The armchair dreamer's companion -- a graceful and fascinating history of New England's fifteen most celebrated mountains, with information on people, places legends, and lore.

An exploration of the health and wellbeing benefits of spending time at altitude. Mountains have forever been steeped in poetry, symbolism and mystery, inspiring everyone from the explorers who wish to scale every peak to those who are more interested in the journey or the view. These rooftops of the world encourage determination, resilience, fitness of the body, ingenuity, creativity and awe - all of which are, in their own ways, "good for us". As the world's populations become increasingly urbanised, the need for a healthy relationship with nature is becoming more and more important, both from a psychological wellbeing and physical health point of view. In the Mountains is an awe-inspiring book that takes us on a journey to reveal the health and wellbeing benefits of spending time at altitude, and also teaches how we can be inspired by the research to bring elements of a mountain lifestyle into our everyday, increasingly urbanized, lives.

Set in 1970s Japan, this tender and poetic novel about a young, single mother struggling to find her place in the world is an early triumph by a modern Japanese master. Alone at dawn, in the heat of midsummer, a young woman named Takiko Odaka departs on foot for the hospital to give birth to a baby boy. Her pregnancy, the result of a brief affair with a married man, is a source of sorrow and shame to her abusive parents. For Takiko, however, it is a cause for reverie. Her baby, she imagines, will be hers and hers alone, a challenge that she also hopes will free her. Takiko’s first year as a mother is filled with the intense bodily pleasures and pains that come from caring for a newborn. At first she seeks refuge in the company of other women—in the hospital, in her son’s nursery—but as the baby grows, her life becomes less circumscribed as she explores Tokyo, then ventures beyond the city into the countryside, toward a mountain that captures her imagination and desire for a wilder freedom.

Caldecott Honor Book! "An evocative remembrance of the simple pleasures in country living; splashing in the swimming hole, taking baths in the kitchen, sharing family times, each is eloquently portrayed here in both the misty-hued scenes and in the poetic text." -Association for Childhood Education International

The Algerian Islamist Abdullah Anas, 'perhaps the greatest warrior of the Afghan Arabs', fought the Soviet Union for a decade. As one of the earliest Arabs to join the Afghan jihad, he counted as brothers-in-arms the future icons of Al-Qaeda's global war, from Abdullah Azzam to Osama bin Laden to Omar Abdel-Rahman, and befriended key Afghan jihadi figures such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir. To the Mountains is an intimate portrait of this brutal war, tracing Anas's involvement in the conflict, as well as his experiences of the Algerian civil war (1992-8) and his sojourn in 'Londonistan'. Brushing shoulders with everyone from Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi to Jalaluddin Haqqani, Anas opted for his own independent route, seeking to persuade the Afghan Arabs that they should not be distracted by attacks on the West. Paradoxically, he remains committed to the broader Islamist movement, believing that jihad will continue till the end of time, yet has also spent years talking to the Taliban, seeking to build a lasting peace in Afghanistan. This is his story. Co-written with investigative journalist Tam Hussein, Anas's memoir will doubtless become a seminal primary source on the rise of global jihadism.

In the tradition of Eiger Dreams, In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories from the Mountaineering World, and Not Without Peril, comes a new book that examines the thrills and perils of outdoor adventure in the “East’s greatest wilderness,” the Adirondacks.

When Dr Ben Givens left his Seattle home he never intended to return. It was to be a journey past snow-covered mountains to a place of canyons, sagelands and orchards, where, on the verges of the Columbia River, Ben had entered the world and would now take his leave of it.