Short Stories From Faraway Places

A collection of four short stories about people at the crossroads of life. The road they take will lead them to positive or negative consequences. The stories are about self-determination and human struggle. The Garden of the Republic: An impulsive New Yorker who is bored with his life joins a NGO and travels to Tucuman, Argentina to build a health clinic. He meets a few individuals who have a tremendous impact on his stay as he learns about Argentina's Dirty War during the 1980s. Zabalburu Urkia: An Irishman with slight disabilities sees his life passing by him. he takes a chance and goes to Durango, the Basque Country in Spain, to teach English. Once there, his disabilities make it stressful for him and by accident learns about the lost treasure of the Basque diaspora. The Bells of Gloucester: Two young lads from Gloucester, England, best friends since childhood, slowly drift apart as their life takes them down different paths. Their new friends make them decide which direction they'll go. It's a story about the pressures of adolescence and redemption. Celtic Verde: An allegory tale about the only constant in life is change. The story uses metaphorical characters who represent the cycles of life-birth, selfishness, hope and death. Connor, a self-centred man from Chicago, with Irish heritage, thinks adolescence will last forever. As an adult, he runs from responsibility. He leaves his elderly parents in their time of need and goes to Ireland to look for work, but discovers how much Ireland has changed. Desperate, he gets tempted to make a wish at an ancient water well.

This memoir is about alternative paths of viewing life. How the creative mind can set its own course. How youthful adventure can grow into something others may find terrifying. How youth can be fortunate to survive the folly of its own nature. How consequences are learned by practical experiences. How practical experiences become the most efficient teacher. Having led an unconventional childhood, I was always captivated by unusual circumstances during my formative years. I grew up viewing life differently. To me, dangerous was adventurous. A challenge was something that required action. I sought creativity where others sought common place. The word “trite” was not in my vocabulary. Creative inspiration pushed me towards my life’s goals. As I grew older, it was my love of unusual experiences that developed my mindset. I listened carefully to the advice those over 60 offered. I questioned what others ignored. I chose the direction of my life based on fulfillment rather than wealth. This memoir was written out of pure joy. Part adventure, part insight of the human condition, and part foolhardy examples of youth; This book will reveal a colorful perspective on life. Happy reading.

At last! Short works by some of CBA's best-loved fiction authors-including Jerry Jenkins, Randy Alcorn, Terri Blackstock, Deborah Raney, and Angela Elwell Hunt-are compiled in one gripping volume (now available in this paperback version)! These masterfully told short stories promise to transport readers around the globe with amazing tales of international romance, mystery, and humor. A short bio accompanying each story allows readers to "meet" their favorite author. And the book even has a philanthropic element: all contributors are donating their royalties to The JESUS Film Project, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International.

Faraway Places is a collection of three novellas that goes to dark and dingy places that the faint-hearted might wish are truly faraway. But are they? Not when you take a crazed trip with an odd-ball who dreams of a faraway place, while all the while he is on a slow-burn to insanity. Maybe he can solve the problem of living in a caravan alongside a garbage tip with a foul-mouthed significant other and a companion dog. That's not an easy problem to solve when you lack initiative. Perhaps the frozen wastelands of pre-revolutionary Russia are a change of location, but still you'll find that it's that kind of faraway place where many bizarre things could be possible: dogheaded people might exist, a nasty con-man can become a tsar and, if you want to save your skin, there are people you should avoid. If that’s not enough, then waiting to be solved is the provenance of two mysterious trunks and their contents in the basement of St Petersburg's Hermitage. Finally, a misconstruction about a killing on an isolated farm in a British colony in 1815 leads to disastrous consequences. Decent men can commit abominable acts and criminals can be decent. In this faraway place, it's brutal times all round - brutal times for the original native inhabitants, for settlers and their women, and for the convicts and child convicts. A gripping read.

The Lure of Faraway Places is the publication canoeist Herb Pohl (1930-2006) did not live to see published. But Pohl’s words and images provide a unique portrait of Canada by one who was happiest when travelling our northern waterways alone. Austrian-born Herb Pohl died at the mouth of the Michipcoten River on July 17, 2006. He is remembered as "Canada’s most remarkable solo traveller." While mourning their loss, Herb Pohl’s friends found, to their surprise and delight, a manuscript of wilderness writings on his desk in his lakeside apartment in Burlington, Ontario. He had hoped one day to publish his work as a book. With help and commentary from best-selling canoe author and editor James Raffan, Natural Heritage is proud to present that book, Herb’s book, The Lure of Faraway Places. "There’s nothing like it in canoeing literature," says Raffan. "It’s part journal, part memoir, part wilderness philosophy and part tips and tricks of the most pragmatic kind written about parts of the country most of us will never see by the most committed and ambitious solo canoeist in Canadian history."

Faraway Places resides in the spaces between the wild and the tamed, from orchid gardens and immense seas to caged birds and high alpine landscapes. It resists narrative and instead inhabits the residues of experience. It may be a private dictionary: “Those / who know the lore can use them / to find their way / in the world.” Haunted and searching, these poems navigate the distances between light and shadow, secrets and silence.

The collapse of Western colonial empires in the twenty years after the Second World War led to a series of vicious struggles for power - in Africa, Asia and the Middle East - whose bloody consequences haunt us still. Acclaimed historian Michael Burleigh's brilliant analytic skills and clear eye for common themes underpins this powerful account of those conflicts. He takes us on a historical journey from Algeria to Cuba, from Malaysia to Palestine, and from Kenya to Vietnam and, in so doing, he reframes mid-twentieth-century history by forcing us to look away from the Cold War to the hot wars that continue to afflict us. The result is a dazzling work of history, which examines the death of colonialism with passion, insight and genuine understanding of what it feels like to be caught in the middle of realpolitik.

During a fateful summer, 13-year-old Jake Weber witnesses the brutal murder of a Native American woman by the town banker. Jake's parents forbid him to speak of the killing or name its perpetrator, even as the woman's African American lover stands falsely accused. The crime and what follows it forever alter Jake's view of his parents and the world around him. Faraway Places won widespread praise for its vivid narrative and incantatory style, and Spanbauer displays singular skill in inhabiting the mind of a troubled adolescent boy.