In books such as The Complete Walker and The Man Who Walked Through Time, Colin Fletcher has established a reputation as a literate and witty apostle of roughing it. His newest book is a highly personal celebration of solitary backpacking (and day walking, too), in the wild places of the world, and of all the attendant pleasures: of finding a foothold in difficult terrain, of catching a glimpse of an unsuspecting coyote, of healing the wounds that civilization inevitably inflicts on human nature —of simply “mucking about.” Overflowing with fresh descriptions of nature and with the wisdom of a curmudgeonly Thoreau, this book is a must for backpackers and all unconstrained spirits.

The remarkable classic of nature writing by the first man ever to have walked the entire length of the Grand Canyon.

Walking Man is the only biography of Colin Fletcher, the man who walked through time. He was an iconic American folk hero best known as the first person to force a passage through the length of Grand Canyon National Park in one arduous solo journey. He was the world's most famous long-distance walker. He was the first thru-hiker. Called the father of modern backpacking by Backpacker Magazine and others, Fletcher was the one who showed us the way--more than a million people followed his shadow into the green world. Born in Wales, he was in the first wave of British Marines to hit the beachhead in Normandy on D-Day. After the war he farmed in Kenya, prospected in British Columbia, and then began his writing career in California where he wrote and published ten books. Fletcher's was a preeminent and powerful voice for environmental concerns on par with Edward Abbey and John Muir. He was to the outdoor world and its preservation, what Leonard Bernstein was to music, or Walter Cronkite to reporting. When Colin Fletcher had something to say, people listened. The impact of his work, while unacknowledged, is seen far and wide today. Although most of them don't know it, the hordes of hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail today would not be there without Fletcher's pioneering work.

For the first time since 1984, we have a new edition of the classic book that Field & Stream called “the Hiker’s Bible.” For this version, the celebrated writer and hiker Colin Fletcher has taken on a coauthor, Chip Rawlins, himself an avid outdoorsman and a poet from Wyoming. Together, they have made this fourth edition of The Complete Walker the most informative, entertaining, and thorough version yet. The eighteen years since the publication of The Complete Walker III have seen revolutionary changes in hiking and camping equipment: developments in waterproofing technology, smaller and more durable stoves, lighter boots, more manageable tents, and a wider array of food options. The equipment recommendations are therefore not merely revised and tweaked, but completely revamped. During these two decades we have also seen a deepening of environmental consciousness. Not only has backpacking become more popular, but a whole ethic of responsible outdoorsmanship has emerged. In this book the authors confidently lead us through these technological, ethical, and spiritual changes. Fletcher and Rawlins’s thorough appraisal and recommendation of equipment begins with a “Ground Plan,” a discussion of general hiking preparedness. How much to bring? What are the ideal clothes, food, boots, and tents for your trip? They evaluate each of these variables in detail—including open, honest critiques and endorsements of brand-name equipment. Their equipment searches are exhaustive; they talk in detail about everything from socks to freeze-dried trail curries. They end as they began, with a philosophical and literary disquisition on the reasons to walk, capped off with a delightful collection of quotes about walking and the outdoor life. After a thoughtful and painstaking analysis of hiking gear from hats to boots, from longjohns to tent flaps, they remind us that ultimately hiking is about the experience of being outdoors and seeing the green world anew. Like its predecessors, The Complete Walker IV is an essential purchase for anyone captivated by the outdoor life.

From the world’s favourite author, David Walliams – ten cautionary tales and a delightfully dreadful cast of characters; all in glorious FULL COLOUR!

"Exciting, exhilaring, scary and moving in equal measure, The Oversight is a teeming world of dark deeds and dark magics, brilliantly realized." -- M. R. Carey The Last Hand of the Oversight still patrols the border between the natural and supranatural, holding a candle to the darkness. But this new Hand is unproven, its fresh members untrained, its veterans weary and battle-scarred. Their vulnerability brings new enemies into the city, and surprising new allies from across the sea. But most surprising of all are new revelations about the Oversight's past, revelations that will expose the true peril of the world in which Sharp and Sara are trapped -- the secret of the Black Mirrors, and what lies beyond. And the catastrophic danger that will follow them home, if they ever manage to return. The dark waters rise. The candles are guttering. But the light still remains. For now. . .

Author, adventurer, and mentor to generations of back country hikers, Colin Fletcher discovers an old trunk full of belongings at the mouth of a Nevada cave and meticulously knits together the colorful past of "Chuckawalla" Bill Simmons.

For some sixty years, the Nuremberg trials have demonstrated the resolve of the United States and its fellow Allied victors of the Second World War to uphold the principles of dispassionate justice and the rule of law even when cries of vengeance threatened to carry the day. In the summer of 1945, soon after the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, Thomas J. Dodd, the father of U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, traveled to the devastated city of Nuremberg to serve as a staff lawyer in this unprecedented trial for crimes against humanity. Thanks to his agile legal mind and especially to his skills at interrogating the defendants—including such notorious figures as Hermann Göring, Alfred Rosenberg, Albert Speer, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Rudolf Hess—he quickly rose to become the number two prosecutor in the U.S. contingent. Over the course of fifteen months, Dodd described his efforts and his impressions of the proceedings in nightly letters to his wife, Grace. The letters remained in the Dodd family archives, unexamined, for decades. When Christopher Dodd, who followed his father’s path to the Senate, sat down to read the letters, he was overwhelmed by their intimacy, by the love story they unveil, by their power to paint vivid portraits of the accused war criminals, and by their insights into the historical importance of the trials. Along with Christopher Dodd’s reflections on his father’s life and career, and on the inspiration that good people across the world have long taken from the event that unfolded in the courtroom at Nuremberg, where justice proved to be stronger than the most unspeakable evil, these letters give us a fresh, personal, and often unique perspective on a true turning point in the history of our time. In today’s world, with new global threats once again put-ting our ideals to the test, Letters from Nuremberg reminds us that fear and retribution are not the only bases for confrontation. As Christopher Dodd says here, “Now, as in the era of Nuremberg, this nation should never tailor its eternal principles to the conflict of the moment, for if we do so, we will be shadowing those we seek to overcome.”

In 1972 Lorene Cary, a bright, ambitious black teenager from Philadelphia, was transplanted into the formerly all-white, all-male environs of the elite St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, where she became a scholarship student in a "boot camp" for future American leaders. Like any good student, she was determined to succeed. But Cary was also determined to succeed without selling out. This wonderfully frank and perceptive memoir describes the perils and ambiguities of that double role, in which failing calculus and winning a student election could both be interpreted as betrayals of one's skin. Black Ice is also a universally recognizable document of a woman's adolescence; it is, as Houston Baker says, "a journey into selfhood that resonates with sober reflection, intellignet passion, and joyous love."