In 1927, my father crossed the waters from Italy to New York. Times were uncertain and my grandparents wanted him to be safe. Fortunately, the fates arranged it that he had been born in New York so his citizenship was assured. It was a ten-day journey and it took my father a little time to get his sea legs but he finally did. I can only imagine the courage it took him to leave his parents at only seventeen years of age to build a life here but he did it. I am the last of the five sons he and my mother brought into this world and saw his greatness late in life but this story is always special to me because it represents the very beginning of his American journey and more so, because I had the honor of him reading it when he was still here and he looked at me and told me that what I wrote was exactly how it happened. Enjoy this short creative non-fiction piece about my father's journey across the sea to find home.---JP
Roanoke is part of the lore of early America, the colony that disappeared. Many Americans know of Sir Walter Ralegh's ill-fated expedition, but few know about the Algonquian peoples who were the island's inhabitants. The Head in Edward Nugent's Hand examines Ralegh's plan to create an English empire in the New World but also the attempts of native peoples to make sense of the newcomers who threatened to transform their world in frightening ways. Beginning his narrative well before Ralegh's arrival, Michael Leroy Oberg looks closely at the Indians who first encountered the colonists. The English intruded into a well-established Native American world at Roanoke, led by Wingina, the weroance, or leader, of the Algonquian peoples on the island. Oberg also pays close attention to how the weroance and his people understood the arrival of the English: we watch as Wingina's brother first boards Ralegh's ship, and we listen in as Wingina receives the report of its arrival. Driving the narrative is the leader's ultimate fate: Wingina is decapitated by one of Ralegh's men in the summer of 1586. When the story of Roanoke is recast in an effort to understand how and why an Algonquian weroance was murdered, and with what consequences, we arrive at a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of what happened during this, the dawn of English settlement in America.
This is the classic account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914-1916 Antarctic expedition. Written by the captain of the Endurance, the ship used by Shackleton on this ill-fated journey, it is a remarkable tale of courage and bravery in the face of extreme odds and a vivid portrait of one of the world's greatest explorers. "A breathtaking story of courage under the most appalling conditions." - Edmund Hillary
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager, a thrilling and powerful true story of adventure and obsession in the Antarctic, lavishly illustrated with color photographs. "[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine Henry Worsley was a devoted husband and father and a decorated British special forces officer who believed in honor and sacrifice. He was also a man obsessed. He spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the nineteenth-century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole, and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Shackleton never completed his journeys, but he repeatedly rescued his men from certain death, and emerged as one of the greatest leaders in history. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. He was related to one of Shackleton's men, Frank Worsley, and spent a fortune collecting artifacts from their epic treks across the continent. He modeled his military command on Shackleton's legendary skills and was determined to measure his own powers of endurance against them. He would succeed where Shackleton had failed, in the most brutal landscape in the world. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion, and hidden crevasses. Yet when he returned home he felt compelled to go back. On November 13, 2015, at age 55, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone. David Grann tells Worsley's remarkable story with the intensity and power that have led him to be called "simply the best narrative nonfiction writer working today." Illustrated with more than fifty stunning photographs from Worsley's and Shackleton's journeys, The White Darkness is both a gorgeous keepsake volume and a spellbinding story of courage, love, and a man pushing himself to the extremes of human capacity. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!
Small Orbs of brilliant light, Mystical Mount Shasta, Aquarian Age schools in the center of the Universe, interdimensional travel, and the survival of the human race are just the beginning. Join Forest Waters and Aurora Collins in this visionary adventure. Are you really ready to find out? * Find out who the Ancient Brotherhood of Light consists of, and what their critical mission at this pivotal moment of time in Earths history is. * Learn what part dreams play in activating our super-conscious awareness, and when the past and the future become the present. * See where the evidence that Earth has been visited and populated by beings from other star systems is, and who they were. * Why are small Orbs of brilliant light appearing to many all over the planet at this time? * How should we be preparing for the coming great shift? The Cosmic Clock is ticking. Find out as Forest and Aurora enter a secret portal and travel interdimensionally to the great schools of light, where Aquarian Age keys are safeguarded.
Set in the past, present, and future, this progression of three tales holds a message that is relevant in each era. These thought-provoking stories pose questions focusing on the promotion of greed being endemic within each society and being accepted as the norm.
The book centers on the story of Jenny, her mother Frances, and her brother Victor. Their journey to escape the strife in Europe, hopeful of a reunion with the family patriarch in America, is a saga for the ages. Foregoing their life of wealth and privilege and forced to debase themselves and sacrifice everything to escape the Bolshevik Revolution for the safety and prosperity of America, the story follows the family as they struggle with their harsh new realities and the choices they are forced to make to survive. Using firsthand accounts, passed down from his grandmother, Jenny, David Pucci has crafted a book that holds tremendous relevance to us today: The fight for a better life and the relentless pursuit of the American dream. The determined triumph over hardships, and the spirit of courage prevalent throughout the book will resonate with anyone who values those virtues and yearns to achieve their own dreams.
'Daddy's a sailor, why don't we sail around the world?' On board their 43-foot schooner Lucette, the Robertson family set sail from the south of England in January 1971 - and in June 1972 Lucette was holed by killer whales and sank in the Pacific Ocean. Four adults and two children survived the next 38 days adrift, first in a rubber life raft and then crammed into a 9-foot fibreglass dinghy, before being rescued by a passing Japanese fishing vessel. This is the story of how they survived, but it also tells of the 18-month voyage of the Lucette, across the Atlantic, around the Caribbean, through the panama Canal and out into the Pacific. It is a vivid and candid account of the delights and hardships, the excitements and the dangers, the emotional highs and lows experienced by the family both before and after the shipwreck.. Douglas Robertson has taken his father's classic book Survive the Savage Sea as his starting point, and has drawn upon a wealth of other sources, not least his own memories of a life-changing experience, to bring us this true story of adventure, of relationships strained to bursting point, of conflict and resolution - ultimately a very human and humbling tale.
