Showing results for "unabridged" in United States

Just before her 40th birthday, Gail Francis quit her perfectly good job and set out to hike one of the great trails of the world. Carrying everything she needed on her back, Francis spent five months walking from Mexico to Canada along the Pacific Crest Trail. Along the way, she lost her pack scrambling over scree in the desert, struggled to navigate high mountain passes, and wore the soles off her boots trekking across lava fields - all within some of the most pristine wilderness in the nation. Though she set out alone, her story includes an eclectic cast of characters.

This is the true story of a journey to a seaside town and the always unpredictable torrent of dark escapades that accompany a life at sea. It's a story of a world peopled by those who often live on the frayed edges of society, who shun the world in which most people thrive. It's a story in which college students and "fish hippies" work in canneries alongside survivalists, rednecks, religious freaks, and deckhands with damning secrets in dangerous waters, driven by the need to feed an insatiable appetite for adventure.

In the fall of 1978, Ray Ordorica packed everything he thought he would need into his Toyota LandCruiser and drove north to Alaska. He came to a land he had never seen, to find something he wasn't even sure existed: a wilderness cabin he could use for a year or more to live, think, relax, read, and write. Ordorica found his cabin, fixed it up, and, although it was just an un-insulated 12- by 16-foot one-room log structure, he spent three winters in it in relative comfort.

After months of following one-size-fits-all advice for a 57-year-old widow, Linda Crill is still miserable, until she makes a rebellious spur-of-the-moment decision: she trades her corporate suits for motorcycle leathers and commits herself to a 2,500-mile road trip down America’s Pacific Northwest coast on a Harley. The problem: she doesn’t know how to ride and has only 30 days to learn. Four short weeks later, Linda joins two men and a woman for a white-knuckled, exhilarating road trip along the west coast from Vancouver, Canada, to the wine country of Mendocino, California....

Emmy Award - winning filmmaker, writer, and naturalist Joe Hutto has done it again. Touching the Wild is the enchanting story about one man who has lived with a herd of mule deer in the Wind River mountains of Wyoming for almost seven years. Why, you may ask, would a person choose to do such a thing? His response: how could you not? For Joe Hutto, close proximity to wild things is irresistible. In Illumination in the Flatwoods he unveiled the secret lives of the wild turkey to great critical acclaim.

The Amish, one of America's most intriguingly private, unique, and often misunderstood religious communities, have survived for 300 years! How has that happened? While much has been written on the Amish, little has been revealed about their history. This book brings together in one volume a thorough history of the Amish people. From their beginnings in Europe through their settlement in North America, the Amish have struggled to maintain their beliefs and traditions in often hostile settings.

Jack Slade and Sam Healey, flying partners during World War II, establish a bush pilot business in Alaska after the war. When their C-47 Dakota is forced down on a glacier by a wolverine in the cargo deck that breaks out of its cage, they discover a valley that offers the realization each man's dreams. To Jack Slade, it’s the ideal place to homestead, raise a family, and live simply as a professional hunting and fishing guide; to Healey, the pool of crude oil he locates under the glacial ice promises the wealth he always wanted.

Many dream of dropping everything and just traveling around the world. It's a common dream, but few imagine embarking on that journey by bicycle. Exposed to the elements, legs burning, all your possessions strapped to you and your bicycle - it doesn't paint a relaxing picture, but this is just what Pierre-Yves Tremblay did.

The Appalachian Trail covers 14 states and over 2,000 miles, snaking through some of the most spectacular landscapes in America. Reluctant adventurer Bryson recounts his gruelling hike along the longest continuous footpath in the world.

Together with his gorgeous sidekick, psychologist Kit Franklyn, the two make a powerful, although improbable, mystery-solving duo. Among the dead collected in The Big Easy floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina are three nude female bodies, all caught in the same brush tangle, none with water in their lungs. Broussard knows in his ample gut that this was not an act of God, and not the work of Katrina. But Broussard has perhaps the biggest challenge of his colorful career.

Hardly anyone ever leaves Des Moines, Iowa. But Bill Bryson did, and after 10 years in England he decided to go home, to a foreign country. In an ageing Chevrolet Chevette, he drove nearly 14,000 miles through 38 states to compile this hilarious and perceptive state-of-the-nation report on small-town America.

Naturalist Joe Hutto’s latest adventures in wildlife observation take him to Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains. Hutto is living in a tent at 12,000 feet, where blizzards occur in July and where human wants become irrelevant—and human needs can become a matter of life and death—to study the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.

A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme. The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was richer, and far more complex, than anything the two men had imagined.

THE ORIGINAL (with 2024 updates)“My Uncle Al would have loved this book.” – Deirdre Capone

Vegas like you’ve never seen, tales you’ve never heard – until now. Sizzling, behind-the-headlines stories about the men, the Mob, movie stars, and missing money that made ’50s and ’60s Vegas such a hot spot in the Nevada desert. Those were the days... When Frank Sinatra threw a chair at the casino boss of the Sands and stormed out. When all the Mob bosses decided to kill Bugsy Siegel and take over the Flamingo. Did you see the front cover? Look again.

After accelerating their studies and graduating high school early, two teenagers set off from their hometown in Minnesota to embark on a 2,200-mile canoe journey up the heart of North America. Their destination: the permafrost shores of Hudson Bay. Inspired by a passion for the simple life, where gadgets and schedules are replaced by nature and its harsh beauty, the duo found something that many believe is lost: a true adventure.

William McCloskey’s best-selling novel Highliners established him as an authority on the dangers and hardships of the Alaskan fishing industry. Now in an epic sequel, Breakers returns to Kodiak to chart the fortunes of McCloskey’s beloved characters as they make their living from the sea.

Long before Hank Crawford arrived in the waters of Ketchikan, his partners and compatriots were already in love with its shores. Following the final, crushing moments of World War II, Japanese officer Kiyoshi Tsurifune, Sergeant Jones Henry, and Resistance fighter Swede Scorden struggle to regain normalcy and any contact with the shimmering, fish-filled sea. Lost honor, fallen friends, their cultural identities gone in the wake of a nuclear blast - these fishermen-turned-soldiers have a long way to go till they regain the waters in which they feel most at home.

In 2003, software engineer David Miller left his job, family, and friends to hike 2,172 miles of the Appalachian Trail. AWOL on the Appalachian Trail is Miller’s account of this thru-hike from Georgia to Maine. Listeners are treated to rich descriptions of the Appalachian Mountains, the isolation and reverie, the inspiration that fueled his quest, and the rewards of taking a less conventional path through life. While this book abounds with introspection and perseverance, it also provides useful passages about hiking gear and planning.

This is a vastly expanded and revised edition of the 2001 classic, Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, now updated after a decade, containing many gripping accounts of all known fatal mishaps in the most famous of the World's Seven Natural Wonders.

From the depths of the National Hockey League basement in 2003, to the league’s most recognizable, successful, and offensively potent team just seven years later, this book chronicles the rebranding and reemergence of the Washington Capitals. Fueled by the arrival of charismatic Russian superstar Alexander Ovechkin, as well as other gifted young players, the Caps have transformed themselves from a chronically underachieving organization with an eroding fan base into an organization that players, media, and fans respect.