Koncocoo

Best Air Travel Reference

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. In March 1996, Outside magazine sent veteran journalist and seasoned climber Jon Krakauer on an expedition led by celebrated Everest guide Rob Hall.
Reviews
"This book will expand your understanding of exactly why mountain climbing can be so extremely dangerous, and how in this case financial rewards and personal risk taking led to overcrowding on the mountain."
"Being able to give a first hand account of what happened throughout their journey on the mountain, and the events (at least what he remembers) that led to the death of a portion of the excursion. This was the first Krakauer book that I have read, and actually caused me to buy another one, as I enjoyed his writing."
"I recommend to read Lou Kasischke's book to have another perspective, that in my opinion is more straight forward and center the blame on different things than Krakauer, making more sense."
"The recent release of Everest (or reinterpretation) prompted me to read this as well as other books about the climbing season in question."
"Gripping story of the tragic Everest ascent on which many members of various climbing groups lost their lives."
"This was a pure tragedy with so much blame to go around that wasting time on blame after the fact is a sad and unnecessary cap to this story."
"This is the story of how eminently qualified guides and climbers can become so driven as to make literally every mistake in the book in an overzealous attempt to make a climb that has in the final analysis become over-commercialized and largely irrelevant."
"There's not a lot to say about this book that other reviewers haven't said 100 times already -- but I enjoyed it a lot and found that it kept my attention all the way through."
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Into Thin Air
As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds... Since the 1980s, more and more "marginally qualified dreamers" have attempted the ascent of Everest, as guided commercial expeditions have dangled the possibility of reaching the roof of the world in front of anyone wealthy enough to pay for the privilege. By writing and reading Into Thin Air , Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. Heroism and sacrifice triumph over foolishness, fatal error, and human frailty in this bone-chilling narrative in which the author recounts his experiences on last year's ill-fated, deadly climb.
Reviews
"This book will expand your understanding of exactly why mountain climbing can be so extremely dangerous, and how in this case financial rewards and personal risk taking led to overcrowding on the mountain."
"Being able to give a first hand account of what happened throughout their journey on the mountain, and the events (at least what he remembers) that led to the death of a portion of the excursion. This was the first Krakauer book that I have read, and actually caused me to buy another one, as I enjoyed his writing."
"I recommend to read Lou Kasischke's book to have another perspective, that in my opinion is more straight forward and center the blame on different things than Krakauer, making more sense."
"The recent release of Everest (or reinterpretation) prompted me to read this as well as other books about the climbing season in question."
"Gripping story of the tragic Everest ascent on which many members of various climbing groups lost their lives."
"This was a pure tragedy with so much blame to go around that wasting time on blame after the fact is a sad and unnecessary cap to this story."
"This is the story of how eminently qualified guides and climbers can become so driven as to make literally every mistake in the book in an overzealous attempt to make a climb that has in the final analysis become over-commercialized and largely irrelevant."
"There's not a lot to say about this book that other reviewers haven't said 100 times already -- but I enjoyed it a lot and found that it kept my attention all the way through."
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West with the Night: A Memoir
Beryl Markham's West with the Night is a true classic, a book that deserves the same acclaim and readership as the work of her contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Isak Dinesen. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in the middle of England, she and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet; horses for friends; baboons, lions, and gazelles for neighbors. When Hemingway read Markham's book, he wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins: "She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer . I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer's log book. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true . “ West with the Night is the sort of book that makes you think human beings can do anything .
Reviews
"My book club choose this for a month I was unable to attend, so I'm just now catching up with it."
"I did have to skip ahead in some places, when her amazing descriptions of the African savannah and its beautiful wildlife ended with the inevitable hunting scene."
"This book was recommended to me by a friend who was raised in Africa because I am traveling there soon."
"The descriptions of African life and extremely unusual situations, the knowledge of horses and a racing and finally the pioneering of flight are all so well written they draw one in as If you were a participant."
"A life few of us could imagine, full of adventure, danger, daring."
"Best book I've read in a while, great adventure story, descriptions like poetry."
"It has been a long time since I have read a book like this."
"I enjoyed the novel so much I wanted to know more about Beryl Markham so I read this autobiography."
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Best Canadian Provinces Travel Guides

The MILEPOST 2017
The 2017 edition has more than 700 pages of detailed travel information on 30 major routes―including the Alaska Highway, which celebrates its 75 th anniversary this year―and 60 side trips, totaling more than 15,000 miles of road in Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Alberta.
Reviews
"I bought this for my 14 year old grandson whose goal is to take a trip to Alaska upon his graduation from high school."
"We drove from Fairbanks down to Michigan in October and we used this guide extensively."
"If you are planning to go to Alaska within a year or two, you HAVE TO get this."
"It seems good."
"The detailed information was invaluable as lots of the roads we traveled were remote and lonely."
"Got the book in yesterday, this is a great book far beyond anything I could have imagined, Planning on going in a couple years and heard this is a good book."
"This was a gift for my husband who has talked about visiting Alaska, great resource!"
"This book was a lifesaver on our trip from the Gulf of Mexico to Anchorage!!!"
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Best One-Hour Travel Short Reads

How To Find Cheap Flights: Practical Tips The Airlines Don't Want You To Know
- How to find mistake fares. - How to avoid fees. - Which flight search engine is best. - How to save money on nearly every flight. The author is a travel expert who has earned millions of frequent flyer miles and travels tens of thousands of miles per year.
Reviews
"This book is OK. That's really all i can say about it."
"There is a lot of useful info , especially re search engines."
"Information was good but you needed to have many credit cards, airline cards, to get the large points to take advantage of the cheap or free flights - nothing new really."
"I learned some great travel strategies that will save me money as I travel internationally."
"Excellent."
"I thought I was good at finding cheap flights already because I would go to Southwest and book RT flights under $120 from Dallas to different destinations but this book is amazing!"
"Very short."
"There is much more to check out there to find good deals."
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Best Nepal Travel

Into Thin Air
As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds... Since the 1980s, more and more "marginally qualified dreamers" have attempted the ascent of Everest, as guided commercial expeditions have dangled the possibility of reaching the roof of the world in front of anyone wealthy enough to pay for the privilege. By writing and reading Into Thin Air , Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. Heroism and sacrifice triumph over foolishness, fatal error, and human frailty in this bone-chilling narrative in which the author recounts his experiences on last year's ill-fated, deadly climb.
Reviews
"This book will expand your understanding of exactly why mountain climbing can be so extremely dangerous, and how in this case financial rewards and personal risk taking led to overcrowding on the mountain."
"Being able to give a first hand account of what happened throughout their journey on the mountain, and the events (at least what he remembers) that led to the death of a portion of the excursion. This was the first Krakauer book that I have read, and actually caused me to buy another one, as I enjoyed his writing."
"I recommend to read Lou Kasischke's book to have another perspective, that in my opinion is more straight forward and center the blame on different things than Krakauer, making more sense."
"The recent release of Everest (or reinterpretation) prompted me to read this as well as other books about the climbing season in question."
"Gripping story of the tragic Everest ascent on which many members of various climbing groups lost their lives."
"This was a pure tragedy with so much blame to go around that wasting time on blame after the fact is a sad and unnecessary cap to this story."
"This is the story of how eminently qualified guides and climbers can become so driven as to make literally every mistake in the book in an overzealous attempt to make a climb that has in the final analysis become over-commercialized and largely irrelevant."
"There's not a lot to say about this book that other reviewers haven't said 100 times already -- but I enjoyed it a lot and found that it kept my attention all the way through."
Find Best Price at Amazon

Best Biographies of Journalists

The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Now a major motion picture from Lionsgate starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts. MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST The perennially bestselling, extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, “nothing short of spectacular” ( Entertainment Weekly ) memoir from one of the world’s most gifted storytellers. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home. What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms. A regular contributor to MSNBC.com, she lives in New York and Long Island and is married to the writer John Taylor. But I have a very vivid memory of this tough, leathery woman; she sang, she danced, she shot guns, she’d play honky tonk piano. Half Broke Horses is a compilation of family stories, stitched together with gaps filled in. A: Several years ago, the abandoned building on New York’s Lower East Side where Mom had been squatting for more than a decade caught fire and she was back on the streets again at age 72. She doesn’t live in the house with us-- I have not reached that level of understanding and compassion-- but in an outbuilding about a hundred yards away. Mom is great with the animals, loves to sing and dance and ride horses, and is still painting like a fiend. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show.
Reviews
"I felt that I could relate to this book because I grew up in poverty and had to adjust to society when I left home."
"Read it!"
"Amazing story."
"Well written, but I wanted to strangle her parents."
"Great book."
"Beautifully written but hard to imagine."
"Very dysfunctional story."
"I give thus book as a gift to my friends who have never read it."
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Best Canadian Politics

Understanding Trump
Further, these pages hold a detailed discussion of Trump-style solutions for national security, education, health care, economic growth, government reform, and other important topics. The very essence of Trump's mission is a willingness to enact policies and set goals that send our country in a bold new direction - one that may be "unreasonable" to Washington but is sensible to millions of Americans outside the Beltway. He is a Fox News contributor and author of 34 books, including 14 New York Times bestsellers.
Reviews
"Excellent excellent excellent."
"Bought this for my husband for Christmas, he said it was a very good book."
"In any case, this book goes a long way toward articulating the ideological trends that drove Trump to a historic victory in the presidential election, giving context to the man himself, and looking forward to give us a glimpse of what we can expect in the future."
"OK, so it seems I posted my review on the wrong book- this is by far the BEST book on both the 2016 election and Donald Trump I've seen yet- and I've read over 2 dozen."
"If you love Trump, then you have an opportunity to find out why so many people are exploding with hatred for him. Similarly, if you hate him, it would be interesting to find out what it was about him that appealed to enough voters to win the election. Praise: In the front of the book, Gingrich explains the methods behind some of Trump's crazy habits. When a radio interviewer asked him to name some leaders in the middle east conflict, he quickly admitted he couldn't do that, but he'd know all about them when he needed to. I work in a technical job, where there are too many domains and details to hold in consciousness all the time; they will literally paralyze me. I practice Trump's method, holding on to what I need to know about the job at hand, confident I can throw new data in when necessary. I can't offer a solution but I'd like to say this: We'll never get anywhere until we admit that our present costs are unacceptable and that other countries do this MUCH better than we do."
"He includes parts of speeches given by numerous people as well as Trump speeches. He also includes numerous excerpts from written material."
"Thoroughly enjoyed this book."
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Best Canadian History

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland
When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held on board for nearly 24 hours while security checked all of the baggage, they were greeted with a feast prepared by the townspeople. Due to the ongoing closure of U.S. airspace, the passengers spent four days in this isolated town of 10,000 before being allowed to continue on their way. --John Moe Journalist Defede calls our attention to a sidelight of the events of September 11, when the town of Gander (pop.
Reviews
"The shelf full of books for my grandkids to read and keep for their grandkids because of the tangible and intangible life stories and lessons told."
"The people of Gander and the surrounding area are wonderful and we can only hope to be as giving as they were on those days."
"The book is obviously well researched in order to get so many true human interest tales of the people aboard multiple airlines forced to land in New Foundland."
"This is a terrific story about the thousands of people stranded in Gander immediately after the 9/11 attacks."
"A very heart warming story and a good reminder that there are wonderful people in the world."
"A FANTASTIC book about the BEST that people can be at a time when others were showing their worst!"
"The story of Gander should always be told when the story of 9/11 is told."
"This is an easy read and tells the story of real people in a small town or two who gave of themselves unselfishly to help hundreds of people stranded in their area of the world."
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Best Canadian History

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland
When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held on board for nearly 24 hours while security checked all of the baggage, they were greeted with a feast prepared by the townspeople. Despite the grim consequences that led to the situation, DeFede finds humor: two flight attendants are offered a car for sightseeing by a local woman who happened to be driving by; the stranded chairman of Hugo Boss finds himself shopping for men's underwear at the local Wal-Mart.
Reviews
"The shelf full of books for my grandkids to read and keep for their grandkids because of the tangible and intangible life stories and lessons told."
"The people of Gander and the surrounding area are wonderful and we can only hope to be as giving as they were on those days."
"The book is obviously well researched in order to get so many true human interest tales of the people aboard multiple airlines forced to land in New Foundland."
"This is a terrific story about the thousands of people stranded in Gander immediately after the 9/11 attacks."
"A very heart warming story and a good reminder that there are wonderful people in the world."
"A FANTASTIC book about the BEST that people can be at a time when others were showing their worst!"
"The story of Gander should always be told when the story of 9/11 is told."
"This is an easy read and tells the story of real people in a small town or two who gave of themselves unselfishly to help hundreds of people stranded in their area of the world."
Find Best Price at Amazon

Best Post-Confederation Canadian History

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland
When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held on board for nearly 24 hours while security checked all of the baggage, they were greeted with a feast prepared by the townspeople. Due to the ongoing closure of U.S. airspace, the passengers spent four days in this isolated town of 10,000 before being allowed to continue on their way. --John Moe Journalist Defede calls our attention to a sidelight of the events of September 11, when the town of Gander (pop.
Reviews
"The shelf full of books for my grandkids to read and keep for their grandkids because of the tangible and intangible life stories and lessons told."
"The people of Gander and the surrounding area are wonderful and we can only hope to be as giving as they were on those days."
"The book is obviously well researched in order to get so many true human interest tales of the people aboard multiple airlines forced to land in New Foundland."
"This is a terrific story about the thousands of people stranded in Gander immediately after the 9/11 attacks."
"A very heart warming story and a good reminder that there are wonderful people in the world."
"A FANTASTIC book about the BEST that people can be at a time when others were showing their worst!"
"The story of Gander should always be told when the story of 9/11 is told."
"This is an easy read and tells the story of real people in a small town or two who gave of themselves unselfishly to help hundreds of people stranded in their area of the world."
Find Best Price at Amazon