An utterly gripping non-fiction adventure narrative, ' Lost in Shangri-La' is an untold true story of war, anthropology, survival, discovery, heroism, & a near-impossible rescue mission. Three months before the end of World War II, a U.S. Army plane flying over New Guinea's Baliem Valley crashed in uncharted mountains inhabited by a Stone Age tribe. Nineteen passengers & crew were killed & two were mortally wounded. But somehow three survived: a lieutenant whose twin brother died in the crash, a sergeant who suffered terrible head wounds, & a beautiful member of the Women's Army Corps. Hurt, unarmed & afraid, they prayed for deliverance
- from their wounds, from the elements, & from the spear-carrying, Dani tribesmen who roamed the mountains, men who were untouched by modernity. For seven weeks, the survivors experienced one remarkable adventure after another, until they were rescued in a truly incredible mission. Rounding out the true-life cast is a rogue filmmaker who'd left Hollywood after being exposed as a jewel-thief; a smart-alek pilot who flew best when his plane had no engine, & a cowboy colonel whose rescue plan seemed designed to increase the death toll. Using a huge range of sources, including first hand accounts from the survivors themselves, Mitchell Zuckoff exposes the enlightening & terrifying adventure of three individuals lost on uncharted soil & the relationships they built not only with each other, but also with a lost civilization.
...

Yossi Ghinsberg’s Lost in the Jungle is the kind of story that seems like a grisly piece of fiction until it becomes even more nail-biting when you read that it was true. & it happened to Yossi himself. It starts with four backpackers meet in Bolivia & set off into the rainforest on a dream expedition, lured by the promise of uncharted villages & forgotten tribes hidden in places tourists only dream of seeing. But what begins as the adventure of a lifetime quickly becomes a struggle for survival when they get lost in the wilds of the Amazonian jungle. The group splits up after disagreements, & Yossi & Kevin try to find their own way without a guide. When a terrible rafting accident separates the two men, Yossi is forced to survive for weeks alone in one of the most unpredictable environments on the planet. Stranded without a knife, map or survival training, he must improvise shelter & forage for wild fruit to survive. As his skin begins to rot from his feet during raging storms, he wonders if any of them will make it back alive. Viscerally told, this isn’t for the faint of heart. ...

In 1959 13-year-old Eva Hoffman left her home in Cracow, Poland for a new life in America. This memoir evokes with deep feeling the sense of uprootendess & exile created by this disruption, something which has been the experience of tens of thousands of people this century. Her autobiography is profoundly personal but also tells one of the most universal & important narratives of twentieth century history: the story of Jewish post-war experience & the tragedies & discoveries born of cultural displacement. ...

In 1959 13-year-old Eva Hoffman made a voyage that took her from the familiar, loved country of her childhood to the unknown New World. Her life was irrevocably divided in two. In this personal memoir, she evokes the landscapes of postwar Poland
- recently war-torn, suffering oppression, yet also the land of friends, first love, first home. She then sets out to convey the shock of the disruption of exile from that home & the struggle to comprehend a suddenly alien world, in which she experienced hardships among the well-manicured lawns of suburban Vancouver. The view of an adolescent thrust into a new world with no familiar references is offered via comments on a succession of American landscapes
- college education in Texas; counterculture at Harvard; the literary milieu of New York. The reader is given an insight into the profound consequences of living a bicultural identity, the risks of nostalgia, the conflicting pulls of freedom & family knowledge. The book also explores the condition of being caught between two languages
- a condition that literally offers different answers in moments of important decision
- & tells how Hoffman learned to rewrite herself in the splintered, challenging English idiom.



...

In today`s world no self-respecting English-language enthusiast could have failed to notice the frequent & flagrant abuse of our native tongue by pesky foreigners? (Forgetting, for a moment, the fact that many nations speak our language better than we do.) ” Lost in Translation” features hundreds of genuine, original & utterly ridiculous examples of the misadventures in English discovered all over the world by the author & his intrepid team of researchers. Everything from hotel signs to baffling advertisements, such as the German beauty product offering a ` Cream shower for pretentious skin` or the Japanese bar that boasts ` Special cocktails for ladies with nuts`, or the French warning at a swimming pool
- ` Swimming is forbidden in the absence of the saviour.` Published in paperback for the first time this autumn, ” Lost in Translation” demonstrates how widely the English language has travelled, though unfortunately some of it seems to have got a bit scrambled en route.
...

Lost in Translation is 140 wacky, weird & wonderful snapshots of the English language being abused abroad & at home. Whether it`s dodgy grammar, bad spellings or just plain old terrible translations, Lost in Translation demonstrates how the world`s favourite language is treated when it goes on holiday. From hilarious street signs to dreadful translations to an assortment of wonderful unintentional wordplay, this book will make you laugh out loud.. .and remind you to always use spellcheck! Word count: 5, 000 ...

A broken piano, a dilapidated staircase, a chair half standing on two bent legs surrounded by layers of history peeling from the wallpaper of an abandoned house. The chilling air of an abandoned church, or a desolated factory, with the faint signs of the human sounds now trapped in the detritus of lost interiors. In Michigan, in Italy, in Russia, Japan, in China, the lost dreams of a teaming human horde are captured in this evocative exploration of abandoned buildings, the achievements of humankind struck down by calamity or neglect, then over-run by the ancient forces of time & nature, as the planet earth moves slowly to regain its supremacy against the noisy, mechanical clatter of the human species. The incredible new book explores the half-life of abandoned buildings & the sad beauty of desolation. ...

This is an enchanting & fascinating insight into Japanese landscape, culture, history & future. Originally written in Japanese, this passionate, vividly personal book draws on the author`s experiences in Japan over thirty years. Alex Kerr brings to life the ritualized world of Kabuki, retraces his initiation into Tokyo`s boardrooms during the heady Bubble Years, & tells the story of the hidden valley that became his home. But the book is not just a love letter. Haunted throughout by nostalgia for the Japan of old, Kerr`s book is part paean to that great country & culture, part epitaph in the face of contemporary Japan`s environmental & cultural destruction. Winner of Japan`s Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize, & now fully revised in a new edition. Alex Kerr is an American writer, antiques collector & Japanologist. Lost Japan is his most famous work. He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan. ...

An extraordinary collection of eighty pictures from the Alinari Archives located in Florence, Italy makes up a never-before-published sequence of images including portraits, landscapes, & rituals providing a rare entry into traditional 19th-century Japan. Felice Beato was one of the first Western photographers to enter Japan when the country first opened its borders (1853); he revealed to the Western world a country preserved in time & never seen before. In 1863 he moved to Yokohama & opened a photography school, the School of Yokohama. The photos of the book preserve the original photographic prints, manually coloured black-&-white prints, that truly embody the spirit of that period. Images feature fascinating portraits of women in kimonos, geishas, samurai warriors, & interiors of Japanese homes & gardens as well as scenes of everyday life including tea ceremonies or the theater. Each photo is accompanied by text providing historical, anthropological, & artistic context. This is a charming volume which comes with a Japanese-inspired design, with decorative patterns & colours recalling Japanese paper tradition & kimono fashion. ...

In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea & attempted to seize a portion of Ukraine. While the world watched in outrage, this violation of national sovereignty was in fact only the latest iteration of a centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries & create a pan-Russian nation. In Lost Kingdom, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues that we can only understand the merging of imperialism & nationalism in Russia today by delving into its history. Spanning over two thousand years, from the end of the Mongol rule to the present day, Plokhy shows how leaders from Ivan the Terrible to Joseph Stalin to Vladimir Putin have exploited existing forms of identity, warfare & territorial expansion to achieve imperial supremacy. A strikingly ambitious book, Lost Kingdom chronicles the long & belligerent history of Russia`s empire & nation-building quest. ...