A young mountaineer in love with another climber faces the ultimate test of her life in the blue ice of the Himalayas.

"McMurdo Station, Antarctica, is home to eighty-mile-per-hour winds, minus seventy degree temperatures, and months of near-total darkness. Sent to Antarctica as an observer, Gretchen Legler tells the story of her season spent at McMurdo Station. Populated by people from all walks of life - bankers, MBAs, therapists, carpenters, scientists, laborers, and military brass - the individuals that Legler meets have gone to Antarctica to escape everything from parking tickets to angry spouses. Hoping to get away from the complexities of her own life, Legler arrives at McMurdo Station with the intention of researching the landscape; what she finds, instead, is a zany population of people." "Part sociological study, part historiography, and part love story, On the Ice is an exploration of one of the most unexplored places on earth and the people who are drawn to it."--BOOK JACKET.

Spanning grades 1-10+, this annotated bibliography of 970 recommended American and world titles published through early 1994 includes adult titles suitable for young readers; at least 200 of the titles are award winners. In support of interdisciplinary English and social studies curricula, librarians and teachers can easily assemble a basic list of books on a geographical place and time period. Geographical sections are divided into historical time periods within which entries are organized alphabetically by author. Each entry contains both reading and interest grade levels, a short incisive annotation about the historical event, setting, plot, protagonist and theme, current publication availability, and awards won. Seven reference appendices allow for easy searching. These helpful appendices and an authors, a titles, and an illustrators index help to make this volume a critical professional tool.

Series covers individuals ranging from established award winners to authors and illustrators who are just beginning their careers. Entries cover: personal life, career, writings and works in progress, adaptations, additional sources, and photographs.

Twenty-three men and thirty-six sled dogs travel to Antarctica aboard a sailing ship converted to steamer in the year 1888, ostensibly to find the South Pole. During the trek across the frozen wastes they begin dying grisly deaths one by one at the hands on an apparent madman and when the goal of the quest appears to be other than the South Pole, conspiracy and mutiny are the dinner guests. In a hot-blooded and at times searing cold 19th Century voice, George Wier populates a historically accurate setting with flesh-and-blood desperate men in a deft and breathless yarn. In Neptune's Forge you can taste the whale blubber, smell the burning coal-oil and feel the biting cold. And like Antarctica itself, this one's not for the faint-of-heart.

Robert Roper's Fatal Mountaineer is a gripping look at Willi Unsoeld and the epic climbs that defined him--a classic narrative blending action with ethics, fame with tragedy, a man's ambition with a father's anguish. In 1963, Willi Unsoeld became an international hero for his conquest of the West Ridge of Everest. A charismatic professor of philosophy, Unsoeld was one of the greatest climbers of the twentieth century, a man whose raw physical power and casual fearlessness inspired a generation of adventurers. In 1976, during an expedition to Nanda Devi, the tallest peak in India, Unsoeld's philosophy of spiritual growth through mortal risk was tragically tested. The outcome of that expedition continues to fuel one of the most fascinating debates in mountaineering history.

HIGH ADVENTURE ON THE SWORD EDGE OF DESTINY A Cavern of Black Ice is the first book in J.V. Jones's Sword of Shadow series As a newborn Ash March was abandoned--left for dead at the foot of a frozen mountain. Found and raised by the Penthero Iss, the mighty Surlord of Spire Vanis, she has always known she is different. Terrible dreams plague her and sometimes in the darkness she hears dread voices from another world. Iss watches her as she grows to womanhood, eager to discover what powers his ward might possess. As his interest quickens, he sends his living blade, Marafice Eye, to guard her night and day. Raif Sevrance, a young man of Clan Blackhail, also knows he is different, with uncanny abilities that distance him from the clan. But when he and his brother survive an ambush that plunges the entire Northern Territories into war, he yet seeks justice for his own . . . even if means he must forsake clan and kin. Ash and Raif must learn to master their powers and accept their joint fate if they are to defeat an ancient prophecy and prevent the release of the pure evil known as the End Lords. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Alaezdar has been wounded and is suffering from the effects of Goblin-Touched Steel. His body's transformation and death has been slowed, but he suffers. He must seek out his father's council for answers to his role within the prophecy. Meanwhile, Kunther and Aaelie find themselves without a home and family after the ransacking of Valewood by Trielian Warriors. They end up on separate journeys facing perilous danger as they struggle to find their paths. Fyaa, with information given to her by Ra-Corsh, begins anew her search for her Birds of Fire. She also seeks out Crimson, her long lost lover, in order to restore their place in the cycle. She sets her gaze on Alaezdar as she seeks to bring the prophecy full circle. Alaezdar's only hope is to follow Fyaa in hopes of recovering memories long lost. The Center Stone, and therefore, the Triestones, have resurfaced. The full reality of the prophecies becoming all too real for the denizens of Wrae-Kronn.

Born to an eminent Russian family, Vladimir Nabokov came to America fleeing the Nazis and remembered his time here as the richest of his life. Indeed, his best work flowed from his response to this storied land. With charm and insight, Robert Roper fills out this period in the writer's life: his friendship with Edmund Wilson, his time at Cornell, his role at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. But Nabokov in America finds its narrative heart in his and his family's serial sojourns into the West. Roper has mined fresh sources to bring detail to these journeys, and traces their significant influence in Nabokov's work: on two-lane highways and in late-'40s motels and cafés, we feel Lolita draw near, and understand Nabokov's seductive familiarity with the American mundane. Nabokov in America is also a love letter to U.S. literature, in Nabokov's broad embrace of it from Melville to the Beats. Reading Roper, we feel anew the rich learning and the Romantic mind behind some of Nabokov's most beloved books.