The Ends Of The Earth

Account of the Transglobe Expedition, 1979-1982, led by Ranulph Fiennes. This was the first expedition to circumnavigate the earth via both poles.

The third James Maxted thriller from the internationally bestselling author, “a master of the sly double- and triple-cross” (The Seattle Times). The Treaty of Versailles has finally been signed, officially ending the World War I peace negotiations, and the action shifts east, to Tokyo, where a team assembled at Max’s behest anxiously awaits his arrival on the docks. The dashing Royal Flying Corps veteran turned secret service operative had arrived in Paris soon after the end of the Great War to investigate the suspicious death of his father, a British diplomat named Sir Henry, and soon plunged into a treacherous game of cat-and-mouse with the people behind his father’s death: German spymaster Fritz Lemmer and the dark horse of the Japanese diplomatic contingent, Count Tomura. It is in Japan—where Sir Henry worked as a young government agent—that Max hopes to finally uncover the whole truth behind his father’s murder and take down Lemmer’s spy network once and for all. But what Max’s cohort doesn’t know is that his own storyline seems to have come to an end in a villa outside Marseilles. Stuck in limbo, the team decides to pursue their only lead—right into Lemmer’s den. Loaded with death threats, knife fights, a kidnapping or two, and a coded list that has the power to dismantle whole governmental hierarchies, The Ends of the Earth is a masterful work of historical cut-and-thrust that tests the bonds of family and country to their very limit. “Thrilling . . . The third and most satisfying entry in an excellent series of old-school spy thrillers.” —Kirkus Reviews

Panych's brilliant tale reminds us all that fear can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

From Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 search for the Northwest Passage to early twentieth-century sprints to the South Pole, polar expeditions produced an extravagant archive of documents that are as varied as they are engaging. As the polar ice sheets melt, fragments of this archive are newly emergent. In The News at the Ends of the Earth Hester Blum examines the rich, offbeat collection of printed ephemera created by polar explorers. Ranging from ship newspapers and messages left in bottles to menus and playbills, polar writing reveals the seamen wrestling with questions of time, space, community, and the environment. Whether chronicling weather patterns or satirically reporting on penguin mischief, this writing provided expedition members with a set of practices to help them survive the perpetual darkness and harshness of polar winters. The extreme climates these explorers experienced is continuous with climate change today. Polar exploration writing, Blum contends, offers strategies for confronting and reckoning with the extreme environment of the present.

Do you need a little adventure in your life? Could you use a laugh with a helping of inspiration? Then strap your boots on with this amazing travelogue as Malcolm Hunter, a born storyteller, journeys with Jesus across East and North Africa among the nomadic peoples of the Sahara and beyond. Jesus is always on the move. The question is: If we follow Him, where will we end up? An expert on nomadic peoples, Malcolm Hunter shares stories from a lifetime of working in some of the world’s most remote, colorful, and neglected communities. In the early 1960s Malcolm and his wife, Jean, arrived in Ethiopia with only their professional skills—medicine and engineering—and a desire to show God’s love to those in need. Over the next forty years God would lead them across Africa, through lush hills and scorched bush, to a dozen people groups who hadn’t heard the gospel. Wherever the Hunters went, they found that God had been there first. This book is full of astonishing true accounts of Jesus preparing the world’s least reached peoples to encounter Him. Visions, dreams, miracles, shocking customs, and even human blunders and tragedies—God used all these and more to open a way to share the good news. Honest, hopeful, and never far from laughter, Malcolm invites us to consider anew what we can expect when we follow Jesus—wherever He leads.

Migration is a way of life for most birds found in Ireland. Our nation sits with its back to the Old World and its face to the New World, so the variety of bird species reaching our shores is derived from two hemispheres. From across the planet, 'our' birds come - to breed, stop off, or spend the winter. How these visitors reached our shores puzzled us for centuries. So how do birds navigate so successfully over enormous distances and make a return trip to the same nesting site each year? Modern tracking results are revealing journeys once thought impossible - such as sustained flight for days at a time. Feats of endurance are one thing but their homing ability is even more impressive. Most of the youngsters fly solo to faraway winter quarters they have never seen. The evidence - and some of the history behind its discovery - is pieced together in a simple way that brings a new coherence to the complex ways that birds navigate, the preparations they make before departure, and their decisions en route - such as when drifted off course by inclement weather. In a nutshell, birds' array of sense far exceeds our own. Rather than relying purely on the sun and the stars for guidance, birds make use of something we cannot sense - the Earth's magnetic field. Overall they integrate a range of global phenomena, including patterns of polarised light visible (to their specially tuned vision) in the sky. This spectacular book is a must for anyone who has ever wondered how and why these seemingly fragile creatures make such gruelling journeys.

W. S. Merwin is widely acknowledged as one of the finest living poets in English. Less well known is the power and range of his work in prose. For his first new prose collection in more than ten years, The Ends of the Earth, Merwin has gathered eight essays that show the breadth of his imagination and sympathy. A memoir of George Kirstein, publisher of "The Nation," stands alongside one of Sydney Parkinson, explorer, naturalist and artist on Captain James Cook's Endeavour. A wonderful portrait of the French explorer of Hawai'i, Jean–Francois Galaup de La Perouse is followed by a visit to the Neanderthal skeleton of Boffia Bonneval. There are treks through the Hawaiian forests, to the Holy Mountain of Athos, and with the butterflies in Mexico. For this magical and wondrous journey we have as our guide the excited and concise poet–naturalist, writing at the top of his form.

Calvinist missionaries. If you think that sounds like an oxymoron, you’re not alone. Yet a close look at John Calvin’s life and writings reveals a man who was passionate about the spread of the gospel and the salvation of sinners. From training pastors at his Genevan Academy to sending missionaries to the jungles of Brazil, Calvin consistently sought to encourage and equip Christians to take the good news of salvation to the very ends of the earth. In this carefully researched book, Michael Haykin and Jeffrey Robinson clear away longstanding stereotypes related to the Reformed tradition and Calvin’s theological heirs, highlighting the Reformer’s neglected missional vision and legacy.