In this vivid memoir that has sold millions of copies worldwide, Heinrich Harrer recounts his adventures as one of the first Europeans ever to enter Tibet. Harrer was traveling in India when the Second World War erupted. He was subsequently seized and imprisoned by British authorities. After several attempts, he escaped and crossed the rugged, frozen Himalayas, surviving by duping government officials and depending on the generosity of villagers for food and shelter.Harrer finally reached his ultimate destination-the Forbidden City of Lhasa-without money, or permission to be in Tibet. But Tibetan hospitality and his own curious appearance worked in Harrer's favor, allowing him unprecedented acceptance among the upper classes. His intelligence and European ways also intrigued the young Dalai Lama, and Harrer soon became His Holiness's tutor and trusted confidant. When the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950, Harrer and the Dalai Lama fled the country together.This timeless story illuminates Eastern culture, as well as the childhood of His Holiness and the current plight of Tibetans. It is a must-read for lovers of travel, adventure, history, and culture. A motion picture, under the direction of Jean-Jacques Annaud, will feature Brad Pitt in the lead role of Heinrich Harrer.

This is a highly illustrated, personal account of Peter Aufschnaiter's eight-year sojourn in Tibet, characterized by his empathy for and understanding of Tibetan culture and enriched by his photographs and sketches. The text is a sensitive record of the Tibetans and their way of life and ends of the eve of the Chinese invasion that was to wreak such irreversible damage to this unique culture.

To coincide with the October film from Mandalay/TriStar, this a beautiful hardcover book features color photos, the script, and story behind the epic movie based on the classic memoir of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, starring Brad Pitt and David Thewlis. 100 photos & drawings.

Bordered by the Himalaya on the south and the Karakoram on the west, Tibet offers trekkers an experience like no other. In this updated edition of Trekking in Tibet, McCue prepares us for a sojourn into this mystical, other- worldly land presenting detailed discussions of pre-trip planning, the most rewarding treks, as well as an educational glimpse into the country's history and culture.

The moving biography of Thubten Jigme Norbu, an elder brother of the fourteenth Dalai Lama. Thubten Norbu recalls the details of his life: his childhood, his recognition as a reincarnated lama, the story of his brother, and the exile of thousands of Tibetans from their homeland. Thubten Norbu told his story (it was actually taped) to Heinrich Harrer who spent Seven Years in Tibet (Harrer's account appeared in 1954) and was the tutor to the Dalai Lama.

Beyond Shangri-La chronicles relations between the Tibetans and the United States since 1908, when a Dalai Lama first met with U.S. representatives. What was initially a distant alliance became more intimate and entangled in the late 1950s, when the Tibetan people launched an armed resistance movement against the Chinese occupiers. The Tibetans fought to oust the Chinese and to maintain the presence of the current Dalai Lama and his direction of their country. In 1958, John Kenneth Knaus volunteered to serve in a major CIA program to support the Tibetans. For the next seven years, as an operations officer working from India, from Colorado, and from Washington, D.C., he cooperated with the Tibetan rebels as they utilized American assistance to contest Chinese domination and to attain international recognition as an independent entity. Since the late 1950s, the rugged resolve of the Dalai Lama and his people and the growing respect for their efforts to free their homeland from Chinese occupation have made Tibet's political and cultural status a pressing issue in international affairs. So has the realization by nations, including the United States, that their geopolitical interests would best be served by the defeat of the Chinese and the achievement of Tibetan self-determination. Beyond Shangri-La provides unique insight into the efforts of the U.S. government and committed U.S. citizens to support a free Tibet.

What has made remote, mountainous Tibet and its only real celebrity, the Dalai Lama, so abidingly fascinating to the West? In Virtual Tibet, Orville Schell, one of the preeminent experts on modern China and Tibet, undertakes a strange and wondrous odyssey into our Tibetan fantasies. He recounts the spellbinding adventures of the Western explorers and spiritualists who for centuries were bent on reaching forbidden Tibet and the holy city of Lhasa. Simultaneously, Schell embarks on a parallel present-day journey from Beastie Boys' "Free Tibet" concerts to a re-creation of Lhasa in the high Argentine Andes -- the extravagant set of Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt. At once comic and insightful, Virtual Tibet takes us beyond the fantasies to the reality of an isolated country that has repeatedly won the West's adoration, and paid the price for believing that our allegiance is profound.

David Bowie was born into a lower middle class London family which, in its particular brand of weirdness, bears comparison with Jo Orton's. David was his mother, Peggy's, third illegitimate child and although David's father was Jewish, Peggy was a member of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts. David idolized his elder brother, Terry, who was institutionalized because of schizophrenia, and it was a fear of going mad himself which was to be the driving inspirational force behind David's creation of himself as a pop superstar. dramatize the idea of going to the far side of madness, and created Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke, the pop archetypes which were to dominate the 1970s. In 1973 he had five albums in the top 30 at the same time. relationship with friends and rivals such as Marc Bolan, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger.

The first English-language anthology of contemporary Tibetan fiction available in the West, Old Demons, New Deities brings together the best Tibetan writers from both Tibet and the diaspora, who write in Tibetan, English and Chinese. Modern Tibetan literature is just under forty years old: its birth dates to 1980, when the first Tibetan language journal was published in Lhasa. Since then, short stories have become one of the primary modern Tibetan art forms. Through these sometimes absurd, sometimes strange, and always moving stories, the English-reading audience gets an authentic look at the lives of ordinary, secular, modern Tibetans navigating the space between tradition and modernity, occupation and exile, the personal and the national. The setting may be the Himalayas, an Indian railway, or a New York City brothel, but the insights into an ancient culture and the lives and concerns of a modern people are real, and powerful. For this anthology, editor and translator Tenzin Dickie has collected 21 short stories by 16 of the most respected and well known Tibetan writers working today, including Pema Bhum, Pema Tseden, Tsering Dondrup, Woeser, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Kyabchen Dedrol, and Jamyang Norbu.