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  Desert Oracle - Volume 1:...

  Ken Layne

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  This program is read by the author, Ken Layne, host of the Desert Oracle radio show. It includes an exclusive first listen to a story from Desert Oracle: Volume 2.The cult-y field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert.For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle is available as an audiobook.Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night.From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.A Macmillan Audio production from MCD Books.

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  Hidden in Plain Sight - The...

  Ronan O'Connell

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  Everything you thought you knew about your favorite travel destinations? There’s so much more. 
  Curated by the relentlessly curious travel journalist and National Geographic regular contributor, Ronan O’Connell, Hidden in Plain Sight invites you on a tour of the world’s most popular landmarks showcasing the most mystifying, intriguing, and jaw-dropping stories from all the places on your bucket list. 
  You’re invited to travel to more than 20 popular landmarks, including:  Bali’s Uluwatu Temple, which overlooks a sea of demons in the Indian Ocean.The Edinburgh Castle, where a supernatural stone (most recently incorporated into King Charles’s coronation ceremony) resides.The Berlin Wall, where MLK Jr. quietly passed across its border under the dark of night.Amsterdam’s Dam Square, where tourists stroll at the spot “witches” were once burned at the stake. 
    
  Learn all the stories and marvels you wish your tour guide would tell you, all without leaving the comfort of your own home. This spectacular coffee table book is the perfect gift to give to the history lovers, globetrotters, and armchair travelers in your life.

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  Arctic Sven Finding Ki - A True...

  Loren J. Chassels

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  Loren J. Chassels felt stuck, working two demanding jobs as an EMT and a Full-time high school teacher. Burned out and overwhelmed, he decided to take a life-changing journey—hiking the entire 2,190+ mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. With careful planning and a spirit of adventure, Loren set out to challenge himself physically and mentally. As he trekked through the ever-changing landscapes, from lush forests to snow-capped peaks, he found a sense of inner harmony that had been missing from his life. Loren's story is one of personal growth and self-discovery. He shares the joys and difficulties of life on the trail, from the beauty of communing with nature to the physical toll of hiking long distances. Along the way, he meets a colorful cast of fellow hikers and draws inspiration from the trail's legendary thru-hikers. Whether you're an avid hiker or simply looking for an uplifting tale of finding one's true path, Loren's journey on the Appalachian Trail will leave you inspired to seek your own adventure.

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  Persian Pictures

  Gertrude Bell

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  In 1892, Gertrude Bell visited Persia (now Iran) shortly after the appointment of her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, as British minister in Tehran. Three years later came Persian Pictures, Gertrude Bell’s first written work, which presents a series of vivid sketches of Persian culture and society at the time. Bell explores various cities and landscapes, and encounters local characters along the way, providing a unique perspective on Persian life and customs. While much of what is depicted in Persian Pictures has long since changed, Bell’s writing is a valuable account of the anachronisms and inconsistencies of the dying dynasty of medieval Persia. Her depiction of Muharram – the month of mourning for Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed – and Ramadan, display a mind finely attuned to the differences and similarities between Islam and Christianity, and East and West. Persian Pictures is both travelogue and meditation – an elegiac and beautifully observed account of a spellbinding land.

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  A History of Ancient Egypt’s...

  Editors Charles River

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  Africa may have given rise to the first humans, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world’s first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world.  
  For almost four millennia, the Great Pyramids of Ancient Egypt have been widely hailed as the single greatest archeological feat man has ever accomplished. The Great Pyramid at Giza is the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world to have survived into the modern age. Unlike so many pieces of the historical record which have been “re-discovered,” relatively recently (in the grand scheme of things,” in their four thousand years of existence, the Great Pyramids have never allowed themselves to be truly forgotten by the human civilization which has never ceased to regard them with wonder and awe. 
  Egypt also impressed its contemporaries. The 5th century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Egypt was “the gift of the Nile” because the river made its soil so fertile and thus helped create one of the first great civilizations. Indeed, the land of Egypt so impressed the Greeks that when Alexander the Great conquered the Nile Valley in the 4th century B.C., he decided that he would build a new city on its soil and name it Alexandria. After Alexander, the city of Alexandria grew and became the most important city in the world for centuries as it watched and played a role in the rise and fall of numerous dynasties. The city also became home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – the Lighthouse of Alexandria – and a center of culture and learning, which was exemplified by the Library of Alexandria.

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  My Family and Other Enemies -...

  Mary Novakovich

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  My Family and Other Enemies is part travelogue, part memoir that dives into the hinterland of Croatia. Mary Novakovich explores her ongoing relationship with the region of Lika in central Croatia, where her parents were born. 'Lika is little known to most travellers - apart from Plitvice Lakes National Park and the birthplace of Nikola Tesla' she says. 'It's a region of wild beauty that has been battered by centuries of conflict. Used as a buffer zone between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires for hundreds of years, Lika became a land of war and warriors. And when Yugoslavia started to disintegrate in 1991, it was here where some of the first shots were fired.' Shipped off to Lika as a child during the supposedly golden years of Tito to stay with relatives she barely knew, Novakovich has been revisiting Croatia ever since, researching the story of her family's often harrowing life: in 1941 her aunt was the only survivor of Serbs massacred by Croatian fascists; and her mother saved her grandmother from being buried alive when she was thought to be dead from typhus. Amidst adversity there is resilience and laughter, too, with plenty of light to balance the shade. Eccentric and entertaining characters abound, showing typically sardonic Balkan humour. And, this being the Balkans, much of daily life revolves around food, which features prominently. Throughout, aspects of Croatian history that relate to Lika are woven into the narrative to give the story some much-needed context. And in recounting her own family's tumultuous history, Novakovich opens up a world that is little known outside the Balkans, telling the stories of people whose experiences weren't widely reported at the time, when the devastation in Croatia was superseded by the Bosnian conflict and media attention moved elsewhere.

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