"the excitement is magnificently conveyed...one reads with breathless attention..." ."New York Times."Orville Prescott "the drama, color and sheer readability of an exciting novel" ."Los Angeles Times."Henry Ladd Smith "one of the year's most fascinating adventure stories" ."TIME Magazine."Current and Choice "the most vivid account on test-piloting ever written." .D.S. Dodson."Saturday Review Literature" "this is one of the finest books on test flying the reviewer has seen." ."New York Times."B.K. Thorne "a philosophical and curiously prophetic book" .Joseph Henry Jackson."San Francisco Chronicle" "Bill Bridgeman and the Skyrocket, the stormiest, happiest, most enthralling love story you are ever apt to read" .Scott O'Dell This is the powerful and enthralling story of a man who daily enters that lonely region beyond the speed of sound. A narrative of needle-nosed rocket powered ships flying at blistering speeds, it is also the moving testament of a man risking his life to push back the frontiers of scientific knowledge. Like St.-Exupery, Bridgeman is capable of describing the vastness and beauty of the skies. But as America's foremost experimental test pilot, he is constantly aware of the multitude of technical information which he is called upon to use at any given instant. After the war, Bill Bridgeman left the Navy a restless man. Seeking action, he joined Douglas Aircraft as an engineering test pilot. Soon he was asked to take over the final stages of the Skyrocket testing program. The Skyrocket, a javelin-shaped experimental rocket powered ship, was a challenge to Bridgeman. The story of his day-by-day life with the plane is the substance of "THE LONELY SKY." Bill Bridgeman died in an airplane accident in 1968.

This story will take you right back to the exciting hippie days of the 70's in Europe. Bernardo was 14 years old when Woodstock took place. Follow his spiritual development from an early age to becoming a full-fledged hippie. His travels will take you to former famous hippie-hangouts like Amsterdam, Ibiza, Formentera and La Gomera. Somewhere along his way he meets Anne, another hippie drop-out. From that point on the story takes you on a very intensive spiritual journey as they struggle to find their way in search of a better world. The story focuses on the idealism of many young people in those days and their quest to find inner peace and what to do with their lives in a world they don't understand. This novel is not only of historical value, but also addresses a lot of problems that humanity is still facing today, such as the ongoing destruction of mother earth and its resources, the way people treat each other and animals, and the pursuit of inner peace. The message contained in this book promotes tolerance, understanding, love and peace in the world.

“A satire of writerly ambition wrapped in a psychological thriller . . . An homage to Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, but its execution is entirely Boyne’s own.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent—but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful – but desperately lonely – older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel. Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall. . . . Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso. Praise for A Ladder to the Sky “Boyne's mastery of perspective, last seen in The Heart's Invisible Furies, works beautifully here. . . . Boyne understands that it's far more interesting and satisfying for a reader to see that narcissist in action than to be told a catchall phrase. Each step Maurice Swift takes skyward reveals a new layer of calumny he's willing to engage in, and the desperation behind it . . . so dark it seems almost impossible to enjoy reading A Ladder to the Sky as much as you definitely will enjoy reading it.”—NPR “Delicious . . . spins out over several decades with thrilling unpredictability, following Maurice as he masters the art of co-opting the stories of others in increasingly dubious ways. And while the book reads as a thriller with a body count that would make Highsmith proud, it is also an exploration of morality and art: Where is the line between inspiration and thievery? To whom does a story belong?”—Vanity Fair

A gripping, wartime, coming-of-age adventure based on real events.

Set at the crossroads of Turkish, Persian and Russian cultures under the red flag of Communism in the late 1970s, The Orphan Sky reveals one woman's struggle to reconcile her ideals with the corrupt world around her, and to decide whether to betray her country or her heart. Leila is a young classical pianist who dreams of winning international competitions and bringing awards to her beloved country Azerbaijan. She is also a proud daughter of the Communist Party. When she receives an assignment from her communist mentor to spy on a music shop suspected of traitorous Western influences, she does it eagerly, determined to prove her worth to the Party. But Leila didn't anticipate the complications of meeting Tahir, the rebellious painter who owns the music shop. His jazz recordings, abstract art, and subversive political opinions crack open the veneer of the world she's been living in. Just when she begins to fall in love with both the West and Tahir, her comrades force her to make an impossible choice.

The autobiography of aviator and sailor Sir Francis Chichester, who was the second person to fly solo from England to Australia. It is a tale of ardour and adventure, of intrepid endeavours on land, on the sea and in the air, and of the physical and mental challenges he faced.

Gazing up at the heavens from our backyards or a nearby field, most of us see an undifferentiated mess of stars—if, that is, we can see anything at all through the glow of light pollution. Today’s casual observer knows far less about the sky than did our ancestors, who depended on the sun and the moon to tell them the time and on the stars to guide them through the seas. Nowadays, we don’t need the sky, which is good, because we’ve made it far less accessible, hiding it behind the skyscrapers and the excessive artificial light of our cities. How We See the Sky gives us back our knowledge of the sky, offering a fascinating overview of what can be seen there without the aid of a telescope. Thomas Hockey begins by scanning the horizon, explaining how the visible universe rotates through this horizon as night turns to day and season to season. Subsequent chapters explore the sun’s and moon’s respective motions through the celestial globe, as well as the appearance of solstices, eclipses, and planets, and how these are accounted for in different kinds of calendars. In every chapter, Hockey introduces the common vocabulary of today’s astronomers, uses examples past and present to explain them, and provides conceptual tools to help newcomers understand the topics he discusses. Packed with illustrations and enlivened by historical anecdotes and literary references, How We See the Sky reacquaints us with the wonders to be found in our own backyards.