Author Jarda Cervenka discovers that reality is often stranger than fiction while living and traveling in East and West Africa. In this collection of stories set in Africa, he describes how those who do not belong, sufferand then want to return to the Dark Continent again. His tales recall a calm village man whose best time in life was the Biafra war, two young Americans who hitchhike to Lake Baringo in Kenya, and a Peace Corps volunteer who disappears in the deadly Niger River delta. He also tells of a young businessman from Baltimore who is in love with an Igbo girland who encounters a prostitute in an unusual circumstance while on a business trip in Lagos. In another tale, a Californian professor with malformed feet travels to a deep jungle to learn how to construct orthopedic shoes, which change his life. Finally, three adventurers, kidnapped by ruthless robbers, get help from a French secret agent and a dose of luck. Life in Africa can be grim and disturbing, but theres also humor, humanity, and lots of adventure in the Four Thorns of Kilimanjaro.

Existence. It was a pretty exhilarating joy-ride, with a few sharp turns taken and in the second half, without a skid, downwind, on a sunny road. I find it fitting to end this writing (finally!) by an Eskimo chant, because after Israeli Jews, Eskimos of old times have been my most favorite people: Glorious was life Now I am filled with joy For every time a dawn Makes white the sky of night For every time the sun goes up Over the heavens.

Art Wolfe’s immersive photos capture the wonder humans have felt about trees for millennia. From the ancient Assyrian Tree of Life to the Iroquois peoples’ Tree of Peace, trees have played an archetypal role in human culture and spirituality since time immemorial. An integral part of a variety of faiths—from Buddhism and Hinduism to Nordic and aboriginal religions—trees were venerated long before any written historical records existed. This sense of reverence and wonder is beautifully evoked in these vivid images from legendary photographer Art Wolfe. The new, giftable format of his celebrated book on the topic, Trees, focuses on both individual specimens and entire forests, offering a sweeping yet intimate look at an arboreal world that spans six continents. To accompany these timeless images, author Gregory McNamee weaves a diverse and global account of the myths, cultures, and traditions that convey the long-standing symbiosis between trees and humans, and renowned ethnobotanist Wade Davis anchors the text with a penetrating introduction. Humans have always shared this planet with trees, and this book is both a breathtaking journey through and an homage to that relationship and its past, present, and future—now in a new, beautiful, and highly giftable format.

A father and son climb Mount Kilimanjaro. On the journey to the roof of Africa they traverse the treacherous terrain of fatherhood, divorce, dark secrets and old grudges, and forge an authentic adult relationship. The high-altitude trek takes them through some of the weirdest landscapes on the planet, and the final all-night climb to the frozen summit tests their endurance. On the way to the top father and son explore how our stories about ourselves can imprison us in the past, and the importance of letting go. The mountain too has a story to tell, a story about Climate Change and the future of humankind - a future etched all too clearly on Kilimanjaro’s retreating glaciers.

Short stories by Ernest Hemingway.

From the bestselling author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes a deeply personal memoir full of fascinating adventures as he travels everywhere from the Mayan pyramids to Kilimanjaro. Fueled by a powerful curiosity—and by a need to see, feel, and hear, firsthand and close-up—Michael Crichton's journeys have carried him into worlds diverse and compelling—swimming with mud sharks in Tahiti, tracking wild animals through the jungle of Rwanda. This is a record of those travels—an exhilarating quest across the familiar and exotic frontiers of the outer world, a determined odyssey into the unfathomable, spiritual depths of the inner world. It is an adventure of risk and rejuvenation, terror and wonder, as exciting as Michael Crichton's many masterful and widely heralded works of fiction.

A collection of ten short fiction stories by American author Ernest Hemingway, including the title work about a hardened adventurer on safari in Africa who must face his innermost fears when an accident threatens to cut short his life.

Complete First Certificate offers the most authentic preparation for the revised FCE exam available.

SOUND OF THE CROWD: A DISCOGRAPHY OF THE '80s is the ultimate record collector's guide to the 1980s. In the era of multi-formatting, picture discs, coloured vinyl, multiple remixes, funny shaped records and tiny CDs you could lose down the back of the sofa, this book lists every format of every single, EP and album released in the UK in the 1980s by over 140 of the decade's biggest acts, from ABBA to Paul Young. This fourth edition has been fully revised and expanded to include even more acts than ever before, with additional sections to cover Band Aid-style charity congregations and compilation albums from the early '80s K-Tel efforts through to the Now That's What I Call Music series and its competitors. Compiled by Steve Binnie, editor of the '80s music website Sound of the Crowd and writer, producer and co-host of the unconventional '80s chart show Off The Chart, broadcast weekly on Mad Wasp Radio.