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Desde las trincheras: Colombia dividida en la Guerra de los 1000 días
by José Guillermo Sánchez RiveraAmor, pasión y guerra. Este libro nació de la necesidad de compartir con el pueblo latinoamericano, especialmente con el colombiano, lo que sucedido día a día y noche a noche por uno de sus soldados de artillería que peleó en la Guerra de los 1000 días, y peleó no por su supervivencia, sino únicamente por el partido que él creía que era el de la Iglesia Católica, y por eso daría hasta la última gota de sangre que llevaba dentro de su desnutrido cuerpo. <P><P>Quería poder liberar la patria de ese voraz adversario cuya única religión era la de descuartizar a sus enemigos a machete limpio, y por este medio lograr sembrar el pánico, terror y destrucción, así de esta bárbara manera poder doblegar al adversario. Este diario lo escribió mi padre sobre lo acontecido en el campo de batalla, en sus periodos de descanso, o en las noches sin sueño, para poder así dejarnos un legado de lo sucedido en esa cruel e inhumana guerra. Hasta la fecha no se ha encontrado a nadie que haya escrito lo sucedido en tan deplorables situaciones. <P><P>Este manuscrito lo guardaron los miembros de mi familia durante todos estos años, hasta que llego a mi poder en el en año 2014 cuando estuve de vacaciones en mi querida patria, yo soy el último de los hijos de mi padre, y vi la necesidad de publicarlo, pues sería una gran pérdida no llevar a cabo la divulgación de esta penosa historia, de uno de sus más grandes e ignorados patriotas de esa sufrida época de nuestra linda patria.
Desde un rincón de la Casa Blanca
by Beck Dorey-SteinUn testimonio personal y humano, excelentemente escrito, sobre la vida en la Casa Blanca. En 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein llega, como caída del cielo, al Despacho Oval para convertirse en una de las taquígrafas de Barak Obama. Ajena hasta el momento a ese mundo, pasa a formar parte del equipo de colaboradores más próximos al presidente, a quien acompañarán en sus desplazamientos. En el transcurso de largos viajes, atravesando zonas horarias, Beck traba amistad con un dinámico grupo de compañeros, jóvenes que, al igual que ella, dejan su vida cotidiana en tierra desde el instante en que suben al Air Force One para servir al primer mandatario. Unas memorias atrapantes que conducen al lector hasta el interior de la Casa Blanca durante la era Obama, donde podremos verlo todo a través de los ojos de una joven integrante del grupo de élite del presidente. La crítica ha dicho...«Dorey-Stein ofrece una panorámica absolutamente fascinante de lo que supone estar cerca del poder en el momento en que se escribe la Historia.»Piper Kerman, autora de Orange is the New Black «¿Quién habría dicho que el Ala Oeste de la Casa Blanca podía ser tan sexy? La excepcional perspectiva de la que gozó Beck queda patente en cada una de las páginas de este libro, así como su afilado sentido del humor.»Lauren Weisberger, autora de El diablo viste de Prada «La atrevida y conmovedora historia de una mujer que intenta abrirse camino en el mundo.»The Bookseller
Desde un rincón de la Casa Blanca
by Rebecca Dorey-SteinUn testimonio personal y humano, excelentemente escrito, sobre la vida en la Casa Blanca. En 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein llega, como caída del cielo, al Despacho Oval para convertirse en una de las taquígrafas de Barak Obama. Ajena hasta el momento a ese mundo, pasa a formar parte del equipo de colaboradores más próximos al presidente, a quien acompañarán en sus desplazamientos. En el transcurso de largos viajes, atravesando zonas horarias, Beck traba amistad con un dinámico grupo de compañeros, jóvenes que, al igual que ella, dejan su vida cotidiana en tierra desde el instante en que suben al Air Force One para servir al primer mandatario. Unas memorias atrapantes que conducen al lector hasta el interior de la Casa Blanca durante la era Obama, donde podremos verlo todo a través de los ojos de una joven integrante del grupo de élite del presidente. La crítica ha dicho...«Dorey-Stein ofrece una panorámica absolutamente fascinante de lo que supone estar cerca del poder en el momento en que se escribe la Historia.»Piper Kerman, autora de Orange is the New Black «¿Quién habría dicho que el Ala Oeste de la Casa Blanca podía ser tan sexy? La excepcional perspectiva de la que gozó Beck queda patente en cada una de las páginas de este libro, así como su afilado sentido del humor.»Lauren Weisberger, autora de El diablo viste de Prada «La atrevida y conmovedora historia de una mujer que intenta abrirse camino en el mundo.»The Bookseller
Deseo vivir: La historia de una mujer valiente que aprendió a morir
by María Eugenia Carmona Edwin Winkels«Esta mañana volví a plantearme qué hago aquí: sólo estar y ¿eso qué es?... Cuando vuelva a nacer podré dedicarme a ayudar y a entender a otras personas. Ahora simplemente no puedo más porque estoy demasiado atrapada en mi cuerpo físico y en su influencia sobre mi mente. Doy gracias por la existencia del papel y del lápiz». La vida de María Eugenia Carmona dio un giro vertiginoso cuando le diagnosticaron un tumor en el pecho en el verano de 2000. Deseo vivir recoge sus pensamientos desde ese momento. Un cuaderno personal en el que anotaba todo lo que se le pasaba por la cabeza a medida que el cáncer iba avanzando: sus miedos, sus alegrías, su dolor, la relación con su familia, la búsqueda espiritual... Deseo vivir es un testimonio sobrecogedor acerca de cómo una persona puede aprender la lección más importante a pesar de todo. Un viaje enternecedor hacia el interior de una mujer que ha de afrontar su destino y recuperar el perdón, encontrar el sentido, disfrutar del encuentro y afrontar la despedida. Un relato cargado de verdad que nos desvela la cara más dura de la enfermedad y la más iluminadora.
The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast
by Michael Scott MooreMichael Scott Moore, a journalist and the author of Sweetness and Blood, incorporates personal narrative and rigorous investigative journalism in this profound and revelatory memoir of his three-year captivity by Somali pirates—a riveting,thoughtful, and emotionally resonant exploration of foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival.In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International—and funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting—Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates. Subjected to conditions that break even the strongest spirits—physical injury, starvation, isolation, terror—Moore’s survival is a testament to his indomitable strength of mind. In September 2014, after 977 days, he walked free when his ransom was put together by the help of several US and German institutions, friends, colleagues, and his strong-willed mother. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history. Caught between Muslim pirates, the looming threat of Al-Shabaab, and the rise of ISIS, Moore observes the worlds that surrounded him—the economics and history of piracy; the effects of post-colonialism; the politics of hostage negotiation and ransom; while also conjuring the various faces of Islam—and places his ordeal in the context of the larger political and historical issues. A sort of Catch-22 meets Black Hawk Down, The Desert and the Sea is written with dark humor, candor, and a journalist’s clinical distance and eye for detail. Moore offers an intimate and otherwise inaccessible view of life as we cannot fathom it, brilliantly weaving his own experience as a hostage with the social, economic, religious, and political factors creating it. The Desert and the Sea is wildly compelling and a book that will take its place next to titles like Den of Lions and Even Silence Has an End.
The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast
by Michael Scott MooreMichael Scott Moore, a journalist and the author of Sweetness and Blood, incorporates personal narrative and rigorous investigative journalism in this profound and revelatory memoir of his three-year captivity by Somali pirates—a riveting,thoughtful, and emotionally resonant exploration of foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival.In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International—and funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting—Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates. Subjected to conditions that break even the strongest spirits—physical injury, starvation, isolation, terror—Moore’s survival is a testament to his indomitable strength of mind. In September 2014, after 977 days, he walked free when his ransom was put together by the help of several US and German institutions, friends, colleagues, and his strong-willed mother. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history. Caught between Muslim pirates, the looming threat of Al-Shabaab, and the rise of ISIS, Moore observes the worlds that surrounded him—the economics and history of piracy; the effects of post-colonialism; the politics of hostage negotiation and ransom; while also conjuring the various faces of Islam—and places his ordeal in the context of the larger political and historical issues. A sort of Catch-22 meets Black Hawk Down, The Desert and the Sea is written with dark humor, candor, and a journalist’s clinical distance and eye for detail. Moore offers an intimate and otherwise inaccessible view of life as we cannot fathom it, brilliantly weaving his own experience as a hostage with the social, economic, religious, and political factors creating it. The Desert and the Sea is wildly compelling and a book that will take its place next to titles like Den of Lions and Even Silence Has an End.
Desert Blues
by Bill AlbertAn orphaned teenager moves in with his cocktail-waitress aunt in 1950s Palm Springs, in a novel with &“its full share of hilarious, and touching, moments&” (Booklist). &“Swinging from poignant drama to edgy satire to farce, Albert&’s moving and funny first novel pairs an awkward orphaned adolescent immersed in 1950s rock &’n&’ roll and an unconventional &‘kept&’ woman. In 1957, confused, taciturn and fat 15-year-old Harold Abelstein, survivor of a car crash that killed his parents, goes to live with his Aunt Enid, a Palm Springs, Calif., cocktail waitress whose flowery perfumes, loud talk and constant pinching and touching make him uncomfortable. Enid&’s rent and car are provided gratis by her part-time lover, incredibly self-absorbed Archie Blatt, a St. Louis garment manufacturer who pops in a few times a year to escape his invalid wife and teenage daughters. Though resenting her dependence, Enid faces a bigger problem when her manipulative, self-pitying father, Abe, who walked out on the family 25 years ago, suddenly reappears, shabby, reeking of whiskey and terminally ill. Tensions snap as Abe grows ever sicker and then Archie shows up, forcing four disparate souls to fitfully coexist under one roof. With a fine ear for dialogue, Albert perfectly captures a time and place—and the emotional chafing between family members who can't help but care for one another, despite themselves.&” —Publishers Weekly
Desert Children
by Waris DirieFashion model, UN ambassador and courageous spirit, Waris Dirie was born into a family of tribal desert nomads in Somalia. She told her story - enduring female circumcision at five years old; running away through the desert; being discovered by Terence Donovan and becoming a top fashion model - in her book, the worldwide bestseller, DESERT FLOWER. In DESERT DAWN she wrote about becoming a UN Special Ambassador against FGM (female genital mutilation) and returning to her family in Somalia. DESERT CHILDREN tells us how she and the journalist Corinna Milborn have investigated the practice of FGM in Europe - they estimate that up to 500,000 women and girls have undergone or are at risk of FGM. At the moment, France is the only European country in which offenders are convicted and no European country officially recognises the threat of genital mutilation as a reason for asylum. Here are the voices of women who have felt encouraged and emboldened by Waris Dirie's courage. They speak out for the first time and move us to action.
Desert Children
by Waris DirieFashion model, UN ambassador and courageous spirit, Waris Dirie was born into a family of tribal desert nomads in Somalia. She told her story - enduring female circumcision at five years old; running away through the desert; being discovered by Terence Donovan and becoming a top fashion model - in her book, the worldwide bestseller, DESERT FLOWER. In DESERT DAWN she wrote about becoming a UN Special Ambassador against FGM (female genital mutilation) and returning to her family in Somalia. DESERT CHILDREN tells us how she and the journalist Corinna Milborn have investigated the practice of FGM in Europe - they estimate that up to 500,000 women and girls have undergone or are at risk of FGM. At the moment, France is the only European country in which offenders are convicted and no European country officially recognises the threat of genital mutilation as a reason for asylum. Here are the voices of women who have felt encouraged and emboldened by Waris Dirie's courage. They speak out for the first time and move us to action.
Desert Diplomat: Inside Saudi Arabia Following 9/11
by Robert W. Jordan Steve Fiffer James A Baker IIIIn the spring of 2001, George W. Bush selected Dallas attorney Robert W. Jordan as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Jordan’s nomination sped through Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and he was at his post by early October, though with no prior diplomatic experience, as Saudi Arabia mandates that the U.S. Ambassador be a political appointee with the ear of the president. Hence Jordan had to learn on the job how to run an embassy, deal with a foreign culture, and protect U.S. interests, all following the most significant terrorist attacks on the United States in history.From 2001 through 2003, Jordan worked closely with Crown Prince Abdullah and other Saudi leaders on sensitive issues of terrorism and human rights, all the while trying to maintain a positive relationship to ensure their cooperation with the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. At the same time he worked with top officials in Washington, including President Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Tommy Franks. Desert Diplomat discusses these relationships as well as the historic decisions of Jordan’s tenure and provides a candid and thoughtful assessment of the sometimes distressing dysfunction in the conduct of American foreign policy, warfare, and intelligence gathering. Still involved in the Middle East, Jordan also offers important insights into the political, economic, and social changes occurring in this critical region, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Desert Fire: The Diary of a Cold War Gunner
by Andrew GillespieForming part of the Royal Artillery's historical series, Desert Fire is the Battery Commander of O Battery (The Rockett Troop), 2nd Field Regiment RA's gripping description of the Gulf War. His first-hand account brings to life the power and destructive force of modern massed artillery and is a fitting tribute to all members of the Royal Regiment who played such a vital role in the desert campaign. Shows detailed plans and maps of events first time around in the Gulf.
Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad
by Waris Dirie Cathleen MillerAutobiography of a illiterate and impoverished girl who ran away to New York and became a supermodel and passionate advocate for human rights.
Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad
by Waris Dirie Cathleen Miller"Waris's story is one of remarkable courage. From the deserts of Somalia to the world of high fashion, she battles against oppression and emerges a real champion. She is the most beautiful inspiration to anyone." —Elton JohnWaris Dirie ran away from her oppressive life in the African desert when she was barely in her teens, illiterate and impoverished, with nothing to her name but a tattered shawl. She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu—the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N. Poignant and powerfully told, Desert Flower is Waris's extraordinary story.
Desert Fox: The Storied Military Career of Erwin Rommel (Stackpole Military History Ser.)
by Samuel W. MitchamJust who was Erwin Rommel? War hero or war criminal? Hitler flunky or man of integrity? Military genius or just lucky? Now, bestselling military historian Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. gets to the heart of the mysterious figure respected and even admired by the people of the Allied nations he fought against. Mitcham recounts Rommel’s improbable and meteoric military career, his epic battles in North Africa, and his fraught relationship with Hitler and the Nazi Party. Desert Fox: The Storied Military Career of Erwin Rommel reveals: • How Rommel’s victories in North Africa were sabotaged by Hitler’s incompetent interference • How Rommel burned orders telling him to commit war crimes • Why it wouldn’t have helped Patton if he really had read Rommel’s book • How Rommel was responsible for the Germans’ defense against the D-Day landing • Why the plot to overthrow Hitler was fatally compromised when Rommel was gravely injured in an Allied attack • The reason Rommel agreed to commit suicide after his part in the plot was discovered by Hitler Mitcham’s gripping account of Rommel’s life takes you through the amazing adventure of the World War II battles in North Africa. Again and again, Rommel outfoxed the Allies—until the war of attrition and Hitler’s blunders doomed the Axis cause. Illustrated with dozens of historical photos, this illuminating biography paints a fascinating and tragic picture of the man known as the Desert Fox.
Desert Island Discs: 70 Years of Castaways
by Sean Magee‘For seventy years now Desert Island Discs has managed that rare feat – to be both enduring and relevant. By casting away the biggest names of the day in science, business, politics, showbiz, sport and the arts, it presents a cross-sectional snapshot of the times in which we live. As the decades have passed, the programme has kept pace; never frozen in time yet always, somehow, comfortingly the same.’ Kirsty YoungBBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs celebrates its seventieth birthday in 2012. Since the programme’s deviser Roy Plomley interviewed comedian Vic Oliver in January 1942, nearly 3,000 distinguished people from all walks of life have been stranded on the mythical island, accompanied by only eight records, one book and a luxury.Here the story of one of BBC Radio 4’s favourite programmes is chronicled through a special selection of castaways.Roy Plomley, inventor of the programme as well as its presenter for over forty years, quizzes the young Cliff Richard about ‘these rather frenzied movements’ the 1960s pop sensation makes on the stage. Robert Maxwell tells Plomley’s successor Michael Parkinson that ‘I will have left the world a slightly better place by having lived in it.’ Diana Mosley assures Sue Lawley that Adolf Hitler was ‘extraordinarily fascinating’ and had mesmeric blue eyes. And Johnny Vegas tugs Kirsty Young’s heart-strings with his account of a childhood so impoverished that family pets were fair game: ‘My dad had always claimed that rabbits were livestock, but we’d never eaten one before.’Desert Island Discs is much more than a radio programme. It is a unique and enduringly popular take on our lives and times – and this extensively illustrated book tells in rich detail the colourful and absorbing story of an extraordinary institution.
Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North
by Ariel DorfmanThe Norte Grande of Chile, the world's driest desert, had "engendered contemporary Chile, everything that was good about it, everything that was dreadful," writes Ariel Dorfman in his brilliant exploration of one of the least known and most exotic corners of the globe. For 10,000 years the desert had been mined for silver, iron, and copper, but it was the 19th-century discovery of nitrate that transformed the country into a modern state and forced the desert's colonization. The mines' riches generated mansions and oligarchs in Chile's more temperate region--and terrible inequalities throughout the country. The Norte Grande also gave birth to the first Chilean democratic and socialist movements, nurturing every major political figure of modern Chile from Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet. In this richly layered personal memoir, illustrated with the author's own photographs, Dorfman sets out to explore the origins of contemporary Chile--and, along the way, seek out his wife's European ancestors who came years ago to Chile as part of the nitrate rush. And, most poignantly, he looks for traces of his friend and fellow 1960s activist, Freddy Taberna, executed by a firing squad in a remote Pinochet death camp.
Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time
by Ben EhrenreichLayering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, this New York Times Notable Book presents a stunning reckoning with our current moment and with the literal and figurative end of time.Desert Notebooks examines how the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environment and an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape have led us to the brink of a calamity greater than any humankind has confronted before. As inhabitants of the Anthropocene, what might some of our own histories tell us about how to confront apocalypse? And how might the geologies and ecologies of desert spaces inform how we see and act toward time—the pasts we have erased and paved over, this anxious present, the future we have no choice but to build? Ehrenreich draws on the stark grandeur of the desert to ask how we might reckon with the uncertainty that surrounds us and fight off the crises that have already begun.In the canyons and oases of the Mojave and in Las Vegas&’s neon apocalypse, Ehrenreich finds beauty, and even hope, surging up in the most unlikely places, from the most barren rocks, and the apparent emptiness of the sky. Desert Notebooks is a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present—unflinching, urgent—yet timeless and profound.
Desert Places: A Woman's Odyssey with the Wanderers of the Indian Desert
by Robyn DavidsonFrom the bestselling author of Tracks: A travel writer&’s memoir of her year with the nomadic Rabari tribe on the border between Pakistan and India. India&’s Thar Desert has been the home of the Rabari herders for thousands of years. In 1990, Australian Robyn Davidson, &“as natural a travel writer as she is an adventurer,&” spent a year with the Rabari, whose livelihood is increasingly endangered by India&’s rapid development (The New Yorker). Enduring the daily hardships of life in the desert while immersed in the austere beauty of the arid landscape, Davidson subsisted on a diet of goat milk, roti, and parasite-infested water. She collided with India&’s rigid caste system and cultural idiosyncrasies, confronted extreme sleep deprivation, and fought feelings of alienation amid the nation&’s isolated rural peoples—finding both intense suffering and a renewed sense of beauty and belonging among the Rabari family. Rich with detail and honest in its depictions of cultural differences, Desert Places is an unforgettable story of fortitude in the face of struggle and an ode to the rapidly disappearing way of life of the herders of northwestern India. &“Davidson will both disturb and exhilarate readers with the acuity of her observations, the sting of her wit, and the candor of her emotions&” (Booklist).
Desert Queen
by Jyoti R. GopalThis picture book biography in verse follows the life of beloved Rajasthani drag performer Queen Harish, known as the Whirling Desert Queen of Rajasthan. Lit by an inner fire and propelled by a family tragedy, Harish defied the gender conventions of middle class Indian life, battled discrimination and intimidation, and eventually grew up to dance with Bollywood movie stars and on stages across the world.Jyoti Gopal's rhythmic phrases evoke the particular sounds and beats of the music Harish danced to, and capture the passions and conflicts of his life. The poignant and inspiring tale is interpreted by internationally acclaimed Rajasthani artist Svabhu Kohli in kohl-black lines and shapes and brilliant jewel-like colors.
Desert Queen
by Jyoti R. GopalThis picture book biography in verse follows the life of beloved Rajasthani drag performer Queen Harish, known as the Whirling Desert Queen of Rajasthan. Lit by an inner fire and propelled by a family tragedy, Harish defied the gender conventions of middle class Indian life, battled discrimination and intimidation, and eventually grew up to dance with Bollywood movie stars and on stages across the world.Jyoti Gopal's rhythmic phrases evoke the particular sounds and beats of the music Harish danced to, and capture the passions and conflicts of his life. The poignant and inspiring tale is interpreted by internationally acclaimed Rajasthani artist Svabhu Kohli in kohl-black lines and shapes and brilliant jewel-like colors.
Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life Of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser To Kings, Ally Of Lawrence Of Arabia
by Janet WallachTurning her back on her privileged life in Victorian England, Gertrude Bell (1868-1926), fired by her innate curiosity, journeyed the world and became fascinated with all things Arab. Traveling the length and breadth of the Arab region, armed with a love for its language and its people, she not only produced several enormously popular books based on her experiences but became instrumental to the British foreign office. When World War I erupted, and the British needed the loyalty of the Arab leaders, it was Gertrude Bell's work and connections that helped provided the brain for T. E. Lawrence's military brawn. After the war she participated in both the Paris and Cairo conferences, played a major role in creating the modern Middle East, and was generally considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. In this incident-packed biography, Janet Wallach reveals a woman whose achievements and independent spirit were especially remarkable for her times, and who brought the same passion and intensity to her explorations as she did to her rich romantic life. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence's fame, Gertrude Bell emerges in this first major biography as a woman whose accomplishments rank as crucial to world history (especially in light of the continuing geopolitical importance of the Middle East) and whose life was a grand adventure.
Desert Sniper: How One Ordinary Brit Went to War Against ISIS
by Ed NashWhat makes an ordinary but highly educated Englishman, with no previous military training, decide to travel and fight in one of the most brutal conflicts on the planet?Desert Sniper is an extraordinary, true account of one man's journey from well-meaning volunteer to battle-scarred combat sniper, placing himself daily in the line of fire to fight one of the greatest evils of this new century. Ed Nash has travelled across the globe, and is working with refugees in Burma, when he first becomes aware of the terrible atrocities being committed under ISIS's newly established 'Caliphate', covering vast tracts of Iraq and Syria. In June 2015, he chooses to undertake the hazardous journey, via Northern Iraq, to Syria, to join ill-equipped and poorly trained but battle-hardened Kurdish forces as they attempt to halt Daesh's relentless advance. Nash is an articulate, insightful and refreshingly honest companion as he unpacks the shifting complexities of the political and military situation in which he finds himself. As one of a motley band of foreign volunteer fighters - veterans of other conflicts, adventurers and misfits, from many different countries - we follow him through his rudimentary training and early combat operations as he and his companions slowly gain the trust and respect of their Kurdish colleagues.Nash shows us the realities of the war on the ground in Syria in fascinating detail; the privations of the ordinary Kurdish soldiers, the terrible price paid by civilians caught in the cross-fire, the ever-present danger of lethal suicide bombers and occasional moments of striking beauty in amongst the carnage. A modern classic in the making, Desert Sniper will prove to be one of the most unforgettable accounts to emerge from the war against ISIS.
Desert Sniper: How One Ordinary Brit Went to War Against ISIS
by Ed NashWhat makes an ordinary but highly educated Englishman, with no previous military training, decide to travel and fight in one of the most brutal conflicts on the planet?Desert Sniper is an extraordinary, true account of one man's journey from well-meaning volunteer to battle-scarred combat sniper, placing himself daily in the line of fire to fight one of the greatest evils of this new century. Ed Nash has travelled across the globe, and is working with refugees in Burma, when he first becomes aware of the terrible atrocities being committed under ISIS's newly established 'Caliphate', covering vast tracts of Iraq and Syria. In June 2015, he chooses to undertake the hazardous journey, via Northern Iraq, to Syria, to join ill-equipped and poorly trained but battle-hardened Kurdish forces as they attempt to halt Daesh's relentless advance. Nash is an articulate, insightful and refreshingly honest companion as he unpacks the shifting complexities of the political and military situation in which he finds himself. As one of a motley band of foreign volunteer fighters - veterans of other conflicts, adventurers and misfits, from many different countries - we follow him through his rudimentary training and early combat operations as he and his companions slowly gain the trust and respect of their Kurdish colleagues.Nash shows us the realities of the war on the ground in Syria in fascinating detail; the privations of the ordinary Kurdish soldiers, the terrible price paid by civilians caught in the cross-fire, the ever-present danger of lethal suicide bombers and occasional moments of striking beauty in amongst the carnage. A modern classic in the making, Desert Sniper will prove to be one of the most unforgettable accounts to emerge from the war against ISIS.
Desert Sojourn: A Woman's Forty Days and Nights Alone (Adventura Books)
by Debi Holmes-BinneyAt age 31, having left a stifling decade-long marriage, Debi Holmes-Binney set off alone into the harsh Utah desert to find direction and spiritual renewal. Armed with only basic supplies and her writing journals, she planned to spend forty days and nights alone; what followed was an extended sojourn in a place by turns physically terrifying, psychologically invigorating, and gloriously beautiful. Desert Sojourn is a wonderfully fresh, perceptive, and moving account of self-discovery that will appeal to both physical and spiritual adventurers.
Desert Solitaire: A Season In The Wilderness
by Edward AbbeyThis memoir of life in the American desert by the author of The Monkey Wrench Gang is a nature writing classic on par with Rachel Carson&’s Silent Spring. In Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey recounts his many escapades, adventures, and epiphanies as an Arches National Park ranger outside Moab, Utah. Brimming with arresting insights, impassioned arguments for wilderness conservation, and a raconteur&’s wit, it is one of Abbey&’s most critically acclaimed works. Through stories and philosophical musings, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness, the future of a civilization, and his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey&’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book first appeared in 1968.