The 16 stories in this collection deal with confrontation, struggle, and survival amidst the unforgiving violence of nature. Set in the hauntingly beautiful and dangerously remote lands of southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, the narration acquires a magical tone in describing the strife of man in the doubly isolating landscape of human nature within the surrounding environment.

Cape Horn's fearsome reputation and the price it has exacted from those who venture there derives from a lethal contrivance of geography that unleashes the most powerful natural dynamic forces on the earth's surface. Reaching deep into the Southern Ocean, the Cape intrudes into the flow of the water and weather patterns at the bottom of the world and funnels them into a maritime superhighway a mere 500 miles wide, building massive seas and accelerating wind speeds to hurricane strength. Currents rip at rates that defeat powerful engines. These legendarily treacherous conditions were enough to secure Cape Horn's reputation as the ultimate in ocean violence; the supreme test of sailors and ships. It is the oceanic equivalent of the climbers' Everest, and the challenge to some became irresistible. The roll call of sailors who have managed to round the Horn east-about (and more rarely, head to wind and west-about) glitters with the names of sailing legends: Vito Dumas, Marcel Bardiaux, Francis Chichester, Robin Knox-Johnston, Bernard Moitessier and Chay Blyth. This book recounts the history of the Cape through the stories of the people who've taken it on and made it round – the Cape Horners' Club. From the first recorded single-hander in 1934 (Al Hansen, who was lost shortly afterwards and his body never found), we follow these very different protagonists as they pursue the ultimate goal while battling almost overwhelming odds. Woven through their stories is a history of the Cape, from its discovery to its use as a trading corridor until the opening of the Panama Canal, to its more recent role as a pure challenge for the best yachtsmen and yachtswomen in the world. Changes in weather prediction and navigation have had a huge impact, but the pressure for ever-faster times has never been greater.

Reports announcing the death of the book are now rife, but the continued relevance of the ten master writers discussed in this volume is proof to the contrary. Here we come across the dissident Czech writer Václav Havel, who later became the nation’s president; the South African Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer, with her pronounced anti-apartheid novels; the Chilean-American Isabel Allende, ‘the world’s most widely read Spanish author’; and Günter Grass, hailed as the ‘literary spokesman of his generation’. We also meet Graham Greene and Milan Kundera alongside the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, who, in his quiet way, ridiculed Islamic fundamentalism. The book is rounded off with three remarkable Latin American writers: Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and Gabriel García Márquez. Of Love and Other Sorrows takes the reader on a fascinating journey in the company of some of the biggest names in modern literature. This illuminating study of their lives and works will seduce readers to rediscover these masters for themselves.

Traces a father and son journey around South America in a tiny boat they built together

Tales from the Sharp End: A Portrait of Chile is based on fifteen years of Natascha Scott-Stokes living and exploring the country of Chile. The book offers a vivid tapestry of stories ranging from history and culture to flora and fauna, woven into the author’s own tales of adventure and heartbreak. Chile is 4,300 kilometers long but a mere 350 kilometers at its widest, lined by the Andes to the east and the Pacific to the west. Traveling along the Pan-American Highway takes you to both the driest desert on earth and impenetrable cloud forests barring the way to Patagonian ice fields. Here is the true magnet of this jagged knife-edge of a country: the unique landscape born of its geography and the gorgeous plant and animal life there. Few things are more thrilling than climbing the coastal mountains to see both the Andes and the ocean at the same time, or to set eyes on the mighty River Baker churning through southern Patagonia. Natascha Scott-Stokes offers both a love letter to Chile and a heartfelt lament for a country living at the sharp end of human folly and climate change.

Legendary account of the author's voyage around Cape Horn in a 32-foot sailboat, sailing east-to-west (thus the Horn is to starboard, or on the right). This is a notoriously difficult and dangerous passage, especially in a boat this size.

The tenth installment in the beloved, epic Aubrey/Maturin series and inspiration for the major motion picture starring Russell Crowe. The War of 1812 continues, and Captain Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on a mission after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate outward bound to wreak havoc with the British whaling trade. Meanwhile, Stephen Maturin has a mission of his own in the world of secret intelligence and comes face to face with the harsh realities for women of the age. Disaster in various guises awaits them in the Great South Sea and in the far reaches of the Pacific—typhoons, castaways, shipwrecks, an ill-fated affair, murder, and criminal insanity—as well as a bold rescue by a crew of seafaring female warriors.

For as far back as he can remember, Dallas Murphy has been sea-struck. Since he began to read, "besotted by salt-water dreams and nautical language," he studied the lore surrounding a place of mythic proportions: the ever-alluring Cape Horn. And after years of dreaming -- and sailing -- he finally made his voyage there. In this lively, thrilling blend of history, geography, and modern-day adventure, Murphy shows how the myth crossed wakes with his reality. Cape Horn is a buttressed pyramid of crumbly rock situated at the very bottom of South America -- 55 degrees 59 minutes South by 67 degrees 16 minutes West. It's a place of forlorn and foreboding beauty, one that has captured the dark imaginations of explorers and writers from Francis Drake to Joseph Conrad. For centuries, the small stretch of water between Cape Horn and the Antarctic peninsula was the only gateway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and it's a place where the storms are bigger, the winds stronger, the seas rougher than anywhere else on earth. Rounding the Horn is the ultimate maritime rite of passage, and in Murphy's hands, it becomes a thrilling, exuberant tour. Weaving together stories of his own nautical adventures with long-lost tales of those who braved the Cape before him -- from Spanish missionaries to Captain Cook -- and interspersed with breathtaking descriptions of the surrounding wilderness, the result is a beautifully crafted, immensely enjoyable read.