The howl of the lone wolf pierces the still northern air. The call of the north beckons for attention from the hardy souls that call this place home. It is a wild, untamed land where nature rules and man has no voice. Survival his only thought as this unforgiving place plays on the minds and souls of even the strongest adventurers. The Call of the North will evoke happiness, sadness, and a sense of adventure set in the far north of Canada. In “The Cabin in the Woods”, a couple take over a great-uncle’s cabin in the wilderness of the North West Territories. Carrying on his fur trapping trade, this modern story contains romance, adventure and mystery that will capture one’s heart. Next, follow two tales set during the Yukon gold rush. In “Yellow Fever”, learn how a young couple meets and their lives together begin. Explore the mysteries and legends of a treasure rumored to be hidden somewhere on an old homestead. “The North West Mounted Police” provides the account of two officers who bring law and order to the Dawson City area. New to both law enforcement and survival in the far north, follow their adventures and experiences in the time of the Klondike gold rush. These stories bring to light the hardships the men and women of the north struggled through daily, enduring a harsh environment that brought peace to their souls.

The girl stood on a bank above a river flowing north. At her back crouched a dozen clean whitewashed buildings. Before her in interminable journey, day after day, league on league into remoteness, stretched the stern Northern wilderness, untrodden save by the trappers, the Indians, and the beasts. Close about the little settlement crept the balsams and spruce, the birch and poplar, behind which lurked vast dreary muskegs, a chaos of bowlder-splits, the forest. The girl had known nothing different for many years. Once a summer the sailing ship from England felt its frozen way through the Hudson Straits, down the Hudson Bay, to drop anchor in the mighty River of the Moose. Once a summer a six-fathom canoe manned by a dozen addles struggled down the waters of the broken Abitibi. Once a year a little band of red-sashed voyageurs forced their exhausted sledge-dogs across the ice from some unseen wilderness trail. That was all.

How do people in the African diaspora practice Islam? While the term "Black Muslim" may conjure images of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, millions of African-descended Muslims around the globe have no connection to the American-based Nation of Islam. The Call of Bilal is a penetrating account of the rich diversity of Islamic religious practice among Africana Muslims worldwide. Covering North Africa and the Middle East, India and Pakistan, Europe, and the Americas, Edward E. Curtis IV reveals a fascinating range of religious activities--from the observance of the five pillars of Islam and the creation of transnational Sufi networks to the veneration of African saints and political struggles for racial justice. Weaving together ethnographic fieldwork and historical perspectives, Curtis shows how Africana Muslims interpret not only their religious identities but also their attachments to the African diaspora. For some, the dispersal of African people across time and space has been understood as a mere physical scattering or perhaps an economic opportunity. For others, it has been a metaphysical and spiritual exile of the soul from its sacred land and eternal home.

Marlin Bree is the coauthor of Alone Against the Atlantic and author of Wake of the Green Storm. He is the recipient of the 2004 Boating Writers International award for journalistic excellence. He writes for Cruising World, Ensign, Northern Breezes, and Small Boat Advisor and has a monthly column in River Skipper. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. For more information on his titles, please visit www.marlinbree.com.

The complete uncollected fiction and nonfiction, including the five posthumously discovered “last” stories, published here in book form for the first time—from “one of the great short story writers of our time—of any time” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Call If You Need Me includes all of the prose previously collected in No Heroics, Please, four essays from Fires, and those five marvelous stories that range over the period of Carver’s mature writing and give his devoted readers a final glimpse of the great writer at work. The pure pleasure of Carver’s writing is everywhere in his work, here no less than in those stories that have already entered the canon of modern literature.

In Bird Songs, ornithologist Les Beletsky profiles 250 birds alongside colorful illustrations, and includes a digital audio player that provides the corresponding song for each of the 250 birds. Drawing from the collection of the world-renowned Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Bird Songs presents the most notable North American birds—including the rediscovered ivory-billed woodpecker—in a stunning format. Renowned ornithologist Les Beletsky provides a succinct description of each of the 250 birds profiled, with an emphasis on their distinctive songs. Lavish full-color illustrations accompany each account, while a sleek, built-in digital audio player holds 250 corresponding songs and calls. In his foreword, North American bird expert and distinguished natural historian Jon L. Dunn shares insights gained from a lifetime of passionate study. Complete with the most up-to-date and scientifically accurate information, Bird Songs is the first book to capture the enchantment of these beautiful birds in words, pictures, and song.