After returning from a pleasant holiday with his wife, Astrid, & their two children, Thomas walks out the front door. Thomas walks up the street. Thomas keeps walking. Astrid gradually realizes that her husband has not just gotten up early to go to work. She waits for as long as she can & then puts as much energy as she can into trying to find him
- coming to underst&, along the way, that there is little she can do if Thomas is striving to stay lost. In precise & hypnotic prose that cuts as cleanly as a scalpel, To the Back of Beyond is a novel that takes away the safe foundations of a marriage & a lifestyle to ask deeper questions about identity, connection & how free we are to change our lives. It is a graceful & resonant work from one of Europe`s most important writers.
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Shortlisted for a 2016 Edward Standford Travel Writing Award. Set in the Alaskan landscape that she brought to stunningly vivid life in THE SNOW CHILD, Eowyn Ivey`s TO THE BRIGHT EDGE OF THE WORLD is a breathtaking story of discovery & adventure set at the end of the nineteenth century. Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester receives the commission of a lifetime when he is charged to navigate Alaska`s hitherto impassable Wolverine River, with only a small group of men. The Wolverine is the key to opening up Alaska & its rich natural resources to the outside world, but previous attempts have ended in tragedy. Forrester leaves behind his young wife, Sophie, newly pregnant with the child he had never expected to have. Adventurous in spirit, Sophie does not relish the prospect of a year in a military barracks while her husband carves a path through the wilderness. What she does not anticipate is that their year apart will demand every ounce of courage & fortitude of her that it does of her husb&. ...

Winter 1885. Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester accepts the mission of a lifetime, to navigate Alaska`s Wolverine River. It is a journey that promises to open up a land shrouded in mystery, but there`s no telling what awaits Allen & his small band of men. Allen leaves behind his young wife, Sophie, newly pregnant with the child he had never expected to have. Sophie would have loved nothing more than to carve a path through the wilderness alongside Allen
- what she does not anticipate is that their year apart will demand every ounce of courage of her that it does of her husb&.
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The 36-page book folds out to 9 connected double-page spreads, taking you from the Earth`s surface to the edge of the universe as a single, highly illustrated panorama. Once you have completed your journey to the outer limits of the universe, reverse the 4.3-metre fold-out to reveal stunning infographics explaining facts & statistics about the universe in a simple & beautiful way. ...

It is the world`s longest railway line. But it is so much more than that, too. The Trans-Siberian stretches nearly 6, 000 miles between Moscow & Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast & was the most ambitious railway project in the nineteenth century. A journey on the railway evokes a romantic roam through the Russian steppes, but also reminds travellers of the vastness of our world & hints at the hardships that were endured in its construction. Christian Wolmar expertly tells the story of the Trans-Siberian railway from its conception & construction under Tsar Alexander III, to the northern extension ordered by Brezhnev & its current success as a vital artery. He also explores the crucial role the line played in both the Russian Civil War -Trotsky famously used an armoured carriage as his command post
- & the Second World War, during which the railway saved the country from certain defeat. Like the author`s previous railway histories, it focuses on the personalities, as well as the political & economic events, that lay behind one of the most extraordinary engineering triumphs of the nineteenth century.
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This is the gripping true story of how Briton Tom Avery led three men, one woman & sixteen dogs to the North Pole in just under thirty-seven days, in doing so breaking the world record & solving the greatest mystery of polar exploration. The electrifying true story of a race against time to solve the greatest mystery of polar exploration. Facing some of the most hostile terrain on the planet, how did Arctic pioneer Robert Peary travel 413km in just 37 days to reach the North Pole with only dogs & wooden sleds as his transportation? 100 years later, British explorer Tom Avery & his team set themselves against the elements to recreate Peary`s journey, risking their lives to break the record & rewrite history. ...

Ora, a middle-aged Israeli mother, is about to celebrate her son Ofer`s release from army service when he returns to the front for a major offensive. Instead of waiting at home for the `notifiers` who could arrive at any moment to tell her of her son`s fate, she sets off for a hike in Galilee, leaving no forwarding address. If a mother is not there to receive the news, a son cannot die, can he? Recently estranged from her husb&, Ora drags along an unlikely companion: their former best friend & her former lover Avram, the man who in fact turns out to be her son`s biological father. As they sleep out in the hills, ford rivers & cross valleys, Ora recounts, step by step & word by word, the story of her son`s birth, life & possible death, in one mother`s magical, passionate & heartbreaking attempt to keep her son safe from harm. ...

Renowned as one of the world`s foremost expedition photographers, Gordon Wiltsie has climbed Himalayan mountains, mushed dogs on the frozen Arctic Ocean, skied in Antarctica & hacked through the Amazon jungle to photograph the most remote reaches of the planet. For three decades he has accompanied many of the great explorers
- Alex Lowe, Conrad Anker, Will Steger, Jon Krakauer, David Breashears, Norman Vaughan
- on challenging climbs & epic adventures. Despite carrying his own share of the weight
- along with cameras, film & lenses
- he has matched these companions pitch for pitch & mile for mile, photographing them at every stage on the way. In this journey through ten of his most challenging & exhilarating expeditions, through stories & images Wiltsie illustrates the daily life of an explorer.



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A new one-volume edition of this classic sequence of sea novels set in the early nineteenth century, about a voyage from England to Australia. Rites of Passage (Winner of the Booker Prize)` The work of a master at the full stretch of his age & wisdom.` The Times Close Quarters`A feat of imaginative reconstruction, as vivid as a dream.` Daily Mail Fire Down Below` Laden to the waterline with a rich cargo of practicalities & poetry, pain & hilarity, drama & exaltation.` Sunday Times ...

Ranulph Fiennes has entered the public imagination as the intrepid explorer par excellance. Taunted by his wife over the challenge of the never-before attempted circumpolar navigation of the globe, he set off in 1979 on a gruelling 52, 000 mile adventure. Together with fellow members of 21 SAS regiment, Fiennes left from Greenwich, travelling over l&, passing through both ends of the polar axis. Completed over three years later, it was the first circumpolar navigation of the globe, & justifiably entered Fiennes into the record books. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH is the record of that journey. It captures the natural beauty of the landscapes they passed through, & the cameraderie that necessarily grows between men who had served in the British forces` elite regiment & were now throwing themselves into danger of a different sort. Time & again, the expedition found themselves in life-threatening situations, weaving through the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean or sharing a single sleeping bag to ward off the -40 degrees celsius Arctic night. The calm & measured approach which made Fiennes such a great expedition leader shines through TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, deftly recreating the last unexplored regions on earth. It is also a book which lays the foundations for what was to come for Fiennes, confirming a need to exist outside the comfortable norms the rest of us inhabit. As the expedition progresses, there is also a mounting sense of tension as attainment of the final goal also spells the end of the adventure. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH is a compelling account of one journey & Fiennes` drive to push himself to ever further extremes. ...