After spending his 20s traveling the world and hopping from job to job, Gabriel Schirm was lost. At 32 years old, he desperately needed to find direction and meaningful purpose in his life. With no physical training, he decided his answers were waiting for him somewhere along the historic 490-mile pilgrimage route called the Camino de Santiago in Spain. From the physical high of crossing the Pyrenees Mountains to the mind numbing rhythm of walking through the endless wheat fields of the Meseta, the route was filled with many challenges. Accompanied by his "guru" wife Amy, Schirm faces setbacks like bed bugs and tendinitis, all in the pursuit of elusive answers. The lessons came from the serendipitous experiences and conversations with fellow pilgrims from all over the world. Sunrises to Santiago chronicles a wondrous journey of personal growth, physical pain, and outdoor adventure while teaching us all to enjoy life's incredible journey.
'Walking to the End of the World' keeps us turning its pages--an elegant story woven in the seasoned voice of writer Beth Jusino, who shares great insight into her own strengths and weaknesses, relationships of all sorts, and a world view we'd all do well to consider. -Steven Watkins, author of Pilgrim Strong: Rewriting My Story on the Way of St. James
Travel back in time to the exhilarating story of the first WASPS, the Woman Airforce Service Pilots, who risked their lives, their ambitions, and their dreams to help the war effort during World War II. Determined to earn their wings in a man’s world, four young women are united by their fearless passion for flying. From the rigors of military flight to their turbulent romances with fellow officers, to their own private wars for love and respect, Janet Dailey celebrates the courage of women at war in a world where life, time, and love were never more fleeting...and never more precious.
Fresh out of college, 26-year-old Santiago has always longed to see the world, but his anxiety gets in the way. How can he possibly travel abroad if he feels sometimes heart-pounding pressure by simply riding a bus? But one day, after years of saving, Santiago courageously buys a ticket around the world. His parents think he’s crazy, but he takes a leap of faith and sets out alone. However, the world he had imagined was far from reality. Meanwhile, Santiago finds out his best friend Laura, who could not join him on the trip, battles a recently diagnosed autoimmune disease. Will he regret his decision to leave her behind? Will their friendship survive or blossom into something more? On his journeys from New York to Lisbon, Paris to Sarajevo, and Istanbul to Bali, Santiago must overcome his shyness and open up his heart despite facing challenges, such as scams, and confronting complex issues like human trafficking. Join Santiago on a journey of self-discovery and adventure like no other.
Sunrise in the Mirror is a collection of seven short stories. The Black Fedora and Awaken Sumira provide a view of life in a modern African-American ghetto, while The Spirit of Santiago peeks into the impoverished life of a family living through hardships in a Brazilian favela. Gershon looks back to the 1970s, exposing the fragile interactions between two families, one black and the other white, during the days when racial integration was still a new idea to inhabitants of the rural deep south. The Haint mixes a monster folk tale with the plight of an American Indian orphan named Sploon. The surreal Flames is a take on the burgeoning pharmaceutical industry and its often insidious effects on society when human ego and greed are added to the mix. The fast moving Serpenta is a fantasy that peeks into a future where religion has been eliminated and global government has morphed into a giant control grid run by a ruthless regime that executes anyone who does not comply to its rules.
When a holiday becomes something more... Struggling to come to terms with the loss of her mother, Sophie needs to get away from it all. On a much-needed break to Tenerife, she stumbles across a Help Wanted sign for local pensioner, Hugo, and on a leap of faith she accepts the job. But life on the island isn’t all sun, sea and siestas... Hugo’s beautiful villa is under threat and, to complicate matters, his brooding (but handsome) nephew, Alex, has shown up full of suspicion towards Sophie. Her hands full dealing with difficult men and a clearly unreciprocated attraction towards Alex, Sophie needs to decide if her future lies in Tenerife or if her holiday is officially over. Escape to a Spanish island with this gorgeously uplifting romance, perfect for fans of Holly Martin, Sue Moorcroft and Mandy Baggot.
This textbook is the result of the author’s long experience of teaching introductory English literature courses, and the non-availability of a suitable textbook for EFL (English as a foreign language) students. The books currently available in the market are beyond the comprehension level of average EFL students. In order to fill this gap and give a solid foundation to students, the initial chapters of the book deal with important literary terms and a brief history of English literature. In addition, the book provides various types of comprehension questions, focussing on the needs of EFL students. Finally, the book consists of carefully selected materials for the study of fiction, poetry and drama from authors representing different ages of English literature. This compact textbook can be considered as an excellent resource for all EFL students and teachers around the world.
This collection of wide-ranging essays from the New York Times–bestselling travel writer is “a steamer trunk full of delights” (Chicago Sun-Times). This collection of decidedly opinionated articles, essays, and ruminations, by the author of My Other Life and Kowloon Tong, transports the reader not only to exotic, unexpected places in the world but also into the interior life of the writer himself. Whether it is his time serving in the Peace Corps, his memorable interview with tennis star John McEnroe, bearing witness to the uprising in Uganda, or the debt he owes to his mentor, V. S. Naipaul, Theroux approaches each subject with characteristic intelligence, insight, and an eye for life’s great ironies. Over the course of two decades, Paul Theroux gathers people, places, and ideas in precise, evocative writing that “serves as both the camera and the eye, and both the details and the illusions are developed with brilliance” (Time). “What makes Mr. Theroux most persuasive as a writer is simply his willingness to put himself on the line. . . . Gusty, personal, and astonishing.” —The New York Times “These pieces prove anew Theroux’s unflagging, infectious enthusiams [sic] for exploring.” —Kirkus Reviews
From the Academy Award-winning cowriter of Birdman, a wonderfully eccentric, suspenseful debut in the tradition of Misery and Kiss of the Spiderwoman about a screenwriter kidnapped by a world-famous director who orders him to compose a masterpiece. Pablo, a failed Argentine novelist-turned-screenwriter, has been kidnapped by the greatest Latin American film director of all time and is kept in a basement where he works, day after day, on what he is told must at all costs be a great, world-changing screenplay. Every night, after finishing work on the script, Pablo writes in his notebook and every morning he crosses out what he wrote the night before. The Crossed-Out Notebook is Pablo’s diary of this time: being brought food by a maid; being threatened with a gun; vociferously arguing with the director about what he’s written the previous day. The clash between the two men and their different approaches leads to a movie being made, a gun going off, an unlikely escape, and a final confrontation. In the end, The Crossed-Out Notebook is a darkly funny novel full of intrigue and surprise about the essence of the creative process; a short, crazy ode to any artist whose brilliance shines through strangeness and adversity.
“An exceptionally well-chosen collection . . . the book itself amounts to a pleasurable journey . . . punctuated by pithy, profound anecdotal nuggets.” —Time Out “Railway termini,” wrote E. M. Forster, “are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine.” Now, in this new collection of great journeys from the pages of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Michael Kerr follows up his bestselling anthology, Last Call for the Dining Car, with another feast for the armchair rail traveller. The train sliding out of the station can take you back into the past—in the company of John Betjeman on the Great Western—or into an ominous future, now that China has a line across the permafrost to Tibet. The sunshine may be the late-afternoon glow on a freight train between LA and Seattle, or the sea light bathing the Cornish coast alongside the branch line to St Ives. The adventure may even be dodging death on the train itself, as Dervla Murphy does on the antiquated rolling stock of Cuba. Sometimes, too, the train tracks people’s lives, on a journey into their deepest secrets. Nicholas Shakespeare, travelling around France, pieces together the story of what happened to his aunt, who was stranded there on the brink of war in 1937. Pamela Petro, rattling down the Pacific coast of the US, confronts the demons that have been haunting her since a train crash a quarter of a century ago. From Sandi Toksvig’s commuter train to Alexander McCall Smith’s night train; from the Indian Pacific to the Maharajas’ Express; Sunrise on the Southbound Sleeper is a first-class ticket to ride all the best trains in the world. “Sublime . . . Michael Kerr has chosen some great writers, and they whisk you to the four corners of the earth. The romance and excitement of train travel is captured on each page. This is a treasure of travel writing.” —Patrick Neale, The Bookseller “A serendipitous collection for rainy nights, fuelling sleep with dreams of escape.” —The Scotsman
