Snow Mountain Passage

Snow Mountain Passage is a powerful retelling of the most dramatic of our pioneer stories—the ordeal of the Donner Party, with its cast of young and old risking all, its imprisoning snows, its rumors of cannibalism. James Houston takes us inside this central American myth in a compelling new way that only a novelist can achieve. The people whose dreams, courage, terror, ingenuity, and fate we share are James Frazier Reed, one of the leaders of the Donner Party, and his wife and four children—in particular his eight-year-old daughter, Patty. From the moment we meet Reed—proud, headstrong, yet a devoted husband and father—traveling with his family in the "Palace Car," a huge, specially built covered wagon transporting the Reeds in grand style, the stage is set for trouble. And as they journey across the country, thrilling to new sights and new friends, coping with outbursts of conflict and constant danger, trouble comes. It comes in the fateful choice of a wrong route, which causes the group to arrive at the foot of the Sierra Nevada too late to cross into the promised land before the snows block the way. It comes in the sudden fight between Reed and a drover—a fight that exiles Reed from the others, sending him solo over the mountains ahead of the storms. We follow Reed during the next five months as he travels around northern California, trying desperately to find means and men to rescue his family. And through the amazingly imagined "Trail Notes" of Patty Reed, who recollects late in life her experiences as a child, we also follow the main group, progressively stranded and starving on the Nevada side of the Sierras. Snow Mountain Passage is an extraordinary tale of pride and redemption. What happens—who dies, who survives, and why—is brilliantly, grippingly told.

"The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass; Or, The Midnight Call for Assistance" by Allen Chapman. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

From the Nobel Prize-winning writer and acclaimed author of Snow Country comes a beautiful rendering of the predicament of old age—about an elderly Tokyo businessman who must face the failures of his memory and the sudden upsurges of passion that illuminate the end of a life. “A rich, complicated novel.... Of all modern Japanese fiction, Kawabata’s is the closest to poetry.” —The New York Times Book Review By day Ogata Shingo, an elderly Tokyo businessman, is troubled by small failures of memory. At night he associates the distant rumble he hears from the nearby mountain with the sounds of death. In between are the complex relationships that were once the foundations of Shingo’s life: his trying wife; his philandering son; and his beautiful daughter-in-law, who inspires in him both pity and the stirrings of desire. Out of this translucent web of attachments, Kawabata has crafted a novel that is a powerful, serenely observed meditation on the relentless march of time. Translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal Nonfiction Bestseller that explores the gripping Dyatlov Pass incident that took the lives of nine young Russian hikers in 1959. What happened that night on Dead Mountain? In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects of the mountain climbing incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over the true stories and what really happened. Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident delves into the untold story through unprecedented access to the hikers' own journals and photographs, rarely seen government records, dozens of interviews, and author Donnie Eichar's retracing of the hikers' fateful journey in the Russian winter. An instant historical nonfiction bestseller upon its release, this is the dramatic real story of what happened on Dead Mountain. GRIPPING AND BIZARRE: This is a fascinating portrait of young adventurers in the Soviet era, and a skillful interweaving of the hikers' narrative, the investigators' efforts, and the author's investigations. Library Journal hailed "the drama and poignancy of Eichar's solid depiction of this truly eerie and enduring mystery." FOR FANS OF UNSOLVED MYSTERIES: Unsolved true crimes and historical mysteries never cease to capture our imaginations. The Dyatlov Pass incident was little known outside of Russia until film producer and director Donnie Eichar brought the decades-old mystery to light in a book that reads like a mystery. FASCINATING VISUALS: This well-researched volume includes black-and-white photographs from the cameras that belonged to the hikers, which were recovered after their deaths, along with explanatory graphics breaking down some of the theories surrounding the mysterious incident. Perfect for: Fans of nonfiction history books and true crime Anyone who enjoys real-life mountaineering and survival stories such as Into Thin Air, Buried in the Sky, The Moth and the Mountain, and Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World Readers seeking Cold War narratives and true stories from the Soviet era