“In climbing the Seven Summits, Silvia Vasquez-Lavado did nothing less than take back her own life—one brave step at a time. She will inspire untold numbers of souls with this story, for her victory is a win on behalf of all of us.”—Elizabeth Gilbert Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below. This is the climb Silvia Vasquez-Lavado braves in her page-turning, pulse-raising memoir chronicling her journey to Mount Everest. A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. Deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she’d suffered as a child, she started climbing. Something about the brute force required for the ascent—the risk and spirit and sheer size of the mountains and death’s close proximity—woke her up. She then took her biggest pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest. “The Mother of the World,” as it’s known in Nepal, allows few to reach her summit, but Silvia didn’t go alone. She gathered a group of young female survivors and led them to base camp alongside her. It was never easy. At times hair-raising, nerve-racking, and always challenging, Silvia remembers the acute anxiety of leading a group of novice climbers to Everest’s base, all the while coping with her own nerves of summiting. But, there were also moments of peace, joy, and healing with the strength of her fellow survivors and community propelling her forward. In the Shadow of the Mountain is a remarkable story of heroism, one which awakens in all of us a lust for adventure, an appetite for risk, and faith in our own resilience.

“Newbery Honor winner Preus . . . delivers a riveting story about teenage freedom fighters in WWII Norway” (Publishers Weekly). After Nazi Germany invades and occupies Norway, fourteen-year-old Espen and his friends are swept up in the Norwegian resistance movement. Espen gets his start by delivering illegal newspapers, then graduates to the role of courier and finally becomes a spy, dodging the Gestapo along the way. During five years under the Nazi regime, Espen, his sister, and their parents live in fear of nighttime raids and arrests, and they begin to question the loyalties of the people around them. Espen gains—and loses—friends, falls in love, and makes one small mistake that threatens to catch up with him as he sets out to escape on skis over the mountains to Sweden . . . Award-winning author Margi Preus crafts a thrilling adventure based on the real-life experiences of Erling Storrusten, a Norwegian spy during World War II. Praise for Shadow on the Mountain “Engrossing. . . . This is at once a spy thriller, a coming-of-age story, and a chronicle of escalating bravery. Multidimensional characters fill this gripping tale that keeps readers riveted to the end.” —School Library Journal, starred review “A morally satisfying page turner.” —Kirkus Reviews

After forming an intense bond with Natasha, a wolf cub she raised as part of her undergraduate research, Renée Askins was inspired to found the Wolf Fund. As head of this grassroots organization, she made it her goal to restore wolves to Yellowstone National Park, where they had been eradicated by man over seventy years before. In this intimate account, Askins recounts her courageous fifteen-year campaign, wrangling along the way with Western ranchers and their political allies in Washington, enduring death threats, and surviving the anguish of illegal wolf slayings to ensure that her dream of restoring Yellowstone’s ecological balance would one day be realized. Told in powerful, first-person narrative, Shadow Mountain is the awe-inspiring story of her mission and her impassioned meditation on our connection to the wild.

Caleb and Joshua Roar to Life in this High-Impact Old Testament Saga Two men were brave enough to tell the truth about what awaited the Hebrews in Canaan. This is their story. From the slave pits of Egypt to the efforts of an eighty-five-year-old Caleb as he drives out the last of the giants, Shadow of the Mountain is a vivid portrait of two of God's chosen champions, and a meditation on masculine mentorship and the challenges and blessings of growing older. For the sake of his new God and his loyalty to his friend Joshua, Caleb will not spend his twilight years resting, but taking the battle to the enemies of God's people until his dying breath. From his early days as a mercenary for Pharaoh in Egypt watching the Hebrews suffer under the yoke of slavery, all the way through a desperate fight with giants in the dark forests of the hill country, this is a story filled with epic battles, gritty intensity, and supernatural events that made Graham's Lion of War series a hit. Shadow of the Mountain is sure to ignite a love for the Old Testament in popular culture.

The first glimpse of the sea on Marine Drive filled my heart, if not my head. I turned away from the red shadow. I stopped thinking of that pyramid of killers, and Sanjay's improvidence. I stopped thinking about my own part in the madness. And I rode, with my friends, into the end of everything. Shantaram introduced millions of readers to a cast of unforgettable characters through Lin, an Australian fugitive, working as a passport forger for a branch of the Bombay mafia. In The Mountain Shadow, the long-awaited sequel, Lin must find his way in a Bombay run by a different generation of mafia dons, playing by a different set of rules. It has been two years since the events in Shantaram, and since Lin lost two people he had come to love: his father figure, Khaderbhai, and his soul mate, Karla, married to a handsome Indian media tycoon. Lin returns from a smuggling trip to a city that seems to have changed too much, too soon. Many of his old friends are long gone, the new mafia leadership has become entangled in increasingly violent and dangerous intrigues, and a fabled holy man challenges everything that Lin thought he'd learned about love and life. But Lin can't leave the Island City: Karla, and a fatal promise, won't let him go.

The triumphs and tragedies of Denver’s founding family as they carve out an empire in the American West—an epic saga from the beloved bestselling author. Bold, headstrong, and passionate, the indomitable Kirklands struggle to survive in a treacherous, hostile land. From penniless settlers to wealthy mine owners to Denver’s regal first family, together—and separately—they pursue their dazzling dreams of love and glory. Through the era of the covered wagon to the rise of the western railroad, from the gold rush years through the golden age of the American West, In the Shadow of the Mountains is the breathtaking saga of a remarkable family who endured tragedy and hardship to build a glorious mountain empire. “Bittner is one of those writers whose talent has grown over the years.” —Publishers Weekly

Maria Coffey's Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow is a powerful, affecting and important book that exposes the far reaching personal costs of extreme adventure. Without risk, say mountaineers, there would be none of the self-knowledge that comes from pushing life to its extremes. For them, perhaps, it is worth the cost. But when tragedy strikes, what happens to the people left behind? Why would anyone choose to invest in a future with a high-altitude risk-taker? What is life like in the shadow of the mountain? Such questions have long been taboo in the world of mountaineering. Now, the spouses, parents and children of internationally renowned climbers finally break their silence, speaking out about the dark side of adventure. Maria Coffey confronted one of the harshest realities of mountaineering when her partner Joe Tasker disappeared on the Northeast Ridge of Everest in 1982. In Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow, Coffey offers an intimate portrait of adventure and the conflicting beauty, passion, and devastation of this alluring obsession. Through interviews with the world's top climbers, or their widows and families-Jim Wickwire, Conrad Anker, Lynn Hill, Joe Simpson, Chris Bonington, Ed Viesturs, Anatoli Boukreev, Alex Lowe, and many others-she explores what compels men and women to give their lives to the high mountains. She asks why, despite the countless tragedies, the world continues to laud their exploits. With an insider's understanding, Coffey reveals the consequences of loving people who pursue such risk-the exhilarating highs and inevitable lows, the stress of long separations, the constant threat of bereavement, and the lives shattered in the wake of climbing accidents.

Nancy Pfister, heir to Buttermilk Mountain, the world-renowned site of the Winter X Games, was Aspen royalty, its ambassador to the world. She lived among the rich and famous: she partied with Hunter S. Thompson, dated Jack Nicholson, had a joint baby shower with Goldie Hawn, and globetrotted with Angelica Houston. She was also a philanthropist, admired for her generosity. But behind the warm façade, she could be selfish, manipulative, and careless. Pfister enjoyed bragging about her wealth and celebrity connections, but those closest to her, like Kathy Carpenter, Pfister's personal assistant, drinking companion, and on one occasion lover, knew better. In 2013, after a long fall from grace, Dr. William Styler and his wife, Nancy, relocated to Aspen to reinvent themselves. They'd lived the high life before a misguided lawsuit left them near poverty, and Nancy Pfister was their answered prayer. She took them in, gave them a place to live, and allowed them to launch their new spa business. Everything seemed perfect until Pfister turned on them, making increasingly irrational demands and threatening to throw them out on the street. When Nancy was found beaten to death in her own home, the Stylers and Carpenter were all under suspicion for the gruesome murder. But in this close-knit, wealthytown set on keeping its reputation and secrets safe from the public eye, the police struggled to solve the mystery of what really happened.

A powerful and inspiring memoir of a young Yazidi who served as a U.S. combat interpreter but was later forced to flee into the mountains of Iraq to avoid the ISIS slaughter of his people Shaker Jeffrey's life has been an odyssey of courage, cunning, and desperation. His journey began as a fatherless Iraqi farm boy. As a child he hung out with American troops and practiced his English. Soon he was helping gather information about terrorists, becoming one of the youngest combat interpreters to work for the United States government, even attracting the notice of General Petraeus. When he was barely sixteen, ISIS overran his Yazidi community and slaughtered most of its people. He narrowly escaped to the mountains with the remnants of his community. But with incredible daring, he became a valuable go-between, informing the U.S. military of the plight of the trapped Yazidis. Time and again he risked his life, going into enemy territory disguised as an ISIS fighter to mount daring rescue operations. Shaker saved over 1,000 civilians from ISIS, including hundreds of girls forced into sex slavery, although he was unable to save his own fiancée from a terrible fate. Shaker's powerful and inspiring narrative offers a human face to the people and places caught in the crosshairs of a borderless conflict that has come to define our age.

This text is part of a new series of original fiction, specially written for learners of English. Graded into six levels - from elementary to advanced - the stories provide easy and enjoyable reading on a wide range of contemporary topics and themes.