A mesmerizing journey through a chain of tropical islands in a little known part of the Eastern Caribbean. The peaceful azure waters, lagoons, untouched rainforests and stunning white sand beaches will have you packing your bags to leave the world behind. There is a country of small islands in the West Indies, lost in time. Its mountainous terrain has helped in keeping its vast natural beauty intact. Thirty two islands with mystical names like Bequia and Mustique, St Vincent and the Grenadines is in the most blessed part of the Caribbean—dramatic mountains and beaches, fertile soil and plentiful rain. This idyllic setting has nurtured a gentle and simple way life yet one rich in adventure, social contact, and a dazzling variety of locally grown cuisine. Explore the rare flora, taste the fresh fruits, local fish and spices, and partake in Vincentian “liming” —sharing food, drink, jokes and anecdotes, with no other intent than enjoying life. This collection of breathtaking photographs will revitalize both body and soul.
The bold erotic masterpiece by #1 New York Times bestselling author Anne Rice writing as Anne Rampling. They call her the Perfectionist. A stunning, mysterious, and fearless sexual adventurer, Lisa is founder and supreme mistress of The Club—an exclusive island resort where forbidden fantasy meets willing flesh. Here eager participants who can afford life's most exquisite luxuries can experience the breathtaking pleasures of surrender and submission. Here nothing is taboo. A thrill-seeking photojournalist, Elliott risks his life daily in the most dangerous, war-torn regions on Earth. Now he has come to Paradise to explore his most savage and vulnerable sexual self, committed to the ultimate plunge into personal risk. Together, their journey to the limits of erotic pleasure will take them farther than they ever dreamed they'd go . . .
Like so many of us, Lucinda Fleeson wanted to escape what had become a routine life. So, she quit her big-city job, sold her suburban house, and moved halfway across the world to the island of Kauai to work at the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Imagine a one-hundred-acre garden estate nestled amid ocean cliffs, rain forests, and secluded coves. Exotic and beautiful, yes, but as Fleeson awakens to this sensual world, exploring the island's food, beaches, and history, she encounters an endangered paradise—the Hawaii we don't see in the tourist brochures. Native plants are dying at an astonishing rate—Hawaii is called the Extinction Capital of the World—and invasive species (plants, animals, and humans) have imperiled this Garden of Eden. Fleeson accompanies a plant hunter into the rain forest to find the last of a dying species, descends into limestone caves with a paleontologist who deconstructs island history through fossil life, and shadows a botanical pioneer who propagates rare seeds, hoping to reclaim the landscape. Her grown-up adventure is a reminder of the value of choosing passion over security, individuality over convention, and the pressing need to protect the earth. And as she witnesses the island's plant renewal efforts, she sees her own life blossom again.
“It was the first time I’d seen what the ocean may have looked like thousands of years ago.” That’s conservation scientist Gregory S. Stone talking about his initial dive among the corals and sea life surrounding the Phoenix Islands in the South Pacific. Worldwide, the oceans are suffering. Corals are dying off at an alarming rate, victims of ocean warming and acidification—and their loss threatens more than 25 percent of all fish species, who depend on the food and shelter found in coral habitats. Yet in the waters off the Phoenix Islands, the corals were healthy, the fish populations pristine and abundant—and Stone and his companion on the dive, coral expert David Obura, determined that they were going to try their best to keep it that way. Underwater Eden tells the story of how they succeeded, against great odds, in making that dream come true, with the establishment in 2008 of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA). It’s a story of cutting-edge science, fierce commitment, and innovative partnerships rooted in a determination to find common ground among conservationists, business interests, and governments—all backed up by hard-headed economic analysis. Creating the world’s largest (and deepest) UNESCO World Heritage Site was by no means easy or straightforward. Underwater Eden takes us from the initial dive, through four major scientific expeditions and planning meetings over the course of a decade, to high-level negotiations with the government of Kiribati—a small island nation dependent on the revenue from the surrounding fisheries. How could the people of Kiribati, and the fishing industry its waters supported, be compensated for the substantial income they would be giving up in favor of posterity? And how could this previously little-known wilderness be transformed into one of the highest-profile international conservation priorities? Step by step, conservation and its priorities won over the doubters, and Underwater Eden is the stunningly illustrated record of what was saved. Each chapter reveals—with eye-popping photographs—a different aspect of the science and conservation of the underwater and terrestrial life found in and around the Phoenix Islands’ coral reefs. Written by scientists, politicians, and journalists who have been involved in the conservation efforts since the beginning, the chapters brim with excitement, wonder, and confidence—tempered with realism and full of lessons that the success of PIPA offers for other ambitious conservation projects worldwide. Simultaneously a valentine to the diversity, resilience, and importance of the oceans and a riveting account of how conservation really can succeed against the toughest obstacles, Underwater Eden is sure to enchant any ocean lover, whether ecotourist or armchair scuba diver.
Almost to Eden is the captivating fictional narrative of an Irish immigrant, Maggie O'Brien, whose life intertwines with members and workers of the historic Jekyll Island Club. Seeking a new Eden in America, she discovers that freedom and justice, even in the new world, do not always triumph over wealth and power. In the process of her journey, Maggie finds and loses the things she loves most, but grace and courage lead her toward a fulfillment she never thought to find.
Pitcairn Island was a tiny uninhabited Eden when, in January 1790, Fletcher Christian and eight sailors, together with six Polynesian men, twelve Tahitian women and one baby, landed from HMS Bounty. There they burned their boat, thus eliminating any chance of a voluntary return to the known world. Their disappearance was to remain a mystery for twenty years. This book discusses the purposes of the Bounty’s voyage, the mutiny and its consequences, but goes further than any previous publications, to relate the gripping drama of subsequent events on Pitcairn - of the fifteen men who landed on the island, only one was alive when they were discovered, twelve had been brutally murdered by their companions and one had commited suicide. The role of the women in shaping events on the island, and their input into the unique identity of the community, is fully considered for the first time. Their support for the men as rival groups-Tahitians or Europeans-or their concern for individuals largely decided which men lived and died, while the women themselves commited some of the murders. Conflicts over property, race and gender brought this group close to total destruction. But out of the clashes of cultures and individual wills between European mutineers and Pacific islanders came, in a brief space of time, the new community of ’Pitcairn Islanders’: a thriving society based on progressive laws relating to sexual equality and the environment, with significant resonances for the reader some two centuries later.
When the Wabanaki were moved to reservations, they proved their resourcefulness by catering to the burgeoning tourist market during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Bar Harbor was called Eden. This engaging, richly illustrated, and meticulously researched book chronicles the intersecting lives of the Wabanaki and wealthy summer rusticators on Mount Desert Island. While the rich built sumptuous summer homes, the Wabanaki sold them Native crafts, offered guide services, and produced Indian shows.
Lord of the Flies comes to Club Med in the year?s most exciting and original thriller. Charles Spencer is a fifty-five year old college professor, going on vacation with his wife and their two almost-grown children to the sunny Caribbean isle of St. Bart?s. But when they land, Charles and his family find only chaos. Rumors circulate of an attack on the United States. Communications are down. People are panicked beyond comprehension. It is in this madness that Charles uses his intellect and articulate nature to bring the locals and tourists together, and maintain a semblance of order and society in the face of disaster. But humanity is not as civilized as Charles believes. Distrust, animosity, and prejudice splinter the survivors into factions who battle over supplies, technology, and control. And even as Charles confronts those who would doom them all, a greater threat is on the horizon. A threat that will force them all to fight not only for their lives?but for the future of their world.
In this stunning work of narrative nonfiction, the author tours the front lines of ecological invasion--in Hawaii, Tasmania, Guam, San Francisco, in lush rain forests, through underground lava tubes, on the deck of an Alaska-bound oil tanker.
"He has spent nearly three decades studying, learning from, crusading for, and thinking about hunter-gatherers, who survive at the margins of the vast, fertile lands occupied by farming peoples and their descendants, now the great majority of the world's population. In material terms, the hunters have been all but vanquished, yet in this profound and passionate book, Brody utterly dispels the notion that theirs is a lesser way of life."--Jacket.
