Forty-five million years ago, the supercontinent of Gondwanaland split apart. This created what are now known as India, Africa and South America. The huge landmass was named after the Gond people of India. Meeting a Gond storyteller on a visit to Bombay, Tahir Shah heard their ancient saga. He vowed to visit all three parts of Gondwanaland. As he travelled he met an extraordinary range of wanderers and expatriates, attended magical ceremonies and sought mythical treasures. Roughing it most of the way, Shah's expeditions move through sweltering India and Pakistan, Uganda and Rwanda, Kenya and Liberia, Brazil and finally Argentina's Patagonian glaciers. Roughing it for most of the journey, Shah shared his travels and his tales with a diverting mix of eccentric and entertaining characters, from Osman and Prideep, Bombay's answer to Laurel and Hardy, to Oswaldo Rodrigues Oswaldo, a well turned out Patagonian version of Danny De Vito.

India is a land of miracles, where godmen and mystics mesmerise audiences with wondrous feats of magic. In great cities and remote villages alike, these mortal incarnations of the divine turn rods into snakes, drink acid, eat glass, hibernate and even levitate. Some live as kings, their devotees numbering hundreds of thousands; while others - virtually destitute - wander from village to village pledging to cure the sick, or bring rain in times of drought. As a child in rural England, Tahir Shah first learned the secrets of illusion from an Indian magician. Two decades later, he set out in search of this conjurer. Sorcerer's Apprentice is the story of his quest for, and initiation into, the brotherhood of Indian godmen. Learning along the way from sadhus, sages, avatars and sorcerers - it's a journey which took him from Calcutta to Madras, from Bangalore to Bombay, in search of the miraculous.

When the Spanish Conquistadors swept through Peru in the sixteenth century, they were searching for great golden treasure. In 1572 they stormed the Inca stronghold of Vilcabamba, only to find the city deserted, burned, a nd already stripped of its wealth. According to legend the Incas had retreated deep into the jungle where they built another magnificent city in an inaccessible quarter of the cloud forest. For more than four centuries explorers and adventurers, archaeologists and warrior-priests have searched for the gold and riches of the Incas, and this lost city of Paititi, known by the local Machiguenga tribe as 'The House of the Tiger King'. House of the Tiger King is the tale of Shah's remarkable adventure to find the greatest lost city of the Americas, and the treasure of the Incas. Along the way he found himself considering others who have spent decades in pursuit of lost cities, and asks why anyone would find it necessary to mount such a quest at all

When the Spanish Conquistadors swept through Peru in the sixteenth century, they were searching for great golden treasure. In 1572 they stormed the Inca stronghold of Vilcabamba, only to find the city deserted, burned, a nd already stripped of its wealth. According to legend the Incas had retreated deep into the jungle where they built another magnificent city in an inaccessible quarter of the cloud forest. After the lost city obsession had gnawed away at Tahir Shah for almost a decade, he could stand it no more. He put together an expedition and set out into Peru's Madre de Dios jungle, the densest cloud forest on earth. House of the Tiger King is the tale of Shah's remarkable adventure to find the greatest lost city of the Americas, and the treasure of the Incas. Along the way he found himself considering others who have spent decades in pursuit of lost cities, and asks why anyone would find it necessary to mount such a quest at all

For more than a century Henry Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines has inspired generations of young men to set forth in search of adventure. But long before Rider Haggard's classic, explorers, theologians and scientists scoured the known world for the source of King Solomon's astonishing wealth from a mysterious land known as Ophir. The ensuing journey takes him to a remote cliff-face monastery where the monks pull visitors up on a leather rope, to the ruined castles of Gondar, and to the rock hewn churches at Lalibela. Then in the south of the country Shah discovers a massive illegal gold mine, itself like something out of the Old Testament, with thousands of men, women and children digging with their hands. But the hardest leg of the journey is to the 'cursed mountain' of Tullu Wallel where legend says there lies an ancient shaft, once the entrance to Solomon's mines.

Presents the author's first-hand account of her stay on the Farallon Islands--in the shark infested waters thirty miles west of San Francisco--and includes information on the sharks behavior and scientists who study them.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller | Now a series on Disney+ 12-year-old Percy Jackson discovers he is the son of Poseidon in the opener to the hilarious, fast-paced adventure fantasy series for young readers ages 10 and up The eBook edition of the first book in Rick Riordan’s thrilling series, filled with magic, mythology, and plenty of monsters Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school again—he can't seem to stay out of trouble. Is he supposed to stand by while a bully picks on his scrawny best friend? Or not defend himself when his teacher turns into a monster and tries to kill him? Mythical creatures seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. What’s worse, he's angered a few of them: Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect. Percy and his friends Grover the satyr, and Annabeth, the demigod daughter of Athena, must find and return Zeus's stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. They travel cross country to the gates of the Underworld in Los Angeles, facing a host of enemies determined to stop them. Withmillions of copies and over 10 years spent on the New York Times bestseller list, Percy has also become a movie, a Broadway musical, and now a Disney+ series. He continues to find fans in classrooms and libraries across the world.