Mountain Memoir

At twenty-five, activist Cristina Moon faced an impossible task: preparing for the possibility of arrest and torture inside military-ruled Myanmar. Her response? Learning Buddhist meditation. So began what would become a decades-long spiritual path—eventually leading her to a Zen temple and martial arts dojo in Hawai'i with a timeless method of warrior Zen training.

A masterpiece of compelling narrative history, The White Ladder describes the epic rise of mountaineering's world altitude record, a story of ever higher climbs by figures great and small of mountaineering. Daniel Light describes how climbers used revolutionary techniques to launch themselves into the most forbidding conditions. The expeditions illustrate evolutionary changes in climbing style, the advancement of high-altitude science, and the development of mountain climbing as an industry.

A hilarious, heartwarming, and heartbreaking memoir by the chief wildlife ranger in the number one most popular family vacation destination in the USA, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. For over 30 years, Kim DeLozier acted as a referee in the wild, trying to protect millions of park visitors from one of the densest populations of wild black bears in America - and the bears from tourists who get too close.

Growing up in the beautiful mountains of Berchtesgaden - just steps from Adolf Hitler's alpine retreat - Irmgard Hunt had a seemingly happy, simple childhood. In her powerful, illuminating, and sometimes frightening memoir, Hunt recounts a youth lived under an evil but persuasive leader. As she grew older, the harsh reality of war - and a few brave adults who opposed the Nazi regime - aroused in her skepticism of National Socialist ideology and the Nazi propaganda she was taught to believe in.

On the afternoon of July 13, 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse.

In this audiobook are Joshua Medcalf's unbelievable but true stories of going from skipping scholarships to law school in order to move into a homeless shelter and serve for six months, to living in the closet of a gym for nine months, and eventually going on to build a multimillion-dollar brand with global influence. Joshua is one of the most sought-after people in the world of mental conditioning, leadership, and life skills. He created the first mental-training apps in the world for basketball, soccer, and golf.

In a remote enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them. The team was caught in a deadly ambush that threatened not only their lives but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them.

In the quiet valleys of southern Utah, in 1857, over 120 men, women, and children from Arkansas were brutally murdered by Mormon settlers and their allies. It was one of the darkest chapters in American frontier history—an event that has long remained shrouded in silence, misdirection, and denial. The Mountain Meadows Massacre is more than a historical crime; it is a story of how fear, fanaticism, and blind allegiance to religious authority can lead to devastating consequences. And for far too long, it has been treated as an inconvenient footnote by those who should have faced it head-on.

Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy, brown hair tucked under a topee, Workman was a force on the mountain and off. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers, became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas, the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne, and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London.

On the morning of Wolf Truly's 18th birthday, he boards the first cable car to head up the mountains just a few miles from his sun-bleached trailer home outside of Palm Springs. Wolf's intention that morning was to give up on life - specifically at the mountain site of his best friend's tragic accident one year ago. But on that shaky ride up the mountain, fate intervenes and Wolf meets three women that will leave an indelible imprint on the rest of his life. The four wind up lost and stranded among the forested cliffs - in sight of the desert city below, but unable to find a way down.

Dave Hahn, a local of Taos, New Mexico, is a legendary figure in mountaineering. Elite members of the climbing community have likened him to the Michael Jordan, Cal Ripkin, or Michael Phelps of the climbing world. The 2015 expedition he would lead came just one short year after the notorious Khumbu Icefall avalanche claimed the lives of 16 Sherpas. Dave and his team spent weeks honing the techniques that would help keep them alive through the Icefall and the Death Zone. None of this could have prepared them for the earthquake that shook Everest and all of their lives on April 25, 2015.

After a shocking diagnosis for a rare pituitary disease, and with her eighteen-year marriage in shambles, Risa's life has fallen far from picture-perfect. Recovering from brain surgery and desperate to get back to her former self, she signs up for the bike tour of a lifetime-six weeks from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Coast Highway. The old Risa could have done the ride in her sleep, but for the new Risa, trapped in a body that no longer feels like her own and stuck in the company of her brain tumor, Bubba, the ride becomes a challenge unlike anything she's ever faced.

Sara Schley is the founder of a consulting business, and she has worked with hundreds of renowned companies worldwide. She's a proud mother, grandmother, community leader, and has been married for 26 years. She also has a bipolar II brain. Fearing the stigma, she kept this secret for decades. Until now. In her acclaimed memoir BrainStorm: From Broken to Blessed on the Bipolar Spectrum, Sara tells her life-changing story to help end the bipolar stigma, optimize brain health, and save lives. Listen to this book to transform your life or that of someone you love.

Annie Worsley is a Professor of Environmental Change. A few years ago, she took the plunge and moved to the remote North West Highlands of Scotland. It is a land of unquenchable spirit and severe wildness. In the Highlands, life is ruled by the great elemental forces – light, wind and water hold sway over how land forms, where the sea sits, and what grows. It also dictates how its people live. Annie returns to prehistory to tell the epic story of the Scotland Highlands.

Early on August 12, 2000, four of America's best young rock climbers were sleeping in their portaledges high on the Yellow Wall, in the central Asian mountain range of Kyrgyzstan,. By daybreak, they would be taken at gunpoint by militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. In a life-and-death journey over six terrifying days, they would be forced to choose between saving their own lives and committing an act none of them thought they ever could.

On a cold February night in 2007, a devoted father of four and a seventeen-year-old drunk driver both received life sentences. In one violent, devastating instant, both faced a drastically different - and uncertain - future. But as Chris Williams sat in his demolished vehicle, staring at the car that had just caused the death of his wife, his unborn baby, his nine-year-old daughter, and his eleven-year-old son, he committed to do something extraordinary: he would forgive.

Having gone from standing atop high mountain peaks to becoming a martial art and close-quarter combat specialist, and surviving 18 years of brutal special operations involvement, White Wolf's life took a turn that led him to face his most challenging adversary. His development of chronic illness sent his life tumbling headlong into an abyss where a maelstrom awaited. Invisible combatants threw his body into chaos.

“Here is a life story so unbelievable, it could only be true.” —Sandra Cisneros, bestselling author of The House on Mango Street From bestselling author of the remarkable memoir The Distance Between Us comes an inspiring account of one woman’s quest to find her place in America as a...

In 2011, while on a routine mission for her organization in Somalia, Jessica Buchanan made one seemingly small decision that would change the trajectory of her life. She ignored her intuition, and by doing so, silenced her voice. As a result, she spent 93 days as a hostage to pirates who demanded 45 million dollars for her freedom. On January 25, 2012, Jessica was successfully rescued by SEAL Team Six.

For 18 years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.