Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube

Author: Blair Braverman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062311581
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Book Description
A rich and revelatory memoir of a young woman reclaiming her courage in the stark landscapes of the north. By the time Blair Braverman was eighteen, she had left her home in California, moved to arctic Norway to learn to drive sled dogs, and found work as a tour guide on a glacier in Alaska. Determined to carve out a life as a “tough girl”—a young woman who confronts danger without apology—she slowly developed the strength and resilience the landscape demanded of her. By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube brilliantly recounts Braverman’s adventures in Norway and Alaska. Settling into her new surroundings, Braverman was often terrified that she would lose control of her dog team and crash her sled, or be attacked by a polar bear, or get lost on the tundra. Above all, she worried that, unlike the other, gutsier people alongside her, she wasn’t cut out for life on the frontier. But no matter how out of place she felt, one thing was clear: she was hooked on the North. On the brink of adulthood, Braverman was determined to prove that her fears did not define her—and so she resolved to embrace the wilderness and make it her own. Assured, honest, and lyrical, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube paints a powerful portrait of self-reliance in the face of extraordinary circumstance. Braverman endures physical exhaustion, survives being buried alive in an ice cave, and drives her dogs through a whiteout blizzard to escape crooked police. Through it all, she grapples with love and violence—navigating a grievous relationship with a fellow musher, and adapting to the expectations of her Norwegian neighbors—as she negotiates the complex demands of being a young woman in a man’s land. Weaving fast-paced adventure writing and ethnographic journalism with elegantly wrought reflections on identity, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube captures the triumphs and the perils of Braverman’s journey to self-discovery and independence in a landscape that is as beautiful as it is unforgiving.

Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember

Author: Christine Hyung-Oak Lee
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062422170
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
“A brave, encouraging, genuine work of healing discovery that shows us the ordinary, daily effort it takes to make a shattered self cohere.” — Floyd Skloot, author of In the Shadow of Memory “The stuff of poetry and of nightmares... [Lee] investigates her broken brain with the help of a journal, beautifully capturing the helplessness, frustration, and comic absurdity (yes, a book about a stroke can be funny!) of navigating life after your world has been torn apart.” — Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire “Lee excavates her life with the care of an archeologist in this stunning memoir...Her account is lyrical, honest, darkly comic, surprising, and transcendent in the way it redefines the importance of family history, memory, and what of it we choose to hold with us. A beautiful book.” — Christa Parravani, author of Her: A Memoir “A searing memoir buoyed by hope.” — People “This honest and meditative memoir is the story about how Hyung-Oak Lee rebuilt her life, quite literally one step at a time, and how she discovered the person she had always wanted to become.” — Refinery29.com “Honest and insightful” — New York Times Book Review “Emotionally explicit and intensely circumspect... . With careful thought and new understanding, the author explores the enduring mind-body connection with herself at the nexus of it all. A fascinating exploration of personal identity from a writer whose body is, thankfully, ‘no longer at war.’” — Kirkus Reviews “Fearless... [Lee’s] engaging memoir...makes a difficult topic accessible and relatable. Lee expertly explains how the brain works and how even a damaged brain can adapt. Her narrative is both scientific and emotional, revealing the wonders of biology and the power of the human spirit.” — Booklist

Trapline Chatter

Author: Nancy Becker
Publisher: Publication Consultants
ISBN: 1594339414
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
A story of love, loss, family and discovery — a story of life on a trapline in the Far North. “Bob Harte was well-known to those of us in the trapping community long before he became an international celebrity as a star of the Last Alaskans TV program. Bob was born to live a remote lifestyle and found his slice of heaven in the remote region of northeast Alaska. Nancy's book offers a perspective on their life together in the wilderness. Readers will gain a new understanding of what it's like to live in one of the most isolated places on earth. The lifestyle is simple and challenging, but very rewarding.” — Randy Zarnke – President of the Alaska Trappers Association

Small Game

Author: Blair Braverman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006306619X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
A gripping debut novel about a survival reality show gone wrong that leaves a group of strangers stranded in the northern wilds Four strangers and six weeks: this is all that separates Mara from one life-changing payday. She was surprised when reality TV producers came knocking at Primal Instinct—the survival school where she teaches rich clients not to die during a night outdoors—and even more shocked to be cast in their new show, Civilization. Now she just has to live off the land with her fellow survivors for long enough to get the prize money. Whisked by helicopter to an undisclosed location, Mara meets her teammates: The grizzled outdoorsman. The Eagle Scout. The white-collar professional. And Ashley, the beautiful but inexperienced one who just wants to be famous. Mara’s unusual, rugged childhood has prepared her for the discomforts and hard work ahead. But trusting her fellow survivors? Not part of Mara’s skill set. When the cast wakes one morning to find something has gone horribly wrong, fear ripples through the group. Are the producers giving them an extra challenge? Or are they wrapped up in something more dangerous? Soon Mara and the others face terrifying decisions as “survival” becomes more than a game. A provocative exploration of the comforts, rituals, and connections we depend upon, Small Game is a gripping page-turner and a poignant story about finding the courage to build a new life from the ground up.

The Nest

Author: Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062414232
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives. Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, “The Nest,” which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest’s value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems. Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can’t seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the futures they’ve envisioned? Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives. This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.

This Much Country

Author: Kristin Knight Pace
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538762390
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
A memoir of heartbreak, thousand-mile races, the endless Alaskan wilderness and many, many dogs from one of only a handful of women to have completed both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod. In 2009, after a crippling divorce that left her heartbroken and directionless, Kristin decided to accept an offer to live at a friend's cabin outside of Denali National Park in Alaska for a few months. In exchange for housing, she would take care of her friend's eight sled dogs. That winter, she learned that she was tougher than she ever knew. She learned how to survive in one of the most remote places on earth and she learned she was strong enough to be alone. She fell in love twice: first with running sled dogs, and then with Andy, a gentle man who had himself moved to Alaska to heal a broken heart. Kristin and Andy married and started a sled dog kennel. While this work was enormously satisfying, Kristin became determined to complete the Iditarod -- the 1,000-mile dogsled race from Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast. THIS MUCH COUNTRY is the story of renewal and transformation. It's about journeying across a wild and unpredictable landscape and finding inner peace, courage and a true home. It's about pushing boundaries and overcoming paralyzing fears.

Fast into the Night

Author: Debbie Clarke Moderow
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544444744
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
“Moderow’s dedication and love for the Huskies that accompany her from Anchorage to Nome is the soul that drives this insightful and touching memoir.”—Cowgirl Magazine At age forty-seven, a mother of two, Debbie Moderow was not your average musher in the Iditarod, but that’s where she found herself when, less than 200 miles from the finish line, her dogs decided they didn’t want to run anymore. After all her preparation, after all the careful management of her team, and after their running so well for over a week, the huskies balked. But the sting of not completing the race after coming so far was nothing compared to the disappointment Moderow felt in having lost touch with her dogs. Fast into the Night is the gripping story of Moderow’s journeys along the Iditarod trail with her team of spunky huskies: Taiga and Su, Piney and Creek, Nacho and Zeppy, Juliet and the headstrong leader, Kanga. The first failed attempt crushed Moderow’s confidence, but after reconnecting with her dogs she returned and ventured again to Nome, pushing through injuries, hallucinations, epic storms, flipped sleds, and clashing personalities, both human and canine. And she prevailed. A tale of survival, loyalty, and the mysterious connection between humans and dogs, Fast into the Night is “what may be the quintessential Iditarod story . . . a great Alaskan adventure well told” (Dave Atcheson, author of Dead Reckoning). “When a memoir magically materializes before your eyes, striking all the right chords, it’s a wonder to behold—truly beautiful. In Fast into the Night that is precisely what Debbie Clarke Moderow graces us with.”—Anchorage Press

The Adventurer's Son

Author: Roman Dial
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062876627
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Destined to become an adventure classic." —Anchorage Daily News Hailed as "gripping" (New York Times) and "beautiful" (Washington Post), The Adventurer's Son is Roman Dial’s extraordinary and widely acclaimed account of his two-year quest to unravel the mystery of his son’s disappearance in the jungles of Costa Rica. In the predawn hours of July 10, 2014, the twenty-seven-year-old son of preeminent Alaskan scientist and National Geographic Explorer Roman Dial, walked alone into Corcovado National Park, an untracked rainforest along Costa Rica’s remote Pacific Coast that shelters miners, poachers, and drug smugglers. He carried a light backpack and machete. Before he left, Cody Roman Dial emailed his father: “I am not sure how long it will take me, but I’m planning on doing 4 days in the jungle and a day to walk out. I’ll be bounded by a trail to the west and the coast everywhere else, so it should be difficult to get lost forever.” They were the last words Dial received from his son. As soon as he realized Cody Roman’s return date had passed, Dial set off for Costa Rica. As he trekked through the dense jungle, interviewing locals and searching for clues—the authorities suspected murder—the desperate father was forced to confront the deepest questions about himself and his own role in the events. Roman had raised his son to be fearless, to be at home in earth’s wildest places, travelling together through rugged Alaska to remote Borneo and Bhutan. Was he responsible for his son’s fate? Or, as he hoped, was Cody Roman safe and using his wilderness skills on a solo adventure from which he would emerge at any moment? Part detective story set in the most beautiful yet dangerous reaches of the planet, The Adventurer’s Son emerges as a far deeper tale of discovery—a journey to understand the truth about those we love the most. The Adventurer’s Son includes fifty black-and-white photographs.

Lover Revealed

Author: J. R. Ward
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0451417178
Category : Black Dagger Brotherhood (Fictitious characters)
Languages : en
Pages : 514

Book Description
Human police officer Butch O'Neal is allowed into the Brotherhood's inner circle, where he comes under the spell of the beautiful and aristocratic vampire Marissa. But O'Neal is no ordinary human, and the real reason for his presence is soon revealed.

The Outlaw Ocean

Author: Ian Urbina
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0451492951
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 560

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A riveting, adrenaline-fueled tour of a vast, lawless, and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways—drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil, and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposé, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching.