Mountain Memoir

A fast, gritty, durable player who could read a basketball floor as well as anyone who ever played the game, John Stockton left the NBA after 19 seasons with the Utah Jazz, holding a massive assist record, including the career mark (15,806). He also twice led the league in steals - with a career total of 3,265 - and retired as the NBA's all-time leader. And during Stockton's career, the Jazz never missed the playoffs.

On a cold February night in 2007, a devoted father of four and a seventeen-year-old drunk driver both received life sentences. In one violent, devastating instant, both faced a drastically different - and uncertain - future. But as Chris Williams sat in his demolished vehicle, staring at the car that had just caused the death of his wife, his unborn baby, his nine-year-old daughter, and his eleven-year-old son, he committed to do something extraordinary: he would forgive.

On October 12, 2007, a young soldier is injured in Afghanistan. For the next two years, as he is moved from Bagram to Germany to Walter Reed to Palo Alto and finally home to Washington State, his family never leaves his side. And throughout those years, his father writes daily emails to family and friends, chronicling the journey from a dusty road in Afghanistan to the snowy summit of Mt. Rainier.

In the spring of 1942, the United States government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and sent them to incarceration camps across the West. Nearly 14,000 of them landed on the outskirts of Cody, Wyoming, at the base of Heart Mountain. Behind barbed wire fences, they faced racism, cruelty, and frozen winters. Trying to recreate comforts from home, they established Buddhist temples and sumo wrestling pits. Kabuki performances drew hundreds of spectators — yet there was little hope.

In a remote enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them. The team was caught in a deadly ambush that threatened not only their lives but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them.

Soon after Henk Pröpper moves from Amsterdam to Paris, both the world and his heart almost come to a full stop. He undergoes major surgery and awakes in an empty city in lockdown. Paris is transformed into an abandoned stage. To quicken his recovery, Pröpper begins walking. He combs his immediate surroundings, he hunts for the past, discovering countless commemorative plaques and monuments that honour well- and lesser-known Parisians and keep their histories alive. Pröpper also reflects on his own life and the literature that has shaped him.

A los 27 años gané la presidencia de mi pueblo, pero no me dejaron gobernar porque era mujer. En ese momento supe que, para cambiar mi vida y la de las mujeres indígenas, debía transformar la ley más importante de mi país. Desde entonces, mi lucha ha sido para que los pueblos indígenas y afro no sean considerados menores de edad y para que las mujeres no sean personas de segunda.

Surround Yourself with Greatness takes listeners around the world while looking through the eyes, mind, and heart of Chad Lewis - a once freckle-faced, four-eyed, skinny teenager who at an early age wrote in his journal, “My goal and quest is to surround myself with greatness...only greatness will penetrate the walls of my heart.”

An accurate and personal record from one of America's first breed of mountain men, giving a detailed description of many the lands he passed through and the habits and character of the various tribes encountered.

On June 23, 1936, Edgar Cayce, the most renowned psychic of the 20th century and the father of holistic medicine, gave a life reading for Thomas Jefferson (T.J.) Davis, the two-day-old nephew of his secretary, Gladys Davis. In this reading, Cayce identified one of the child’s past lives as that of Thomas Jefferson, adding this stunning prediction - that he “may become more important in the affairs of the world than this entity in its previous experience has been to America - Thomas Jefferson”. This book examines all the reasons why that prediction never happened.

Rain in the Mountains brings together some of Ruskin Bond’s most beautiful works from his years spent in the foothills of the Himalayas in the town of Mussoorie. Through vivid images and lucid writing, Bond evokes the everyday sights and sounds, and captures the essence of mountain life. The musings on his natural habitat, in both prose and poetry, offer a view of that simple and affable world. Some of his writings featured in the book include: "Once Upon a Mountain Time", "Sounds I Like to Hear", "How Far Is the River" and "After the Monsoon".

Written on the eve of the Second World War, this memoir tells the remarkable story of how 21-year-old Thomas Firbank decided on impulse to purchase a 2,400-acre hill farm in the rugged, inhospitable mountains of Snowdonia, and how he and his wife struggled to build it back into prosperity.

Mountain Girl is an inspiring and poignant story that shows how grit and soul can take a person from barefoot in Appalachia to the boardrooms of industry without losing that special something or selling out. In her own words, Rockefeller writes about a fascinating life that has been well-lived and a hoot to boot.

On June 10, 2008, Carol Decker walked through the hospital doors a healthy woman with flu-like symptoms and early labor contractions. Three months later, she returned home a blind triple-amputee struggling to bond with a daughter she would never see. Unshattered recounts Carol's fight for survival against sepsis and its life-shattering complications. From excruciating skin grafts to learning how to function in daily life without lower legs, a left hand, and her sight, Carol takes us on a personal and raw, yet inspiring journey.

His cheeks are as tender as raw meat on a butcher's block. And those are just the cheeks of his face. As he slumps in the saddle, watching the road disappear into the distance, he aches in parts of his body that he's only just discovering he has. When Mark travels to Ecuador to go hiking and climbing, he discovers a land of dramatic volcanoes rising through the clouds and wide-open horizons rich in history.

A masterpiece of compelling narrative history, The White Ladder describes the epic rise of mountaineering's world altitude record, a story of ever higher climbs by figures great and small of mountaineering. Daniel Light describes how climbers used revolutionary techniques to launch themselves into the most forbidding conditions. The expeditions illustrate evolutionary changes in climbing style, the advancement of high-altitude science, and the development of mountain climbing as an industry.

In this moving memoir, Maeve Birch explores the dynamics between traditional horse handling and her communications with horses, which often didn’t align with what she was taught. In the stories shared, human issues such as codependency, lack of boundaries, impatience, violence, and fear crop up again and again, shaping horse and human relationships. Standing in a Field With Horses provides a window into the mind, spirituality, and social undercurrents of a woman trapped between obedience and self-expression along with the horses

Outdoor journalist James Edward Mills's book The Adventure Gap is a groundbreaking volume that is equal parts adventure story, history, and inspiration as it chronicles the first American all-Black summit attempt on Denali in 2013. Mills uses this momentous expedition as a jumping-off point to explore diversity in the outdoors, from Mathew Henson who stood at the North Pole in 1909 to contemporary adventurers such as polar explorer Barbara Hillary and rock climber Kai Lightner.

The little mountain hamlet of Bryson City, North Carolina, offers more than dazzling vistas. For Walt Larimore, a young "flatlander" physician setting up his first practice, the town presents its peculiar challenges as well. With the winsomeness of a James Herriott book, Bryson City Tales sweeps you into a world of colorful characters, the texture of Smoky Mountain life, and the warmth, humor, quirks, and struggles of a small country town.

A compelling work of investigative journalism that explores the surprising origins and hidden ramifications of an epic late 1960s hoax, perpetrated by cultural luminaries, including Victor Navasky and E.L. Doctorow. For readers curious about the surprising connections between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVeigh, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump.