No Picnic on Mount Kenya

Author: Felice Benuzzi
Publisher: MacLehose Press
ISBN: 1681440156
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Book Description
In the shadow of Mount Kenya, surrounded by the forests and creatures of the savannah, life drags interminably for the inmates of POW Camp 354, captured in Africa during World War II. Confined to an endless cycle of boredom and frustration, one prisoner realizes he can bear it no longer. When the clouds covering Mount Kenya part one morning to reveal its towering peaks for the first time, Felice Benuzzi is transfixed. The tedium of camp life is broken by the beginnings of a sudden idea--an outrageous, dangerous, brilliant idea. Not many people would break out of a POW camp and trek for days across perilous terrain before climbing the north face of Mount Kenya with improvised equipment, meager rations, and a picture of the mountain on a tin of beef as their most accurate guide. Fewer still would break back into the camp on their return. This is the remarkable story of three such men--a powerful testament to the human spirit of rebellion and adventure--reissued in a deluxe edition featuring Benuzzi's own watercolor paintings of the expedition and a final chapter that has never before appeared in English.

Mountain

Author: Steve Backshall
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 9781409163923
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
Steve Backshall's love affair with the mountains has taken him to some of the world's wildest places, environments that have the power to make a human being feel very small, very vulnerable and very alive. MOUNTAIN: A LIFE OF THE ROCKS is an account of his most breathtaking expeditions: heading into the 'Death Zone' on the roof of the world in the Himalayas, and picking a precarious route up hundreds of metres of rock in the Arctic and Alps. There are expeditions of exploration, as Steve makes the first ascent of jungle peaks and scales the tabletop mountains of the 'Lost World', Venezuela's Gran Sabana, in search of undiscovered animal species on their summits. Steve recalls his apprenticeship in the art of mountaineering with the Indian army, and the terror and near-disaster of some of his more ill-fated adventures, including the aftermath of the fall that should have ended his life. This is a tale of terror and ecstasy, a book that tries to get to the heart of why we risk our lives to climb and conquer. But most of all, MOUNTAIN is a love letter to the wilderness, from one of the world's most adventurous spirits.

The Ascent Of Rum Doodle

Author: W E Bowman
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446468402
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
An English comic novel about a World War II expedition to a Himalayan peak. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BILL BRYSON An outrageously funny spoof about the ascent of a 40,000-and-a-half-foot peak, The Ascent of Rum Doodle has been a cult favourite since its publication in 1956. Led by the reliably under-insightful Binder, a team of seven British men -- including Dr Prone (constantly ill), Jungle the route finder (constantly lost), Constant the diplomat (constantly arguing) -- and 3,000 Yogistani porters sets out to conquer the highest peak in the Himalayas.

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (Anniversary Edition)

Author: Stephen Greenblatt
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393079848
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 441

Book Description
Named One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, reissued with a new afterword for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the world’s greatest playwright.

Golden Hill

Author: Francis Spufford
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501163876
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Originally published: Great Britain: Faber & Faber, 2016.

Time on Rock

Author: Anna Fleming
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1838851771
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE AND THE BOARDMAN TASKER AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE With great lyricism, Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing and the developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her. Through the story of her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber, she shows us how placing hand and foot on rock becomes a profound new way into the landscape. Anna takes us from the gritstone rocks of the Peak District and Yorkshire to the gabbro pinnacles of the Cuillin, the slate of North Wales and the high plateau of the Cairngorms. Each landscape, and each type of rock, brings its own challenges and invites us into the history of a place.

No Logo

Author: Naomi Klein
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312203436
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 520

Book Description
"What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands." Billy Bragg from the bookjacket.

Near Death in the Mountains

Author: Cecil Kuhne
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307793702
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 535

Book Description
“He wrapped the rope around his body, got ready to rappel and leaned back. Standing about five feet from him, I heard a sharp scraping, Suddenly Ed was flying. I could see him fall, wordless, fifty feet free, then strike the steep ice below…he was sliding and bouncing down. He passed out of sight, but I heard his body bouncing. There wasn't a chance of his stopping for 4,000 feet.” —From David Robert's The Mountain of My Fear In these thrillingly true tales of narrow brushes with death, Cecil Kuhne has amassed a wide range of stories that show the awesome power of the mountains. Spanning five continents, from the frosty tip of Mount McKinley in the dead of the winter, to the unexplored vastness of the Himalayas and beyond, this is a pulse-pounding collection of disaster and survival at the top of the world. Also featuring: • Joe Simpson's Touching the Void—An inspiring story of a climber who topples into a icy crevasse and, though crippled, starving and frostbitten, still manages to crawl to rescue. • Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams—Reaching the limits of his own climbing skills, the author makes a crucial decision whether to brave the treacherous higher altitudes or return to base. • Nando Parrado's Miracle in the Andes—The stunning first-person account of a Peruvian rugby team's airplane crash in the Chilean Andes and their harrowing journey down the mountain for help.

Running the Amazon

Author: Joe Kane
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307809900
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Book Description
The voyage began in the lunar terrain of the Peruvian Andes, where coca leaf is the only remedy against altitude sickness. It continued down rapids so fierce they could swallow a raft in a split second. It ended six months and 4,200 miles later, where the Amazon runs gently into the Atlantic. Joe Kane's personal account of the first expedition to travel the entirety of the world's longest river is a riveting adventure in the tradition of Joseph Conrad, filled with death-defying encounters: with narco-traffickers and Sendero Luminoso guerrillas and nature at its most unforgiving. Not least of all, Running the Amazon shows a polyglot group of urbanized travelers confronting their wilder selves -- their fear and egotism, selflessness and courage.

The Mountain of My Fear

Author: David Roberts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Huntington, Mount
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Book Description
Account of first ascent of west face of Mt. Huntington, Alaska, in 1965.