The Bold And Cold

Recounts the stories of mountaineers who undertook climbing expeditions in the Canadian Rockies.

Over the past 100 years, climbers have been pushing standards in the Canadian Rockies. From long alpine ridges to steep north faces, the Rockies are synonymous with cutting-edge ascents. Peaks such as Robson, Chephren, Kitchener, the Twins and Alberta elude the many and reward the few. Many of the big faces were climbed between the 1960s and 1990, the golden age of alpinism in the Rockies. The men and women who first were part of that set high standards. Future alpinists read old journals and guidebooks, hoping to experience what the alpine "pioneers" did. For most, the Rockies require a certain edge that comes with age, humiliation and failure. Perhaps the ones who drink the most whisky, dream of the biggest peaks and sleep with snowballs in their hands are the ones rewarded with the momentary triumph of coming to a draw with one of these mountains. This is not a guidebook. Rather, it is a narrative history by the people who risked life and limb to establish these long, difficult and sometimes scary climbs.

The winter landscape is a relatively untapped photographic subject for most photographers. As renowned nature photographer Joseph Classen proves, though, if you venture out, you’re sure to discover a remarkable array of photo opportunities. You’ll learn to recognize the obvious and overlooked subjects, both big and small, and to capitalize on what Mother Nature provides. In this beautifully illustrated book, you’ll discover intelligent approaches to preparing for each wintry photo outing and employing the best techniques for capturing subjects in all genres of winter photography—from nature and wildlife photography, to night and astrophotography, to urban, industrial, holiday photography, action and adventure, and more. Classen will also provide great tips for winterizing your camera gear—and keeping your body safe in the most bitter climes. As you make your way through the book, you’ll gain a new appreciation for winter photography and will even begin to look forward to “shooting cold.”

Springtime in Styria. And that means war. There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king. War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die. Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started... Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.

Observations of a white man who spent two years with the Eskimos in the nineteenth century.

These halting efforts, complicated by the difficulties of managing the occupation along with Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, exacerbated an already monumental undertaking and fueled the looming Cold War confrontation between East and West.".

During the Cold War, stories of espionage became popular on both sides of the Iron Curtain, capturing the imagination of readers and filmgoers alike as secret police quietly engaged in surveillance under the shroud of impenetrable secrecy. And curiously, in the post–Cold War period there are no signs of this enthusiasm diminishing. The opening of secret police archives in many Eastern European countries has provided the opportunity to excavate and narrate for the first time forgotten spy stories. Cold War Spy Stories from Eastern Europe brings together a wide range of accounts compiled from the East German Stasi, the Romanian Securitate, and the Ukrainian KGB files. The stories are a complex amalgam of fact and fiction, history and imagination, past and present. These stories of collusion and complicity, betrayal and treason, right and wrong, and good and evil cast surprising new light on the question of Cold War certainties and divides.