In this thrilling climbing adventure from bestselling author Roland Smith, summiting one of the most isolated mountains in the world may be the easiest thing Peak does. After conquering the mountains in Afghanistan, Peak Marcello goes to Myanmar, a country that has been in the grips of a brutal military regime for more than fifty years, to visit Alessia. When he’s invited to climb the remote Hkakabo Razi, Peak can’t pass up the opportunity. But getting to the mountain will involve a four-week trek through tropical rainforests rife with hazards—from venomous reptiles and leeches to corrupt police and military. This thrilling teen climbing adventure is "the perfect antidote for kids who think books are boring" (Publishers Weekly starred review for Peak). Roland Smith's Peak Marcello's Adventures are: Peak The Edge Ascent Descent
Willi Unsoeld, a legend among mountaineers--a man whom Bill Moyers calls one of the few giants he has ever met--fearlessly challenged the world's highest peaks and inspired a generation of climbers with his legacy. Ascent is the story of his life--a thrilling tale of physical and spiritual adventure that captures the hypnotic force behind this extraordinary personality. From his triumphant conquest of Everest's forbidding West Ridge to the tragic loss of his daughter on the treacherous slopes of Nanda Devi to his final, fatal attempt at Mount Rainier, we see Willi as guru and guide, lover of danger and philosopher of risk--a man whose indomitable spirit triggered such devotion that people followed him fearlessly to extraordinary heights and, sometimes, even to their deaths. A dramatic saga of bravery, daring, and the search for spiritual truth, Ascent brilliantly captures the mythic figure of Willi Unsoeld.
“Full of fascinating insights drawn from an impressive range of disciplines, The Ascent of Information casts the familiar and the foreign in a dramatic new light.” —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe Your information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants. One of the most peculiar and possibly unique features of humans is the vast amount of information we carry outside our biological selves. But in our rush to build the infrastructure for the 20 quintillion bits we create every day, we’ve failed to ask exactly why we’re expending ever-increasing amounts of energy, resources, and human effort to maintain all this data. Drawing on deep ideas and frontier thinking in evolutionary biology, computer science, information theory, and astrobiology, Caleb Scharf argues that information is, in a very real sense, alive. All the data we create—all of our emails, tweets, selfies, A.I.-generated text and funny cat videos—amounts to an aggregate lifeform. It has goals and needs. It can control our behavior and influence our well-being. And it’s an organism that has evolved right alongside us. This symbiotic relationship with information offers a startling new lens for looking at the world. Data isn’t just something we produce; it’s the reason we exist. This powerful idea has the potential to upend the way we think about our technology, our role as humans, and the fundamental nature of life. The Ascent of Information offers a humbling vision of a universe built of and for information. Scharf explores how our relationship with data will affect our ongoing evolution as a species. Understanding this relationship will be crucial to preventing our data from becoming more of a burden than an asset, and to preserving the possibility of a human future.
Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude seemed destined for obscurity upon its publication in 1967. The little-known author, small publisher, magical style, and setting in a remote Caribbean village were hardly the usual ingredients for success in the literary marketplace. Yet today it ranks among the best-selling books of all time. Translated into dozens of languages, it continues to enter the lives of new readers around the world. How did One Hundred Years of Solitude achieve this unlikely success? And what does its trajectory tell us about how a work of art becomes a classic? Ascent to Glory is a groundbreaking study of One Hundred Years of Solitude, from the moment García Márquez first had the idea for the novel to its global consecration. Using new documents from the author’s archives, Álvaro Santana-Acuña shows how García Márquez wrote the novel, going beyond the many legends that surround it. He unveils the literary ideas and networks that made possible the book’s creation and initial success. Santana-Acuña then follows this novel’s path in more than seventy countries on five continents and explains how thousands of people and organizations have helped it to become a global classic. Shedding new light on the novel’s imagination, production, and reception, Ascent to Glory is an eye-opening book for cultural sociologists and literary historians as well as for fans of García Márquez and One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Rising from the disadvantages of a Stalingrad orphanage to the prestige of the cosmonaut corps, Yefgenii Yeremin struggles with the covert nature of his Korean War missions, which cause his heroics to go unreported, and pursues glory when he is called to join the race to the moon. Reprint.
“TRANSMISSION is riveting, unexpected, and firmly rooted in strong psychological profiles backed with thriller and sci-fi elements: what more could readers wish for? (Just the quick publication of Book Two, Arrival.)” --Midwest Book Review From #1 worldwide bestselling fantasy author Morgan Rice comes book #3 in a long-anticipated science fiction series. With planet Earth destroyed, what will become of 13 year old Kevin and Chloe in the mother ship? Will the aliens enslave them? What do they want? Is there any hope of escape? And will Kevin and Chloe ever return to Earth again? “Action-packed …. Rice’s writing is solid and the premise intriguing.” –Publishers Weekly, re A Quest of Heroes “A superior fantasy… A recommended winner for any who enjoy epic fantasy writing fueled by powerful, believable young adult protagonists.” –Midwest Book Review, re Rise of the Dragons “An action packed fantasy sure to please fans of Morgan Rice’s previous novels, along with fans of works such as THE INHERITANCE CYCLE by Christopher Paolini…. Fans of Young Adult Fiction will devour this latest work by Rice and beg for more.” –The Wanderer, A Literary Journal (regarding Rise of the Dragons) Book #4 in the series is also now available! Also available are Morgan Rice’s many series in the fantasy genre, including A QUEST OF HEROES (BOOK #1 IN THE SORCERER’S RING), a free download with over 1,300 five star reviews!
