Cool Reading for a Hot Summer

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future. Based on the novel by Stephen King.

This is a gripping and heartrending recollection of the harrowing brink-of-death experience that propelled survivor Roberto Canessa to become one of the world's leading pediatric cardiologists. Canessa played a key role in safeguarding his fellow survivors, eventually trekking with a companion across the hostile mountain range for help. This fine line between life and death became the catalyst for the rest of his life. This uplifting tale of hope and determination, solidarity and ingenuity gives vivid insight into a world famous story. Canessa also draws a unique and fascinating parallel between his work as a doctor performing arduous heart surgeries on infants and unborn babies and the difficult life-changing decisions he was forced to make in the Andes. Bea's note: Well worth reading; the different viewpoints of Canessa, his family members and his patients are all represented.

On October 12, 1972, a plane carrying a team of young rugby players crashed into the remote, snow-peaked Andes. Out of the forty-five original passengers and crew, only sixteen made it off the mountain alive. For ten excruciating weeks they suffered deprivations beyond imagining, confronting nature head-on at its most furious and inhospitable. And to survive, they were forced to do what would have once been unthinkable ...
This is their story -- one of the most astonishing true adventures of the twentieth century. (description from Amazon.com)

A detailed investigation into the feeding behavior of ravens during four winters in Maine comes to several amazing conclusions

The gripping true story of survival, bravery, and honor in the vast Arctic wilderness during World War II,

The heart of the Atlantic, the story of the British Antarctic expedition, 1907-1909 -- South, the story of Shackleton's last expedition, 1914-1917

"For the last decade, Gretel Ehrlich has been obsessed by an island, a terrain, a culture, and the men and women who long for and love the complex frailties and treacherous beauty of a world defined by ice." "Greenland, the world's largest island, 840,000 square miles in extent, is covered by the largest continental ice sheet in the world." "Her guide, her inspiration, her companion in spirit was the great Danish-Inuit explorer and ethnographer Knud Rasmussen. Between 1902 and his death in 1933 he launched seven expeditions: to record the unknown history and customs of the nomadic Eskimos; to chronicle the skills, beliefs, and crafts that made life in this climate possible and a matter of grace.

A history of Mount Everest expedition is intertwined with the disastrous expedition the author was a part of, during which five members were killed by a hurricane-strength blizzard.
Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people - including himself - to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eye-witness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.
BEA'S NOTE: You won't be able to put it down!

Farley Mowat chronicles for the first time a sometimes hazardous journey he took across northern Canada in 1966. He hoped to write a book that would let northern people speak for themselves and that would expose the speciousness of the political idea that the North was “a bloody great wasteland” with no people in it, and therefore resource developers could exploit it however they chose.