The first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary & his Sherpa teammate Tenzing Norgay is a familiar saga, but less well known are the tales of many other adventurers who also came to test their skills & courage against the world`s highest & most dangerous mountains. In this lively & generously illustrated book, historians Maurice Isserman & Stewart Weaver present the first comprehensive history of Himalayan mountaineering in fifty years. They offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, & they compellingly evoke the social & cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions. The book recounts the adventures of such figures as Martin Conway, who led the first authentic Himalayan climbing expedition in 1892; Fanny Bullock Workman, the pioneer explorer of the Karakoram range; George Mallory, the romantic martyr of Mount Everest fame; Charlie Houston, who led American expeditions to K2 in the 1930s & 1950s; Ang Tharkay, the legendary Sherpa, & many others. Throughout, the authors discuss the effects of political & social change on the world of mountaineering, & they offer a penetrating analysis of a culture that once emphasized teamwork & fellowship among climbers, but now has been eclipsed by a scramble for individual fame & glory. ...

Moving from the very beginnings of civilisation, right up to the digital horizons of cyberspace, Jamie Crawford pieces together the biographies of twenty of the world’s most fascinating lost & ruined structures. The lives of these buildings are packed with drama & intrigue combining war & religion, politics & art, love & betrayal, catastrophe & hope. They are also the stage for a startling array of characters including Gilgamesh, the Cretan Minotaur, Agamemnon, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Henry VIII, Catherine the Great, Adolf Hitler & even Bruce Springsteen. Travelling from the deserts of Iraq, the banks of the Nile, the grasslands of the Mongolian steppes & the cloud forests of Peru, to the great cities of Jerusalem, Istanbul, Paris, Rome, London & New York, Fallen Glory is a unique, globetrotting guide to a world of vanished architecture. &, by picking through the fragments of our past, it asks what history’s scattered ruins can tell us about our own future. ...

Poplar Farm has been in Louise`s family for generations, inherited by her sharecropping forebear from a white landowner after a lynching. Now, the farm has been carved up, the trees torn down; a mini-massacre replicating the destruction of lives & societies taking place all over America. Architect of this destruction is Paul Krovik, a property developer soon driven insane by the failure of his dream. Julia & Nathaniel arrive from Boston with their son, Copley, & buy up Paul`s signature home in a foreclosure sale. They move into the half-finished subdivision & settle in to their brave new world. Yet violence lies just beneath the surface of this l&, & simmers deep within Nathaniel. The great trees bear witness, Louise lives on in her beleaguered farmhouse, & as reality shifts, & the edges of what is right & wrong blur & are lost, Copley becomes convinced that someone is living in the house with them. ...

Will friendship overcome the social boundaries of Edwardian London in this bestselling historical tale perfect for fans of Audrey Niffenegger & Sarah Waters. One cold January morning, in the wake of Queen Victoria`s death, two young sets of eyes meet across the graves at Highgate Cemetery. One pair belongs to smartly dressed Lavinia Waterhouse, whose mother clings to the traditional values she sees slipping away; the other to Maude Coleman, whose mother longs to escape the stifling grip of Victorian society. Thrust together by the girls` friendship, these two very different families embark on a new century that promises electricity, emancipation & other changes that will shake the very foundations of their lives. ...

Simon Winchester, author of ”A Crack in the Edge of the World” & ” The Professor & the Madman”
-: ” The essence of this inexpressibly
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On a windy spring morning in an ancient Cretan village, Rory Mac Lean fell to earth. His mother had died a few months earlier & a single obsession had risen from his grief: the notion to build a feather-light flying machine. & so, on the island where Daedalus & Icarus had made mankind`s maiden flight, Mac Lean journeyed back to beginnings, back into the Greek myths, &
- with the help of his Cretan neighbours & plenty of wine
- built a plane & tried to fly. ” Falling for Icarus” is at once a meditation on love, a celebration of the passion for flight & an hilarious, vivid portrait of a village. Its generous & exhilarating characters
- Yioryio, the irrepressible cafe owner, dreamy, dying Aphrodite & divine Apostoli, would-be pilot & Greek god in a golden flying suit
- restore Mac Lean`s faith in life. Through them, he tells a soaring, moving story about how a dream can transform sadness.



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From the grand master of Scandinavian crime fiction
- & one of the best crime writers of our time-a new critically acclaimed novel
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I came here looking for some kind of happiness. I think it might be the cleverest thing I have ever done. One heartbroken winter, Jennifer decides to act on her dream of moving to a tiny Greek island
- because life is too short not to reach out for what makes us happy. Funny, romantic & full of surprising twists, Falling in Honey is a story about relationships, tzatziki, adventures, swimming, Greek dancing, starfish...and a bumpy but beautiful journey into Mediterranean sunshine.
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In Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon`s first novel in the Commissario Brunetti series, readers were introduced to the glamorous & cut-throat world of opera & to one of Italy`s finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli
- then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Now, many years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to the illustrious La Fenice to sing the lead in Tosca. As an opera superstar, Flavia is well acquainted with attention from adoring fans & aspiring singers. But when one anonymous admirer inundates her with bouquets of yellow roses
- on stage, in her dressing room & even inside her locked apartment
- it becomes clear that this fan has become a potentially dangerous stalker. Distraught, Flavia turns to an old friend for help. Familiar with Flavia`s melodramatic temperament, Commissario Brunetti is at first unperturbed by her story, but when another young opera singer is attacked he begins to think Flavia`s fears may be justified. In order to keep his friend out of danger, Brunetti must enter the psyche of an obsessive fan & find the culprit before anyone comes to harm.


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In Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon`s first novel in the Commissario Brunetti series, readers were introduced to the glamorous & cut-throat world of opera & to one of Italy`s finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli
- then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Now, many years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to the illustrious La Fenice to sing the lead in Tosca. As an opera superstar, Flavia is well acquainted with attention from adoring fans & aspiring singers. But when one anonymous admirer inundates her with bouquets of yellow roses
- on stage, in her dressing room & even inside her locked apartment
- it becomes clear that this fan has become a potentially dangerous stalker. Distraught, Flavia turns to an old friend for help. Familiar with Flavia`s melodramatic temperament, Commissario Brunetti is at first unperturbed by her story, but when another young opera singer is attacked he begins to think Flavia`s fears may be justified. In order to keep his friend out of danger, Brunetti must enter the psyche of an obsessive fan & find the culprit before anyone comes to harm.


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