Author Ken McAlpine stands in his front yard one night in Ventura, California, trying to see the stars. His view is diminished by light pollution, making it hard to see much of anything in the sky. Our fast-paced, technologically advanced society, he concludes, is not conducive to stargazing or soul-searching. Taking a page from Thoreau's Walden, he decides to get away from the clamor of everyday life, journeying alone through California's Channel Islands National Park. There, he ...

Traditionally, network security (firewalls to block unauthorized users, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) to keep attackers out, Web filters to avoid misuse of Internet browsing, and antivirus software to block malicious programs) required separate boxes with increased cost and complexity. Unified Threat Management (UTM) makes network security less complex, cheaper, and more effective by consolidating all these components. This book explains the advantages of using UTM and how it works, p...

When the Asia, a two-masted schooner, sinks in a storm along the harsh winter shores of Cape Cod in 1882, the crew, the captain, and the captains young daughter are cast into the midnight sea. Swept ashore, the Asias captain survivesonly to meet a mysterious end before he can be rescued. Meanwhile, his child makes landfall and dies not far away. With dawns arrival, all that remains are the jagged hulk of the Asia and the whispers of a secret.So begins a race to find a history-alter...

An engagingly told novel that draws you in immediately Book clubs take note: make this your next selection.Lori Stacy, Editor, Celebrated Living MagazineA coming-of-age novel of a different sort, this heartbreakingly tender story of love and hope shows us all that it is never too late for a second chance. Pogue Whithouse, an ordinary, extraordinary man, takes a road trip across America in his classic 67 Mustang. Hoping to heal memories and reconcile a past filled with life-...

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century**At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, sh...

Girl in the Woods is Aspen Matis's exhilarating true-life adventure of hiking from Mexico to Canada—a coming of age story, a survival story, and a triumphant story of overcoming emotional devastation. On her second night of college, Aspen was raped by a fellow student. Overprotected by her parents who discouraged her from telling of the attack, Aspen was confused and ashamed. Dealing with a problem that has sadly become all too common on college campuses around the country, she stumbled th...

This book, newly updated, contains now several HTML tables of contents that will make reading a real pleasure!The first table of contents (at the very beginning of the ebook) lists the titles of all novels included in this volume. By clicking on one of those titles you will be redirected to the beginning of that work, where you'll find a new TOC that lists all the chapters and sub-chapters of that specific work.Here you will find the complete 'Tom Sawyer' no...

In his follow-up to the best-selling Ultramarathon Man—which Sports Illustrated called "fascinating" and the New York Times said was "full of euphoric highs"—world-renowned ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes chronicles his unbelievable exploits and explorations in gripping detail. Karnazes runs for days on end without rest, across some of the most exotic and inhospitable places on earth, including the Australian outback, Antarctica, and the Tenderloin District of San ...

Follow Father Tim and Cynthia on their journey to research his Kavanagh ancestry in the Irish countryside in this novel in the beloved Mitford series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jan Karon.Vacation—the very word has been foreign to Episcopal priest Tim Kavanagh. Now retired from tending his flock in the village of Mitford, he is making good on a promise to show his wife, Cynthia, the charming land of his Irish ancestors. But after arr...

The man-eating proclivities of Komodo dragons. The complicated art of being a cowgirl. A picaresque ramble with a merry band of tree-cleaners. The big-wave crusaders of the world's best surfers. For the past twenty years, Outside magazine has set the standard for original and engaging reports on travel, adventure, sports, and the environment.Along the way, many of America's best journalists and storytellers--including such writers as Jon Krakauer, Tim Cahill, E. Annie Proulx, Edwar...

It began with a weekend house; then weekend trips. Then the occasional meeting rearranged in favor of a morning in Central Park, just while the spring migration was on. Before Luke Dempsey knew it, he had spiraled down into full-on birding mania - finding himself riding along with two like-minded maniacs in a series of disreputable rental cars and even nastier motel rooms, charging madly around the country in search of its rarest and most beautiful birds.A Supremely Bad Idea

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.Fly-fishing’s finest scribe, John Gierach, takes us from a nameless stream on a nameless ranch in Montana to a secret pool off a secret creek where he caught a catfish as a five-year-old, to a brook full of rattlesnakes and a private pond where the trout are all as long as your leg. As Gierach says, “The secret places are the s...