Author: Daniel Light
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861548175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 545
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Book Description
The true story of the thrill-seekers, map-makers, soldiers, occultists, artists and porters who paved the way for modern mountaineering. ‘A beautifully written and sure-footed history of mountaineering “before Everest”, full of wonderful stories and spanning continents and centuries. A splendid debut.’ Sir Ranulph Fiennes, author of Shackleton Beautiful, remote and dangerous – for generations we have looked to the mountains in awe. Yet, for most, that is where the fascination ends. For a rare few, however, the allure of the peaks proved irresistible. There are the devout Incan priests who, scaling the Andes’ icy slopes to pay tribute to each mountain’s ‘Great Lord’, travelled higher than any European would for centuries. The Gurkha riflemen who joined their commanders in canvassing the Karakoram, admiring the distant summits of Broad Peak and K2 with gleeful anticipation. The tweed-clad mountaineers who made the first serious assaults on Everest, hauling yards upon yards of battered rope through the cold. Tracing the world altitude record from the ashy slopes of the sacred volcano Llullaillaco to the icy crags and crevasses of the Karakoram, Daniel Light takes a panoramic journey through the storied history of mountaineering before Everest. Joining a cast of colourful characters, The White Ladder offers an ode to mountains’ capacity to enthral, and the fundamental human drive to climb higher and higher. *** 'Thrilling... Daniel Light delivers stories that are poetic, spiritual and astonishing in their courage and drive.' Sonia Purnell, author of A Woman of No Importance ‘Daniel Light guides the reader through a mountain-scape that stretches from the Alps to the Himalaya... with the sure footing of a serious student of climbing history, and the élan of a skilled storyteller. This is a book to curl up with on a cold dark night in a comfortable armchair before a bright fire.’ Maurice Isserman, co-author of Fallen Giants ‘Wonderful… a massive story with an enormous cast of characters, among them some of the most compelling figures of mountaineering history.’ Wade Davis, author of Into the Silence
Author: David Gray
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780711984523
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 64
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Book Description
A songbook of the 11 songs on the White Ladder album by Manchester born singer/songwriter David Gray. The songs are arranged for piano, voice and guitar including complete lyrics and guitar chord boxes. Songs include: We're Not Right, Sail Away, This Year's Love, and Please Forgive Me.
Author: John Boyne
Publisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 1984823035
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
“A satire of writerly ambition wrapped in a psychological thriller . . . An homage to Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, but its execution is entirely Boyne’s own.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent—but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful – but desperately lonely – older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel. Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall. . . . Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso. Praise for A Ladder to the Sky “Boyne's mastery of perspective, last seen in The Heart's Invisible Furies, works beautifully here. . . . Boyne understands that it's far more interesting and satisfying for a reader to see that narcissist in action than to be told a catchall phrase. Each step Maurice Swift takes skyward reveals a new layer of calumny he's willing to engage in, and the desperation behind it . . . so dark it seems almost impossible to enjoy reading A Ladder to the Sky as much as you definitely will enjoy reading it.”—NPR “Delicious . . . spins out over several decades with thrilling unpredictability, following Maurice as he masters the art of co-opting the stories of others in increasingly dubious ways. And while the book reads as a thriller with a body count that would make Highsmith proud, it is also an exploration of morality and art: Where is the line between inspiration and thievery? To whom does a story belong?”—Vanity Fair
Author: Nathanael J. Okpych
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978809182
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
Although foster youth have college aspirations similar to their peers, fewer than one in ten ultimately complete a two-year or four-year college degree. What are the major factors that influence their chances of succeeding? Climbing a Broken Ladder advances our knowledge of what can be done to improve college outcomes for a student group that has largely remained invisible in higher education. Drawing on data from one of the most extensive studies of young people in foster care, Nathanael J. Okpych examines a wide range of factors that contribute to the chances that foster youth enroll in college, persist in college, and ultimately complete a degree. Okpych also investigates how early trauma affects later college outcomes, as well as the impact of a significant child welfare policy that extends the age limit of foster care. The book concludes with data-driven and concrete recommendations for policy and practice to get more foster youth into and through college.
Author: Maya Soetoro-Ng
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 076366667X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 49
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Book Description
From Maya Soetoro-Ng, sister of President Obama, comes a lyrical story relaying the loving wisdom of their late mother to a young granddaughter she never met. (Ages 4-8) Features an audio read-along performed by the author! Little Suhaila wishes she could have known her grandma, who would wrap her arms around the whole world if she could, Mama says. And one night, Suhaila gets her wish when a golden ladder appears at her window, and Grandma Annie invites the girl to come along with her on a magical journey. In a rich and deeply personal narrative, Maya Soetoro-Ng draws inspiration from her mother’s love for family, her empathy for others, and her ethic of service to imagine this remarkable meeting. Evoking fantasy and folklore, the story touches on events that have affected people across the world in our time and reaffirms our common humanity. Yuyi Morales’s breathtaking artwork illuminates the dreamlike tale, reminding us that loved ones lost are always with us, and that sometimes we need only look at the moon and remember.
Author: Christopher Howell
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806818
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 97
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Book Description
In this extraordinary new collection by distinguished poet Christopher Howell, the opening poem presents us with a spiritual paradox that will echo throughout its pages. The speaker remembers an earlier time of happiness, freedom, and a certain innocence. The poem closes with: And if he remembers now he is in love, which is the soul’s condition, and alone because that is how we live. "How we live" is the book's major inquiry; its illustration, the poems' major achievement. How do we live, in our dailiness, in our loves, our private and global wars? And, in the face of unbearable grief, how can we live? Keats When Keats, at last beyond the curtain of love’s distraction, lay dying in his room on the Piazza di Spagna, the melody of the Bernini Fountain “filling him like flowers,” he held his breath like a coin, looked out into the moonlight and thought he saw snow. He did not suppose it was fever or the body’s weakness turning the mind. He thought, “England!” and there he was, secretly, for the rest of his improvidently short life: up to his neck in sleigh bells and the impossibly English cries of street venders, perfect and affectionate as his soul. For days the snow and statuary sang him so far beyond regret that if now you walk rancorless and alone there, in the piazza, the white shadow of his last words to Severn, “Don’t be frightened,” may enter you.
Author: Andrew Billingsley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671677098
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
To help the reader understand the African-American family in its broad historical, social, and cultural context, the author traces the rich history of the black family from its roots in Africa, through slavery, Reconstruction, the Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, and up to the present.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 114
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Book Description
Author: Luise Mühlbach
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 450
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Book Description
Author: Henry Grattan Guinness
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 736
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Book Description
