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Almost a Woman: A Memoir (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)
by Esmeralda SantiagoFollowing the enchanting story recounted in When I Was Puerto Rican of the author&’s emergence from the barrios of Brooklyn to the prestigious Performing Arts High School in Manhattan, Esmeralda Santiago delivers the tale of her young adulthood, where she continually strives to find a balance between becoming American and staying Puerto Rican. While translating for her mother Mami at the welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York&’s prestigious Performing Arts High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she begins to defy her mother&’s protective rules, only to find that independence brings new dangers and dilemmas.
Almost American Girl: An Illustrated Memoir
by Robin HaHarvey Award Nominee, Best Children or Young Adult Book A powerful and moving teen graphic novel memoir about immigration, belonging, and how arts can save a life—perfect for fans of American Born Chinese and Hey, Kiddo. <p><p>For as long as she can remember, it’s been Robin and her mom against the world. Growing up as the only child of a single mother in Seoul, Korea, wasn’t always easy, but it has bonded them fiercely together. So when a vacation to visit friends in Huntsville, Alabama, unexpectedly becomes a permanent relocation—following her mother’s announcement that she’s getting married—Robin is devastated. <p><p>Overnight, her life changes. She is dropped into a new school where she doesn’t understand the language and struggles to keep up. She is completely cut off from her friends in Seoul and has no access to her beloved comics. At home, she doesn’t fit in with her new stepfamily, and worst of all, she is furious with the one person she is closest to—her mother. Then one day Robin’s mother enrolls her in a local comic drawing class, which opens the window to a future Robin could never have imagined. <p><p>This nonfiction graphic novel with four starred reviews is an excellent choice for teens and also accelerated tween readers, both for independent reading and units on immigration, memoirs, and the search for identity. <P><P><i>Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.</i>
Almost Anywhere: Road Trip Ruminations on Love, Nature, National Parks, and Nonsense
by Krista SchlyerWhat do you do when your world ends? At twenty-eight years old, Krista Schlyer sold almost everything she owned and packed the rest of it in a station wagon bound for the American wild. Her two best friends joined her--one a grumpy, grieving introvert, the other a feisty dog--and together they sought out every national park, historic site, forest, and wilderness they could get to before their money ran out or their minds gave in. The journey began as a desperate escape from urban isolation, heartbreak, and despair, but became an adventure beyond imagining. Chronicling their colorful escapade, Almost Anywhere explores the courage, cowardice, and heroics that live in all of us, as well as the life of nature and the nature of life. This eloquent and accessible memoir is at once an immersion in the pain of losing someone particularly close and especially young and a healing journey of a broken life given over to the whimsy and humor of living on the road.
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream
by Tanya Lee StoneNearly twenty years before the first women were allowed into NASA's astronaut program, a group of thirteen women proved not only that they were as tough as any man but also that they were brave enough to challenge the government. Almost Astronauts tells the story of the "Mercury 13" women, who were blocked by prejudice, jealousy, and a note scrawled by one of the most powerful men in Washington. In the end, the inspiring example of these space-age pioneers empowered young people to take their rightful place in the sky and beyond, piloting jets and commanding space capsules.<P><P> Winner of the Sibert Medal
Almost Brown: A Memoir
by Charlotte GillAn award-winning writer retraces her dysfunctional, biracial, globe-trotting family&’s journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household.&“Almost Brown is that rarest of things: a memoir that is both deeply intimate and intellectually ambitious.&”—Susan Orlean, author of The Library BookCharlotte Gill&’s father is Indian. Her mother is English. They meet in 1960s London when the world is not quite ready for interracial love. Their union results in a total meltdown of familial relations, a lot of immigration paperwork, and three children, all in varying shades of tan. Together they set off on a journey from the United Kingdom to Canada to the United States in an elusive pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness—a dream that eventually tears them apart. Almost Brown is an exploration of diasporic intermingling involving two eccentric parents from worlds apart and their half-brown children as they experience the paradoxes and conundrums of life as it&’s lived between race checkboxes. Their intercultural experiment features turbans and tube socks, chana masala and Cherry Coke. Over time, Gill&’s parents drift apart because they just aren&’t compatible. But as she too finds herself distancing from her father—Why is she embarrassed to walk down the street with him and not her mom?—she doesn&’t know if it&’s because of his personality or his race. Is this her own unconscious bias favoring one parent over the other in the racial tug-of-war that plagues our society? Almost Brown looks for answers to questions shared by many mixed-race people: What am I? What does it mean to be a person of color when the concept is a societal invention and really only applies halfway if you are half white? Eventually, after years of silence, Gill and her father reclaim a space for forgiveness and love. In a funny, turbulent, and ultimately heartwarming story, Gill examines the brilliant messiness of ancestry, &“diversity,&” and the idea of &“race,&” a historical concept that still informs our beliefs about ethnicity today.
Almost Brown: A Mixed-Race Family Memoir
by Charlotte Gill"A Canadian masterpiece."—Toronto StarAn award-winning writer retraces her unconventional, biracial, globe-trotting family&’s journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household.Charlotte Gill&’s father is Indian. Her mother is English. They meet in 1960s London when the world is not quite ready for interracial love. Their union results in a total meltdown of familial relations, a lot of immigration paperwork, and three children, all in varying shades of tan. Together they set off on a journey to Canada and the United States in an elusive pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness—a dream that eventually tears them apart.Almost Brown is an exploration of diasporic intermingling involving two deeply eccentric parents from worlds apart and their half-brown children as they experience the paradoxes and conundrums of life as it&’s lived between race checkboxes. Their intercultural experiment features turbans and tube socks, chana masala and Cherry Coke, feminist uprisings, racial alliances and divides, a divorce, multiple grudges, and plenty of bad fashion. The family implodes, but after twenty years of silence, father and daughter reclaim a space for forgiveness and love.Almost Brown is a funny, turbulent, and ultimately heartwarming book about the brilliant messiness of a mixed-race family and a search for answers to the question, What are you? Tender and incisive, it is both a deeply personal memoir and an excavation into ethnicity, ancestry, and race—a historical concept that still informs our beliefs about identity today.
Almost Chosen People: Oblique Biographies in the American Grain
by Michael ZuckermanFew historians are bold enough to go after America's sacred cows in their very own pastures. But Michael Zuckerman is no ordinary historian, and this collection of his essays is no ordinary book. In his effort to remake the meaning of the American tradition, Zuckerman takes the entire sweep of American history for his province. The essays in this collection, including two never before published and a new autobiographical introduction, range from early New England settlements to the hallowed corridors of modern Washington. Among his subjects are Puritans and Southern gentry, Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Spock, P.T. Barnum and Ronald Reagan. Collecting scammers and scoundrels, racists and rebels, as well as the purest genius, he writes to capture the unadorned American character. Recognized for his energy, eloquence, and iconoclasm, Zuckerman is known for provoking- and sometimes almost seducing- historians into rethinking their most cherished assumptions about the American past. Now his many fans, and readers of every persuasion, can newly appreciate the distinctive talents of one of America's most powerful social critics.
Almost French
by Sarah Turnbull'This isn't like me. I'm not the sort of girl who crosses continents to meet up with a man she hardly knows. Paris hadn't even been part of my travel plan . ' After backpacking her way around Europe journalist Sarah Turnbull is ready to embark on one last adventure before heading home to Sydney. A chance meeting with a charming Frenchman in Bucharest changes her travel plans forever. Acting on impulse, she agrees to visit Fr d ric in Paris for a week. Put a very French Frenchman together with a strong-willed Australian girl and the result is some spectacular - and often hilarious - cultural clashes. Language is a minefield of misunderstanding and the simple act of buying a baguette is fraught with social danger. But as she navigates the highs and lows of this strange new world, from the sophisticated caf s and haute couture fashion houses to the picture postcard French countryside, little by little Sarah falls under its spell: passionate, mysterious, infuriating, and charged with that French specialty - s duction. And it becomes her home. ALMOST FRENCH is the story of an adventurous heart, a maddening city - and love.
Almost Gone: Twenty-Five Days and One Chance to Save Our Daughter
by John Baldwin Mackenzie Baldwin Stephanie BaldwinThis is the never-before-told, riveting true story about a teenage Christian girl who was seduced online by a charming young Muslim man from Kosovo, and her father who ultimately worked with the FBI to save her from disappearing forever.The Baldwins were a strong Christian family, living in Plano, Texas. When their seventeen-year-old daughter, Mackenzie, met Aadam in a random-match online chat room, she fell for his good looks, his charm, and his respectful conversation. He told her he lived in New York, and they began an online friendship. But over the course of a few months, Aadam revealed that he actually lived in Kosovo and had only pretended to live in New York so Mackenzie would keep chatting with him. The more attached she became to Aadam, the more detached she became from her family. John and Stephanie, Mackenzie’s parents, had no clue what was behind their daughter’s change in personality, her surprising interest in Islam, her suddenly modest dress, and her withdrawal from friends and family. When Mackenzie’s attachment to Aadam increased even more and they became “engaged,” she started making plans to secretly fly to Kosovo where she and Aadam would be married. But twenty-five days before Mackenzie was scheduled to fly to Kosovo, John found out about his daughter’s dangerous plan when three of her friends came forward. John contacted the FBI, and asked for help. Though the FBI did not believe Aadam was trying to radicalize Mackenzie, they were concerned about his intentions, as that part of Kosovo was known for sex-trafficking, human-trafficking, and citizenship frauds. Kosovo was no place for an unaccompanied, naïve teenager to secretly travel and marry a stranger she knew only through online chats. Within the limited time remaining before Mackenzie’s departure, John and Stephanie had to confront Mackenzie and stop her before she would be lost to them forever. Told from the viewpoint of both father and daughter, Almost Gone follows Mackenzie’s network of lies and deceit and her parents’ escalating bewilderment and alarm. More than a cautionary tale, this is the incredible story of unconditional parental love, unwavering faith, and how God helped a family save their daughter from a relationship that jeopardized not only her happiness, but also her safety.
Almost Hemingway: The Adventures of Negley Farson, Foreign Correspondent
by Rex Bowman Carlos SantosWould it surprise you to learn that there was a contemporary of Ernest Hemingway’s who, in his romantic questing and hell-or-high-water pursuit of life and his art, was closer to the Hemingwayesque ideal than Hemingway himself? Almost Hemingway relates the life of Negley Farson, adventurer, iconoclast, best-selling writer, foreign correspondent, and raging alcoholic who died in oblivion. Born only a few years before Hemingway, Farson had a life trajectory that paralleled and intersected Hemingway’s in ways that compelled writers for publications as divergent as the Guardian and Field & Stream to compare them. Unlike Hemingway, however, Farson has been forgotten.This high-flying and literate biography recovers Farson’s life in its multifaceted details, from his time as an arms dealer to Czarist Russia during World War I, to his firsthand reporting on Hitler and Mussolini, to his assignment in India, where he broke the news of Gandhi’s arrest by the British, to his excursion to Kenya a few years before the Mau Mau Uprising. Farson also found the time to publish an autobiography, The Way of a Transgressor, which made him an international publishing sensation in 1936, as well as Going Fishing, one of the most enduring of all outdoors books.F. Scott Fitzgerald, a fellow member of the Lost Generation whose art competed with a public image grander than reality, once confessed that while he had to rely on his imagination, Farson could simply draw from his own event-filled life. Almost Hemingway is the definitive window on that remarkable story.
Almost Home: A Brazilian Americans Reflections on Faith, Culture, and Immigration
by H. B. CavalcantiIn Almost Home, H. B. Cavalcanti, a Brazilian-born scholar who has spent three decades working and living in the United States, reflects on his life as an immigrant and places his story within the context of the larger history of immigration. Due to both his family background and the prevalence of U.S. media in Latin America, Cavalcanti already felt immersed in U.S. culture before arriving in Kentucky in 1981 to complete graduate studies. At that time, opportunities for advancement in the United States exceeded those in Brazil, and in an era of military dictatorships throughout much of Latin America, Cavalcanti sought in the United States a nation of laws. In this memoir, he reflects on the dynamics of acculturation, immigrant parenting, interactions with native-born U.S. citizens, and the costs involved in rejecting his country of birth for an adopted nation. He also touches on many of the factors that contribute to migration in both the “sending” and “receiving” countries and explores the contemporary phenomenon of accelerated immigration. With its blend of personal anecdotes and scholarly information, Almost Home addresses both individual and policy-related issues to provide a moving portrait of the impact of migration on those who, like Cavalcanti, confront both the wonder and the disorientation inherent in the immigrant experience.
Almost Home: A Story Based on the Life of the Mayflower's Mary Chilton (Daughters of the Faith Series)
by Wendy LawtonDaughters of the Faith: Ordinary Girls Who Lived Extraordinary Lives.Almost Home is the story of the pilgrims&’ journey to America and of God&’s providence and provision.Several of the characters in the story—Mary Chilton, Constance Hopkins, and Elizabeth Tilley—were actual passengers on the Mayflower. Mary Chilton was a young girl when she left her home in Holland and traveled to America onboard the Mayflower with her parents. The journey was filled with trials, joys, and some surprises, but when she reached the New World, she experienced a new life, new freedom, and new home. Wendy Lawton has taken the facts of the pilgrims&’ journey to the New World, and from this information filled in personal details to create a genuine and heart-warming story.
Almost Home: A Story Based on the Life of the Mayflower's Mary Chilton (Daughters of the Faith Series)
by Wendy LawtonDaughters of the Faith: Ordinary Girls Who Lived Extraordinary Lives.Almost Home is the story of the pilgrims&’ journey to America and of God&’s providence and provision.Several of the characters in the story—Mary Chilton, Constance Hopkins, and Elizabeth Tilley—were actual passengers on the Mayflower. Mary Chilton was a young girl when she left her home in Holland and traveled to America onboard the Mayflower with her parents. The journey was filled with trials, joys, and some surprises, but when she reached the New World, she experienced a new life, new freedom, and new home. Wendy Lawton has taken the facts of the pilgrims&’ journey to the New World, and from this information filled in personal details to create a genuine and heart-warming story.
Almost Interesting
by David SpadeI've learned over the last year that books are a lot harder to write than Twitter posts.--@davidspade (free plug)Welcome to my book, guys. Here are 200 pages of my blood, sweat, and jizz. It took a long time to write, and I hope you think it was worth it. These are the stories I tell to my friends or at dinner when I'm drunk and everyone darts their eyes around and squirms in their chair hoping I'll finish soon. Others I've told on Stern or Ellen or anyone else I can name-drop.It's me telling you about my fake problems in life and a few real ones (my neck is actually really a disaster). It is a book about comedy, and how I came up from the dusty roads of Arizona with my OP shorts and my blond fluffy hair, to the mean streets of Beverly Hills, with nothing but a few props in my mom's old honeymoon suitcase and a few dry jokes. I blather on about how I got into stand-up, how I lost my virginity, and meeting Johnny Carson, to my years on Saturday Night Live (I couldn't write decent sketches for shit for a long time), to making Tommy Boy with Farlz, to the time I got the shit kicked out of me by my assistant while I was wearing a Coneheads T-shirt . . . this is my memoir.So, anyway, take a minute . . . to buy this, you don't even have to read it, just gave away all the good parts, anyway. Who reads books, right? Fuck this, let's go do molly at Coachella!
The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters: A True Story of Family Fiction
by Julie KlamNew York Times–bestselling author Julie Klam&’s funny and moving story of the Morris sisters, distant relations with mysterious pasts. Ever since she was young, Julie Klam has been fascinated by the Morris sisters, cousins of her grandmother. According to family lore, early in the twentieth century the sisters&’ parents decided to move the family from Eastern Europe to Los Angeles so their father could become a movie director. On the way, their pregnant mother went into labor in St. Louis, where the baby was born and where their mother died. The father left the children in an orphanage and promised to send for them when he settled in California—a promise he never kept. One of the Morris sisters later became a successful Wall Street trader and advised Franklin Roosevelt. The sisters lived together in New York City, none of them married or had children, and one even had an affair with J. P. Morgan. The stories of these independent women intrigued Klam, but as she delved into them to learn more, she realized that the tales were almost completely untrue. The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the revealing account of what Klam discovered about her family—and herself—as she dug into the past. The deeper she went into the lives of the Morris sisters, the slipperier their stories became. And the more questions she had about what actually happened to them, the more her opinion of them evolved. Part memoir and part confessional, and told with the wit and honesty that are hallmarks of Klam&’s books, The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the fascinating and funny true story of one writer&’s journey into her family&’s past, the truths she brings to light, and what she learns about herself along the way.
Almost Like A Song
by Ronnie Milsap Tom CarterRonnie Milsap, a legend in country music, shares the story of his life including the obstacles and opportunities created by his blindness. He describes his childhood in the rural south and gives an insider's view of life at a school for the blind. He chronicles his entry into country music and shares stories about his travels.
Almost Nothing: The 20th Century Art And Life Of Józef Czapski
by Eric KarpelesA compelling biography of the Polish painter and writer Józef Czapski that takes readers to Paris in the Roaring Twenties, to the front lines during WWII, and into the late 20th-century art world.Józef Czapski (1896–1993) lived many lives during his ninety-six years. He was a student in Saint Petersburg during the Russian Revolution and a painter in Paris in the roaring twenties. As a Polish reserve officer fighting against the invading Nazis in the opening weeks of the Second World War, he was taken prisoner by the Soviets. For reasons unknown to this day, he was one of the very few excluded from Stalin’s sanctioned massacres of Polish officers. He never returned to Poland after the war, but worked tirelessly in Paris to keep alive awareness of the plight of his homeland, overrun by totalitarian powers. Czapski was a towering public figure, but painting gave meaning to his life. Eric Karpeles, also a painter, reveals Czapski’s full complexity, pulling together all the threads of this remarkable life.
Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail (Outdoor Lives)
by Suzanne RobertsWinner of the National Outdoor Book Award in Outdoor Literature It was 1993, Suzanne Roberts had just finished college, and when her friend suggested they hike California&’s John Muir Trail, the adventure sounded like the perfect distraction from a difficult home life and thoughts about the future. But she never imagined that the twenty-eight-day hike would change her life. Part memoir, part nature writing, part travelogue, Almost Somewhere is Roberts&’s account of that hike. John Muir wrote of the Sierra Nevada as a &“vast range of light,&” and that was exactly what Roberts was looking for. But traveling with two girlfriends, one experienced and unflappable and the other inexperienced and bulimic, she quickly discovered that she needed a new frame of reference. Her story of a month in the backcountry—confronting bears, snowy passes, broken equipment, injuries, and strange men—is as much about finding a woman&’s way into outdoor experience as it is about the natural world Roberts so eloquently describes. Candid and funny, and finally, wise, Almost Somewhere not only tells the whimsical coming-of-age story of a young woman ill-prepared for a month in the mountains but also reflects a distinctly feminine view of nature. This new edition includes an afterword by the author looking back on the ways both she and the John Muir Trail have changed over the past thirty years, as well as book club and classroom discussion questions and photographs from the trip.
Almost the Perfect Murder: The Killing of Elaine O’Hara, the Extraordinary Garda Investigation and the Trial That Stunned the Nation: The Only Complete Inside Account
by Paul WilliamsFrom Ireland's leading crime journalist, Paul Williams, comes the definitive account of the case that gripped the nation.'A book that had to be written' Ray D'Arcy, RTÉ Radio 1 For over a year, everyone assumed missing Dublin woman Elaine O'Hara had ended her own life. But after her remains were found, the police discovered that Elaine was in thrall to a man who had spent years grooming her to let him kill her. That man was Graham Dwyer, a married father of three and partner in a Dublin architecture practice. Almost the Perfect Murder details the exhaustive investigation - one of the most complex and chilling in Irish criminal justice history - that allowed gardaí to build a case against Dwyer. And it outlines the twists and turns that happened during the dramatic trial that followed. 'An example of doggedness and tenacious police work, which saw that justice was done, and seen to be done' Irish Independent'Fascinating' Pat Kenny, Newstalk 'It is very rare for murder to involve the degree of calculation revealed in this case' Irish Times
Almost There: The Family Vacation, Then and Now
by Curtis GillespieWe all have memories of family vacations: the cross-country marathon drive, the camping trip, a couple lazy weeks at the lake, a helter-skelter month in Europe, four days in Disneyland. The variations may be endless, but the common denominator is that there are always stories to tell. The family vacation, with all its funny, sad, relaxing, stressful, frustrating, and exhilarating moments, shapes us, and helps us create an understanding of who we are and of those we travel with. In his humourous new book, Almost There, award-winning writer Curtis Gillespie explores the meaning of our family vacations, the memories created by them, and how we use these memories to define our relationship with our families and ourselves. Using his own history of family vacations as a backdrop, Gillespie explores how the meaning and symbolism of the family vacation has shifted throughout the decades. For years, families drove across the country or relaxed at a lakeside cottage. Now even the middle-class travel with their nannies or go on a Disney cruise … or take their nannies with them on a Disney cruise. As he sifts through memories and explores family vacation history, Gillespie ultimately discovers that not only is how we choose to vacation an expression of who we are as individual families, but that the very nature of the family vacation reflects, and sometimes even predicts, societal change. The family vacation is something we all share; the laughter, the tears, the moments, the memories. In Almost There, Curtis Gillespie reminds us how important these moments in our lives are, and how important they will continue to be.
Aloha Crossing
by Pamela Bauer MuellerFrom the book jacket: A year has passed since puppy raiser Diego handed Aloha's harness over to her blind partner Kimberly Louise. Now Diego is traveling to Georgia to visit his beloved friend again! This heartwarming story follows the exciting cross-country adventures and moving scenarios of a diverse group of family and friends. Although Aloha is a central figure in this intriguing story, she shares the stage with human actors who make this more than a tale about a blind woman and her guide dog. Learning from the devoted Aloha's example, they discover they are capable of weathering any storm and triumphing over every setback. From the opening chapter where Aloha rescues Kimberly Louise from the wheels of an unseen car, through the consequences of a horrific storm and finally to the riveting last chapter, we identified with the unfolding relationship forged between a blind person and canine partner. We thrilled as teenager Diego evolved from Aloha's puppy raiser to Miss Kimberly Louise's friend and eventually to hero. sequel to Hello, Goodbye, I Love You:
Alone: Lost Overboard in the Indian Ocean
by Brett ArchibaldIn April 2013 a global breaking-news story surfaced on social media and in the world press, and rapidly gathered momentum. A South African man had fallen overboard in the night during a storm in remote Indonesian waters, without anyone else on board realising. Eight hours later a frantic search was underway. The incident caught the world's attention as readers were instantly transported into the terror of the moment - imagine being left alone, 100 kilometres out to sea in the middle of a storm, watching your friends sail into the distance... Had he been dealt a fraction more bad luck, Brett would have died immediately. According to the experts, he should have died within 10 to 14 hours. But he chose not to die. Instead for 28-and-a-half hours Brett Archibald endured - the ocean, the elements, the creatures of the deep, and his own inner demons. Alone: 28 Hours Alone in the Indian Oceanis the incredible but true story of what it takes to defy needle-in-a-haystack odds and survive what should have been certain death. Outdoor savvy, astonishing imagination, mental toughness, a refusal to give up hope and a canny rescuer with an unbelievable background ultimately saw him through. Most of all this is a story of the power of the human spirit that defies rational explanation.
Alone: Lost Overboard in the Indian Ocean
by Brett Archibald"Solitude is terrifying and awe-inspiring in Alone." —The Wall Street JournalIn April 2013, fifty-year-old Brett Archibald was on board a surf-charter boat, making a night-time crossing of the remote Mentawai Strait off Sumatra, Indonesia. In the middle of a storm, ill with severe food poisoning, he blacked out. When he came to, he found himself in the raging sea, sixty miles from shore. As Brett saw the lights of his boat disappearing into the darkness, it became clear that no one had seen him fall, and that no one would hear his shouts for help. He was alone in the ocean.It would be eight hours before his friends realized he was missing. At that point a frantic search began for a single man somewhere in thousands of square miles of heaving waves. The rough weather meant that no planes or helicopters could assist in the search. According to the experts, he should have died within ten to fourteen hours.Instead, Brett battled Portuguese man o' war and jellyfish, sharks, seagulls, and the stormy seas for more than 28 hours. Alone is the remarkable tale of his miraculous survival and rescue. It is also the story of what it takes to defy extraordinary odds and the incredible power of the human spirit.
Alone: Lost Overboard in the Indian Ocean
by Brett Archibald'That's what happened, I think, struggling to stay afloat as the ocean pummels me from all sides. I must have blacked out -- exhausted, dehydrated, even a little delirious -- and hit the water.And no one saw it happen.''When I heard Brett had fallen overboard, after twelve hours I said, "There's no way anyone can survive longer than that in the ocean - I certainly couldn't do it." This is an incredible, incredible story.'Oscar Chalupsky, Twelve times Molokai Paddleboard World ChampionIn April 2013, fifty-year-old Brett Archibald was on board a surf-charter boat, making a night-time crossing of the Mentawai Strait off Sumatra, Indonesia. In the middle of a storm, ill with severe food poisoning, Brett was being sick overboard when, for a moment, he blacked out. When he came to, he found himself alone in the raging sea, being spun as if in a washing machine. Sixty miles from shore, Brett saw the lights of his boat disappearing into the darkness. It was very quickly clear that no one had seen him fall, and that no one would hear his shouts for help. He was alone in the ocean. It would be eight hours before his friends realised he was missing. At that point a frantic search began, for a single man hopefully still alive somewhere in thousands of square miles of heaving waves. The Mentawai Strait is remote and the rough weather meant that no planes or helicopters could assist in the search.This is the remarkable story of Brett's ordeal, and his miraculous rescue after twenty-eight hours alone in the ocean; also of his family and friends back home and around the world and the Australian skipper whose sheer doggedness and instinct played such a key role in saving Brett.
Alone: Lost Overboard in the Indian Ocean
by Brett Archibald'That's what happened, I think, struggling to stay afloat as the ocean pummels me from all sides. I must have blacked out -- exhausted, dehydrated, even a little delirious -- and hit the water.And no one saw it happen.''When I heard Brett had fallen overboard, after twelve hours I said, "There's no way anyone can survive longer than that in the ocean - I certainly couldn't do it." This is an incredible, incredible story.'Oscar Chalupsky, Twelve times Molokai Paddleboard World ChampionIn April 2013, fifty-year-old Brett Archibald was on board a surf-charter boat, making a night-time crossing of the Mentawai Strait off Sumatra, Indonesia. In the middle of a storm, ill with severe food poisoning, Brett was being sick overboard when, for a moment, he blacked out. When he came to, he found himself alone in the raging sea, being spun as if in a washing machine. Sixty miles from shore, Brett saw the lights of his boat disappearing into the darkness. It was very quickly clear that no one had seen him fall, and that no one would hear his shouts for help. He was alone in the ocean. It would be eight hours before his friends realised he was missing. At that point a frantic search began, for a single man hopefully still alive somewhere in thousands of square miles of heaving waves. The Mentawai Strait is remote and the rough weather meant that no planes or helicopters could assist in the search.This is the remarkable story of Brett's ordeal, and his miraculous rescue after twenty-eight hours alone in the ocean; also of his family and friends back home and around the world and the Australian skipper whose sheer doggedness and instinct played such a key role in saving Brett.