library. Elected as MP for Hitchin in 1964, she was a member of the Wilson and Callaghan governments and was also the Secretary of State for Education. As one of the 'Gang of Four' Shirley Williams famously broke away from the Labour Party to found the SDP in 1981 and later supported its merger with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats. CLIMBING THE BOOKSHELVES is the voice of strong and passionate woman of luminous intelligence.
The Climbing Chronicles: A young climber exploring the mountains of Wales, the Lake District and Scotland in the 1940s
by John ParkerThe Climbing Chronicles record the 1940s climbing exploits of Harry Parker. Born in Blackburn on 29 February 1916, Harry started climbing before the war and continued to do so after its conclusion, exploring the Peak District, Wales, the Lake District and Scotland. Each night he noted down his adventures in his 'chronicles', recording the routes he climbed, the walks, bicycle rides and journeys he undertook, and the people he met along the way. Harry's remarkable diaries have now been transcribed by his son John, and the resulting Chronicles offer a first-hand view of climbing and walking in Britain in the 1940s. With an enthusiasm for the outdoors and a sense of fun that springs from every entry, The Climbing Chronicles is an entertaining and fascinating - not to mention quirky - read.
Climbing Ramabang: One Irish climber's explorations in the Himalaya and his overland trip home
by Gerry GalliganGerry Galligan's first book is a bold and expansive travel diary recounting his assembling of a small team of Irish mountaineers and their attempts on unclimbed mountains and unexplored valleys in the remote corners of the Indian Himalaya. Getting there, the team see the hardships of the sub-continent, while in the mountains they experience storms, dangers and failure before ultimately, success and contentment. But it is when Gerry returns to the mountains alone and his subsequent experiences overlanding across Asia and Europe back to Ireland that we start to get a glimpse of the big, wide world out there. A world of temples, festivals, holy cows, Kalashnikovs, donkey herders, corruption, opportunists, stoners and sages. Gerry gives us an insight into the day-to-day lives of mountain peoples, the dysfunctional functionality of India. He finds charm and tolerance in Pakistan and a surprising openness in today's Iran. We travel across rural Turkey and work our way back to the efficient and affluent West, where right on cue Gerry meets his first breakdown on a German train. Climbing Ramabang; One man's understanding of mountains, myth and mayhem.
Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India
by Madhur Jaffrey'I was born in a sprawling house by the Yamuna River in Delhi. When I was a few minutes old, Grandmother welcomed me into the world by writing "Om", which means "I am" in Sanskrit, on my tongue with a little finger dipped in honey. When the family priest arrived to draw up my horoscope, he scribbled astrological symbols on a long scroll and set down a name for me, Indrani, or "queen of the heavens". My father ignored him completely and proclaimed my name was to be Madhur ("sweet as honey").'So begins Madhur Jaffrey's enchanting memoir of her childhood in India. Her description of growing up a in a very large, wealthy family (half a train was booked to transport the family from Delhi to the mountains for the summer) conjures up the spirit of a long lost age. Whether climbing the mango trees in her grandparents' orchard, armed with a mixture of salt, pepper, red chillies and roasted cumin, or enjoying picnics in the foothills of the Himalayas, reached by foot, rickshaw, palanquin or horse, where meatballs stuffed with sultanas and mint leaves, cauliflowers flavoured with ginger and coriander, and spiced pooris with hot green mango pickle were devoured, food forms a major leitmotiv of this beautifully written memoir. With recipes drawn from memories of dinners, lunches, breakfasts, weddings and picnics, moving effortlessly from the lamb meatballs of Moghul emperors to the tamarind chutneys of the streets, this book will appeal to keen armchair cooks, as well as fans of Madhur the world over.
Climbing the Stairs: From kitchen maid to cook; the heartwarming memoir of a life in service
by Margaret PowellFrom the grand houses of Brighton to imposing London mansions, life as a kitchen maid could be exhausting and demoralising. It’s not just being at the beck and call of the people upstairs, when even the children of the family can treat you like dirt, but having to deal with temperamental cooks, starchy butlers and chauffeurs with a roving eye. Marriage is the only escape, but with one evening off a week Margaret has no time to lose. Between Perce the bus conductor (who brings his mother on dates) and Mr Hailsham the fishmonger (who looks – and smells – a bit like his wares), her initial prospects are hardly the stuff of dreams. But then she meets Albert; a butcher boy-turned-milkman. Could he be the perfect husband? And can she make the perfect wife when, as she soon discovers, years spent serving others don't prepare you for managing your own life? Soon Margaret begins to wonder – how can someone like her ever improve their station? Told with her trademark wit and warmth, Climbing the Stairs is a unique, sharp-eyed tale of a time when the idea of masters and servants began to lose its sway, and of a remarkable woman who grasped the opportunities of this brave new world with both hands. 'Margaret Powell was the first person outside my family to introduce me to that world, so near and yet seemingly so far away, where servants and their employers would live their vividly different lives under one roof. Her memories, funny and poignant, angry and charming, haunted me until, many years later, I made my own attempts to capture those people for the camera. I certainly owe her a great debt' Julian Fellowes
Climbs and Ski Runs
by Frank Smythe"Why do you climb?" The mountaineer has no answer to this question. The best things in the world cannot adequately be expressed in speech or print; they are part of the soul.' In Climbs and Ski Runs, Frank Smythe takes the reader on Alpine ski trips and Dolomite adventures, up first ascents in North Wales and on to the mighty Brenva Face of Mont Blanc. He places pebbles for runners, 'shoots' crevasses and is struck by lightning. And yet, all the while, he perfectly captures the moments that make climbing and mountaineering so special - moments that will resonate with anybody who has spent time in the hills. Frank Smythe was among the leading mountaineers of the early twentieth century and one of the finest climbing writers ever to put pen to paper. In Climbs and Ski Runs he documents his early forays into the mountains, giving a remarkable insight into that period of climbing and mountaineering. Yet it is not this that makes the book special. It is Smythe's ability to observe and recreate his surroundings and to write so compellingly about the climber's response to them, and to the moments of difficulty and danger, that brings Climbs and Ski Runs to life.
Clinging to the Iceberg: Writing for a Living on the Stage and in Hollywood (Oberon Books)
by Ron HutchinsonWickedly funny, insightful, often absurd but always true, Clinging to the Iceberg explores the inner workings of the business of writing for hire. It’s written by someone whose career has spanned over forty years on stage and on screen, including thirty lucrative and sometimes uproarious ones in Hollywood. Genuinely laugh-out-loud, it will astound and inspire and along the way reveal the REAL tricks of the dialogue writers’ trade.Hutchinson takes us through his successful career via hilarious anecdotes including a near-death experience on Venice Beach, being paid by Dreamworks to not actually work for them, and struggling to stay sane on location on one of the great movie flops of all time.
CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE: A Part Of Life (Penguin Modern Classics)
by John MortimerClinging to the Wreckage is the first part of John Mortimer's acclaimed autobiography. Here he recounts his solitary childhood in the English countryside, with affectionate portraits of his remote parents - an increasingly unconventional barrister father, whose blindness must never be mentioned, battling earwigs in the mutinous garden, and a vague and endlessly patient mother. As a boy dreaming of a tap-dancing career on the stage and forming a one-boy communist cell at boarding school, his father pushes him to pursue the law, where Mortimer embarks on the career that was to inspire his hilarious and immortal literary creations. Told with great humour and touching honesty, this is a magnificent achievement by one of Britain's best-loved writers.
Clint Eastwood: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies)
by Sara Anson Ph.D.Clint Eastwood—actor, director, composer, musician, and politician—is undeniably one of the most prolific and accomplished celebrities of the modern age. This book provides insights into Eastwood's life and entire career, from early television appearances to recent award-winning films.He established himself early in his acting career as "the strong silent type" and became known as the "actor's director." In a career that spans seven decades, Eastwood's work has been influential for multiple generations of film audiences as well as actors, directors, and producers. This biography investigates the man who made his characters' lines such as "Go ahead—make my day" and "Get off my lawn" unforgettable, and shows why his movie roles and the films he directed are honored, studied, quoted, and remembered.The book describes everything from Eastwood's formative years and early days as a struggling actor to his family and personal life to his lifelong love of jazz music and his political leanings. The chapters describe not only his tremendous accomplishments and countless successes but also his notable failures—coverage that will intrigue readers interested in the film industry, in the acting craft, and in enduring popular cultural icons.
Clint Eastwood: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies)
by Sara Anson Ph.D.Clint Eastwood—actor, director, composer, musician, and politician—is undeniably one of the most prolific and accomplished celebrities of the modern age. This book provides insights into Eastwood's life and entire career, from early television appearances to recent award-winning films.He established himself early in his acting career as "the strong silent type" and became known as the "actor's director." In a career that spans seven decades, Eastwood's work has been influential for multiple generations of film audiences as well as actors, directors, and producers. This biography investigates the man who made his characters' lines such as "Go ahead—make my day" and "Get off my lawn" unforgettable, and shows why his movie roles and the films he directed are honored, studied, quoted, and remembered.The book describes everything from Eastwood's formative years and early days as a struggling actor to his family and personal life to his lifelong love of jazz music and his political leanings. The chapters describe not only his tremendous accomplishments and countless successes but also his notable failures—coverage that will intrigue readers interested in the film industry, in the acting craft, and in enduring popular cultural icons.
Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism: A Biography
by Mark Hussey'Amusing, charming, stimulating, urbane' - THE TIMES'Restores Clive Bell vividly to life' - Lucasta MillerClive Bell is perhaps better known today for being a Bloomsbury socialite and the husband of artist Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginia Woolf. Yet Bell was a highly important figure in his own right: an internationally renowned art critic who defended daring new forms of expression at a time when Britain was closed off to all things foreign. His groundbreaking book Art brazenly subverted the narratives of art history and cemented his status as the great interpreter of modern art. Bell was also an ardent pacifist and a touchstone for the Wildean values of individual freedoms, and his is a story that leads us into an extraordinary world of intertwined lives, loves and sexualities. For decades Bell has been an obscure figure, refracted through the wealth of writing on Bloomsbury, but here Mark Hussey brings Bell to the fore, drawing on personal letters, archives and Bell's own extensive writing. Complete with a cast of famous characters, including Lytton Strachey, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism is a fascinating portrait of a man who became one of the pioneering voices in art of his era. Reclaiming Bell's stature among the makers of modernism, Hussey has given us a biography to muse and marvel over – a snapshot of a time and of a man who revelled in and encouraged the shock of the new.'A book of real substance written with style and panache, copious fresh information and many insights.' - Julian Bell
Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism: A Biography
by Mark Hussey'Amusing, charming, stimulating, urbane' - THE TIMES'Revelatory' - GUARDIAN'Restores Clive Bell vividly to life' - Lucasta MillerClive Bell is perhaps better known today for being a Bloomsbury socialite and the husband of artist Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginia Woolf. Yet Bell was a highly important figure in his own right: an internationally renowned art critic who defended daring new forms of expression at a time when Britain was closed off to all things foreign. His groundbreaking book Art brazenly subverted the narratives of art history and cemented his status as the great interpreter of modern art. Bell was also an ardent pacifist and a touchstone for the Wildean values of individual freedoms, and his is a story that leads us into an extraordinary world of intertwined lives, loves and sexualities. For decades Bell has been an obscure figure, refracted through the wealth of writing on Bloomsbury, but here Mark Hussey brings Bell to the fore, drawing on personal letters, archives and Bell's own extensive writing. Complete with a cast of famous characters, including Lytton Strachey, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism is a fascinating portrait of a man who became one of the pioneering voices in art of his era. Reclaiming Bell's stature among the makers of modernism, Hussey has given us a biography to muse and marvel over – a snapshot of a time and of a man who revelled in and encouraged the shock of the new.'A book of real substance written with style and panache, copious fresh information and many insights.' - Julian Bell
Cloistered: ‘[A] beautifully written memoir…evolves into a spiritual thriller’ Observer
by Catherine Coldstream'A profoundly moving memoir which gripped me' Mark HaddonDiscover Catherine Coldstream’s evocative account of life as a nun in the 1990s, and the dramatic events which led to her flight from the monastery.After the shock of her father’s death, twenty-four-year-old Catherine was left grieving and alone. A search for meaning led her to Roman Catholicism and the nuns of Akenside Priory.Here she found a tight-knit community of dedicated women and peace in an ancient way of life. But as she surrenders to her final vows, all is not as it seems behind the Priory’s closed doors. Power struggles erupt – with far-reaching consequences for those within.Catherine comes to realise that divine authority is mediated through flawed and all-too-human channels. She is faced with a dilemma: should she protect the serenity she has found, or speak out?A love song to a lost community and an honest account of her twelve years in the Order, Cloistered is also a cautionary tale about what can happen when good people cut themselves off from the wider world.‘Immersive, beautifully observed’ Katherine May'I admired [Cloistered] enormously' Sarah Perry‘An intense and often theatrical read’ Financial Times
Close But No Cigar: A True Story of Prison Life in Castro's Cuba
by Stephen PurvisWINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 2017'In its tragic absurdity, Close But No Cigar reads like a Graham Greene story, with a cast of characters to make Hemingway proud' Daily TelegraphFor over a decade Stephen Purvis had been a pillar of Havana's expat community, one of many foreign businessmen investing in Cuba's crawl from Cold War communism towards modernity. But for reasons unknown to him he was also under State Security's microscope. One morning during the height of President Raúl Castro's purges in 2012, while his family slept, the unmarked Ladas of State Security arrived at his home and he was taken away into the absurd and brutal world of Cuban justice.In this engrossing memoir, Purvis recounts his fifteen-month ordeal. Accused at first of selling state secrets, he is taken to the notorious interrogation centre Villa Marista, where he endures brutal conditions designed by the KGB and Stasi to break the bodies and minds of spies and political prisoners, and resists the paranoia and incompetence of his jailers. Later, held in a maximum-security prison, he finds himself surrounded by a motley crew of convicts: people-smugglers and drug-runners together with a handful of confused businessmen also awaiting formal charges.From his arrest to his farcical secret trial and sudden release, Purvis exposes the madness of modern Cuba with wit, grit and a sharp eye for character. As tourists flock to Havana to marvel at a city frozen in time, he shows that despite reforms and international reconciliation the Castro regime remains a corrupt, dictatorial relic. Close But No Cigar is part thriller, part comedy and part morality tale, but most of all a true story that takes the reader into a dark side of a sunny place that remains an enigma.
Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind: In Pursuit of Remarkable Mushrooms
by null Richard Fortey‘A very enjoyable book that brilliantly blends science, insight and passion’ TRISTAN GOOLEY The secret world of fungi is another kingdom. They do things differently there. Diverse beyond our wildest imaginations, fungi don’t obey rules. They pop up unbidden and often dressed in curious reds and greens. They do not seem of this world, yet fungi underpin all the life around us: the ‘wood wide web’ links the trees by a subterranean telegraph; fungi eat the fallen trunks and leaves to recycle the nutrients that keep the wood alive; they feed a host of beetles and flies, which in turn feed birds and bats. Fungi produce the most expensive foods in the world but also offer the prospect of cheap protein for all; they cure disease, and they both cause disease and kill; they are the specialists to surpass all others; their diversity thrills and bewilders. Professor Richard Fortey has been a devoted field mycologist all his life. He has rejoiced in the exuberant variety and profusion of mushrooms since reading as a boy of nuns driven mad by ergot (a fungus). Drawing on decades of experience doing science in the woods and fields, Fortey starts with the perfect ‘fungus day’ – eating ceps in Piedmont. He introduces brown rotters and the white, earthstars and death caps; fungal annuals and perennials, dung lovers and parasites, even fungi that move through the trees like mycelial monkeys. We learn that the giant puffball produces more spores than there are known stars in the universe and fetid stinkhorns begin looking like arrivals from the planet Tharg. He tells of the fungus that turns flies into zombies, the ones that clean up metallic waste the delicious subterranean fungi truffe de Perigord, the delight of gourmets. Amongst these and many other ‘close encounters’ of a fungal kind, the book attempts to answer the questions: what are fungi? Why did their means of reproduction escape discovery for so long? What role do they play in the development of life? The vast kingdom of fungi is more diverse and species rich than plants or animals. Their glorious profusion has the starring role in this magical, deeply informed book which takes us from familiar places into strange worlds.
Close Encounters of the Furred Kind: New Adventures With My Sad Cat And Other Feline Friends
by Tom CoxHave you ever moved house, over a distance of 350 miles, with four cats? If you haven't, and are thinking about it, I'll give you some advice: don't. If you really must move, try to get the cats to arrange their own transport. Focus on yourself instead. You'll have plenty to think about as it is, and the cats will only get in the way with their sarcasm and hairballs. I moved from Norfolk to Devon with four cats and it felt like such an impossible ordeal, part of me believes that I actually died somewhere along the way and am now living in some kind of afterlife: very much like real life, but a little slower moving, and with slightly clearer air. "That's just the West Country," I've been told, but I can't be 100% certain.
Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind: Thoughts on Teacherhood
by Phillip DoneA twenty-year veteran of the classroom, elementary school teacher Phillip Done takes readers through a lively and hilarious year in the classroom. Starting with the relative calm before the storm of buying school supplies and posting class lists, he shares the distinct personalities of grades K-4, what he learned from two professional trick or treating 8-year-old boys, the art of learning cursive and letter-writing, how kindergartners try to trap leprechauns, and what every child should experience before he or she grows up. These charming, sweet, and funny tales of Mr. Done's trials and triumphs as an award-winning schoolteacher will touch readers' hearts and remind them of the true joys of childhood. We all have that one special, favorite grade school teacher whom we fondly remember throughout our adult lives - and every teacher also has students whom they will never forget. This is the perfect book for teachers, parents, and anyone else who is looking for a lighthearted, nostalgic read.
Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration (Canons #58)
by David WojnarowiczI am glad I am alive to witness these things; giving words to this life of sensations is a relief. Smell the flowers while you can. Close to the Knives is the artist, writer and activist David Wojnarowicz's extraordinary memoir. Filthy, beautiful, and sharp to the point of piercing, it is both an exploration of the world seen through the eyes of an artist, and a moving portrait of a generation living, grieving, and dying through the AIDS crisis. It is a triumphant hymn of resistance, and a dizzying celebration of the joys of seeing and living in the world.
Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents
by Ellen UllmanClose to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents, Ellen Ullman's cult classic memoir of the world of computers in the 1980s and early 1990s, is an insight of a world we rarely see up close."Astonishing... impossible to put down"San Francisco Chronicle"We see the seduction at the heart of programming: embedded in the hijinks and hieroglyphics are the esoteric mysteries of the human mind"WiredClose to the Machinehas become a cult classic: Ellen Ullman's humane, insightful, and beautifully written memoir explores the ever-complicating intersections between people and technology; the strange ecstasies of programming; the messiness of life and the artful efficiency of code. It is a deeply personal, prescient account of working at the forefront of computing.With a new introduction by Jaron Lanier, author ofYou Are Not a Gadget"By turns hilarious and sobering, this slim gem of a book chronicles the Silicon Valley way of life... full of delicately profound insights into work, money, love, and the search for a life that matters"NewsweekEllen Ullman'sClose to the Machine, a memoir of her time as a software engineer during the early years of the internet revolution, became a cult classic and established her as a writer of considerable talent; with her second book,The Bug, she became an acclaimed and vital novelist;By Bloodis her third. All three titles are published in the UK by Pushkin Press. Her essays and opinion pieces have been widely published in venues such asHarper's,The New York Times,Salon, andWired. She lives in San Francisco.
Close to the Wind: An Extraordinary Story of Triumph Over Adversity
by Pete GossPete Goss became a national and international hero when he rescued French yachtsman Raphael Dinelli as his boat sank beneath him in the round-the-world single-handed sailing race, the Vendee Globe, on Christmas Day 1996. In doing so Pete scuppered his own chances in the race but was awarded theLegion d'Honneur by France's president and made a friend for life in Dinelli.Close to the Wind is his own story of the race and its dramas, his revolutionary boat,Aqua Quorum, his thoughts and emotions during four months of solitude at sea, the extraordinary surgery that he had to perform on his own elbow and the aftermath of the rescue in the Southern Ocean.