No one writes about mountaineering & its attendant victories & hardships more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest essays & reporting, Krakauer writes of mountains from the memorable perspective of one who has himself struggled with solo madness to scale Alaska`s notorious Devils Thumb. In Pakistan, the fearsome K2 kills thirteen of the world`s most experienced mountain climbers in one horrific summer. In Valdez, Alaska, two men scale a frozen waterfall over a four-hundred-foot drop. In France, a hip international crowd of rock climbers, bungee jumpers, & paragliders figure out new ways to risk their lives on the towering peaks of Mont Blanc. Why do they do it? How do they do it? In this extraordinary book, Krakauer presents an unusual fraternity of daredevils, athletes, & misfits stretching the limits of the possible. From the paranoid confines of a snowbound tent, to the thunderous, suffocating terror of a white-out on Mount Mc Kinley, ” Eiger Dreams” spins tales of driven lives, sudden deaths, & incredible victories. This is a stirring, vivid book about one of the most compelling & dangerous of all human pursuits. ...

The eight feet belong to Dervla Murphy, her nine-year-old daughter Rachel, & Juana, an elegant mule, who together clambered the length of Peru, from Cajamarca near the border with Ecuador, to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital, over 1300 miles to the south. With only the most basic necessities to sustain them & spending most of their time above 10, 000 feet, their journey was marked by extreme discomfort, occasional danger & even the temporary loss of Juana over a precipice. Yet mother & daughter, a formidable duo, were unflagging in their sympathetic response to the perilous beauty & impoverished people of the Andes. In this extraordinary adventure, Dervla Murphy is at her intrepid best, facing up to the terrors, horrors & joys of her journey along the mountain paths. ...

Eight authors were given after hours freedom at their chosen English heritage site. Immersed in the history, atmosphere & rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories. Sarah Perry`s intense tale of possession at the Jacobean country house Audley End is a work of psychological terror, while Andrew Michael Hurley`s story brings an unforgettably shocking slant to the history of Carlisle Castle. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the classic ghost story. Relish the imagined terrors at these exhilarating locations: Kate Clanchy, Housesteads Roman Fort Stuart Evers, Dover Castle Mark Haddon, York Cold War Bunker Andrew Michael Hurley, Carlisle Castle Sarah Perry, Audley End Max Porter Eltham Palace Kamila Shamsie, Kenilworth Castle Jeanette Winterson, Pendennis Castle ...

Rooted in place, slipping between worlds
- a rich collection of unnerving ghosts & sinister histories. Eight authors were given
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Nick Thorpe was innocently travelling around South America with his wife, Ali, when he came across an American adventurer planning to sail from Chile to Easter Island on a Bolivian boat made from reeds. Inspired by the great Thor Heyerdahl, Phil Buck had recruited seven men to join him on this experiment to discover whether it might have been possible that Polynesia was first settled from South America rather than Asia. But when one of them dropped out a place in the crew became available for Nick. What followed was a somewhat bizarre expedition undertaken by a rather makeshift vessel, a couple of ducks (one of which could have only guessed at its fate) & a group of men, who, when all was said & done, weren`t quite sure how to sail a boat... Brilliantly told, EIGHT MEN & A DUCK is a feel-good, hilarious tale of storms, amateur seamen & the occasional shark. ...

” Eight White Nights” is an unforgettable journey through the experience of time & desire, where passion & fear & the sheer craving to ask for love & to show love can forever alter who we are. A man in his late twenties goes to a large Christmas party in Manhattan where a woman introduces herself with three words: `I am Clara.` Over the following seven days, they meet every evening in the snowy city. Overwhelmed yet cautious, he treads softly & won`t hazard a move. The tension between them builds, marked by ambivalence, hope, & distrust. Moving both closer together, then further apart, this amorous dance builds towards a New Year`s Eve charged with magic, the promise of renewal & love. ...

From bird-watching to beach parties & diving, this small city in the Negev
- Israel's ' Great Outdoors'
- packs a punch. Footprint

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Indexed street plan of Eilat (Elat) from Israel’s national survey organization, extending south of the city to include beaches & campsites around the Coral Beach Reserve. The plan highlights beaches & other sea front facilities, indicating wheelchair access. Various institutions (governmental & municipal, education, medical, culture, etc.), hotels, campsites, beaches, sport & leisure facilities, shopping centres, etc. are numbered on the plan & listed next to the street index. All place names are in Roman alphabet & map legend is in English. The area outside the town has contours with relief shading & shows hiking cycling & 4WD trails. ...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016. SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2016. SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NEW BLOOD DAGGER AWARD 2016. ” Fully lives up to the hype. A taut psychological thriller, rippled with comedy as black as a raven`s wing, Eileen is effortlessly stylish & compelling.” (Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Times). The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop. Trapped between caring for her alcoholic father & her job as a secretary at the boys` prison, she tempers her dreary days with dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, her nights & weekends are filled with shoplifting & cleaning up her increasingly deranged father`s messes. When the beautiful, charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted, unable to resist what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship. But soon, Eileen`s affection for Rebecca will pull her into a crime that far surpasses even her own wild imagination. ...

When Louis Hagen returned to Berlin immediately after the war, having survived not only incarceration & torture in a German concentration camp but also the Battle of Arnhem, it was through a desire to see the great German eagle toppled, its talons drawn. The son of a wealthy Jewish banker, he had seen his family flee their home, & many of his relatives had died at the hands of the Third Reich. He wanted to understand the German people; why had so many welcomed the Nazi Party, & were they now humbled & wiser? Hagen interviewed nine people he had known before the war who represented a wide spectrum of German society. They were an SA officer, a businessman, a doctor, a socialite, a journalist, a professional soldier, an SS wife, a member of the Hitler Youth & a mischling, or half Jew. Four were Nazis, three were collaborators, & two were anti-Nazi. The very fact that none of these people was a high-ranking Nazi official or a survivor of the Holocaust provides an insight into the Third Reich that is a revelation even for those who know this period of history intimately. How could the Baroness sent to Theriesenstadt concentration camp hold salons for ex-Nazis after the war? Through the lives of nine ordinary Germans, tracing their experiences of Nazism from the first hopeful days until the horrors of the Russian occupation of Berlin, Louis Hagen provides a salutary & unforgettable record of the German people in the shadow of the swastika. ...