Walking On Ice

Previously published in English as: Tribute to Lotte Eisner.

"Andresen conveys the texture and flavor of what we Westerners find in Russia. It paints a picture of the Russian 'soul at a time when young and old were and are adapting to enormous change. It is a fun and humorous read that carries with it some valuable lessons."--William T. Potvin, Managing Partner, Deloitte & Touche, Russia, 1990-1996.

A mother hires a sinister baby-sitter. An Irish innocent embraces the ambiguities of Belfast. A university professor welcomes a houseguest and finds himself a stranger in his own home. Two young women seek romance along the Canadian border .... Winner of the Associated Writing Programs' Award in Short Fiction, Walking on Ice depicts a world in which human relationships grow ever more fragile and trust is tentative at best. In these stories men and women confront the unexpected risks of everday life in Boston, Northern Ireland, Connecticut, the Scottish Highlands, and upstate New York. With subtlety and wit, Susan Hubbard explores the tensions of our times.

In late November 1974, filmmaker Werner Herzog received a phone call from Paris delivering some terrible news. German film historian, mentor, and close friend Lotte Eisner was seriously ill and dying. Herzog was determined to prevent this and believed that an act of walking would keep Eisner from death. He took a jacket, a compass, and a duffel bag of the barest essentials, and wearing a pair of new boots, set off on a three-week pilgrimage from Munich to Paris through the deep chill and snowstorms of winter. Of Walking in Ice is Herzog’s beautifully written, much-admired, yet often-overlooked diary account of that journey. Herzog documents everything he saw and felt on his quest to his friend’s bedside, from poetic descriptions of the frozen landscape and harsh weather conditions to the necessity of finding shelter in vacant or abandoned houses and the intense loneliness of his solo excursion. Includes, for the first time, Werner Herzog’s 1982 “Tribute to Lotte Eisner” upon her receipt of the Helmut Käutner Prize

For adventurers, climbing the Seven Summits—including Everest—and reaching all four Poles is the Holy Grail of world exploration. In 1998, David Hempleman-Adams became the first man on the planet to do it. In Walking on Thin Ice, the world's most accomplished explorer recounts the final leg of his extraordinary15-year odyssey.

From bestselling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear’s precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce. Nanurjuk, “the bear-spirited one,” is hunting for seals on Hudson Bay, where ice never lasts more than one season. For her and her young, everything is in flux. From the top of the world, Hudson Bay looks like an enormous paw print on the torso of the continent, and through a vast network of lakes and rivers, this bay connects to oceans across the globe. Here, at the heart of everything, walks Nanurjuk, or Nanu, one polar bear among the six thousand that traverse the 1.23 million square kilometers of ice and snow covering the bay. For millennia, Nanu’s ancestors have roamed this great expanse, living, evolving, and surviving alongside human beings in one of the most challenging and unforgiving habitats on earth. But that world is changing. In the Arctic’s lands and waters, oil has been extracted—and spilled. As global temperatures have risen, the sea ice that Nanu and her young need to hunt seal and fish has melted, forcing them to wait on land where the delicate balance between them and their two-legged neighbors has now shifted. This is the icescape that author and geographer James Raffan invites us to inhabit in Ice Walker. In precise and provocative prose, he brings readers inside Nanu’s world as she treks uncertainly around the heart of Hudson Bay, searching for nourishment for the children that grow inside her. She stops at nothing to protect her cubs from the dangers she can see—other bears, wolves, whales, human beings—and those she cannot. By focusing his lens on this bear family, Raffan closes the gap between humans and bears, showing us how, like the water of the Hudson Bay, our existence—and our future—is tied to Nanu’s. He asks us to consider what might be done about this fragile world before it is gone for good. Masterful, vivid, and haunting, Ice Walker is an utterly unique piece of creative nonfiction and a deeply affecting call to action.

It's not easy for Spenser Roland to admit it, but he needs help. Christmas is just a few days away, and he can't face the idea of showing up to his family's gathering alone ... again. They want to see him happily settled, but Spenser doesn't date. He can't risk it if he wants to protect his family. But one unexpected night with Evan Scott has him thinking that maybe he can strike a deal that will make his family happy and give him a little holiday cheer as well. Evan never should have accepted a ride home from the sexy-as-hell corporate executive, but he's proud that he stuck to his guns. He's done with the one-night stand game. He wants something real. Something that lasts. But when Spenser returns, asking him to pose as his boyfriend over the weekend at a Christmas celebration, Evan is sure he's lost his mind. But he can't say no. Maybe it's the shadow of loneliness in Spenser's bright blue eyes that's too much like his own. Or maybe it's his heart-stopping smile. Either way, Evan knows he's on thin ice with Spenser, risking his own rules and heart, but Spenser is worth the risk.

This uplifting, charmingly told story, tells what happens when well-meaning humans knit sweaters for penguins who've encountered an oil spill. You may have seen the cute pictures of penguins wearing sweaters--but did you know why they were wearing them? Debut author Marikka Tamura answers this question in this colorful, kid-friendly book that is told simply and charmingly. Penguins love the sea. Happy in the dark blue water. But what is this? One day something is floating in the water. Dark. Gooey. Oily . . . When the penguins become coated in an oil spill, many Big Boots arrive. The humans want to help the cold, greasy penguins, so they knit sweaters to keep them warm. The Big Boots mean well, but . . . penguins don't wear sweaters! So after a good, soapy scrub, the penguins dive back into the deep blue sea, happily dressed only in their own penguin feathers.