The desert is one of the harshest and deadliest environments for humans, but we’re still inevitably drawn to this vast, parched landscape. This vibrantly illustrated book presents fascinating true stories of desert survival that are unforgettable.

If you truly love Allah, you will die for him. Your death will mean much reward for you and your family in heaven. Only death will prove your love. It was the final test. A chance to win not only the love of Allah, but the love of her father—something she had never been able to earn. Esther took a deep breath and raised her hand in the air. At the age of eighteen, she had just volunteered to become a suicide bomber. Defying Jihad is the true story of a girl growing up under radical Islamic rule, trained to believe her ultimate purpose was to serve Allah by dying as a jihadist. But two nights before she was to leave forever, she had a dream . . . one that would change the course of her destiny. Against all odds, Esther became a follower of Jesus—even though leaving Islam meant her death sentence. But rather than kill her immediately, Esther’s furious father challenged her to a series of public debates with Muslim scholars: the Bible versus the Quran. If Esther won, she might yet survive. But if the Muslim clerics won, Esther must renounce her Christian faith. For an entire month—if she lived that long—Esther would be brought before the mob daily to defend her newfound faith. Would God give her the words to argue against Muslim leaders, former friends, and even her own family? Defying Jihad is an amazing story of a woman prepared to surrender all for Jesus—and whose life transformed from terror to overwhelming love.

If you have a thirst for adventure and dodging danger then welcome! You are now part of a very elite and specialized group of explorers who, by the end of this book, will have the firsthand skills and know-how to defy even the most dangerous situations on earth. Complete with hands-on experiments, A Young Scientist's Guide to Defying Disasters is your guide to surviving anything planet earth can throw at you! Ever conquered a limnic eruption or a lahar? No? Well kit up, engage your brain and prepare yourself for the ride of a lifetime.

A story of indomitable spirit. A journey of ancestral discovery. Set against the backdrop of the most inhospitable desert on the planet, two young women from different worlds forge a link that transcends time. Mia Chavez, a young Australian archaeologist, arrives in Chile to connect with her familial origins. Startling events unfold as she unearths dramatic links to the flight for the life of an Atacameños girl, Kiki, five centuries previously. Hunted by the malevolent shaman, Mamut, Kiki’s escape within the ancient mountains of the Andes, inexorably lure Mia to uncover a mystery beyond belief.

Los Angeles poet Ed Rosenthal's hiking vacation turns deadly in soaring Mojave heat; his true survival story leaves you with chills.

Explore the tragedy of the Donner party, a group of American pioneers trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the harsh winter of 1846-1847. Cause-and-effect analysis reveals how the decisions made by leaders of the expedition ended in disaster.

Camus’s Meursault and Thelma and Louise meet up under the blazing sun. Vexed by the ‘unremarkable star’ that ‘presses’ Camus’s Meursault to commit murder, Because the Sun considers the blazing sun as a material symbol of ambient violence – violence absorbed like heat and fired at the nearest victim. Likewise, as a friendship between women confronts gendered aggression in Thelma and Louise, the sun becomes the repository of pain, the high noon that pushes us through desert after desert. Because the Sun’s pastiche of voices embodies both stylistic and formal relentlessness by teasing out tonalities that blend and merge into each other, generating a blinding effect, like looking into the sun. “Breathless and death defying, the poems in Because the Sun are high-wire work. They sway above us in a blazing light of Burgoyne’s making. It is so rare that a book of poems is both a tuning fork for our minds as well as a balm for our bodies. But that is exactly what happens page after page in this blazing book.” —Michael Dickman, author of Days & Days “This beautiful work wraps Camus’s The Stranger in a poetics concerning erasure/+ hope. Out of the titular Sun’s burning punctum burst telling shards of what is erased by Camus’s remarkable construction of whiteness in-the-masculine: the dead ‘Arab,’ the female body’s interminable violations – but also its warming, even blinding capacity for consequential pleasures.” —Gail Scott, author of Heroine “Sarah Burgoyne begins with the sun and ends with flowers. In between is a complicated exploration of what it means to exist within a tradition that is Camus, Rimbaud, Blake. Taking her cue from Sara Ahmed, she notices how hard it is to challenge this tradition and yet that it matters to do it anyway.” —Juliana Spahr, author of That Winter the Wolf Came