Here are 100 books that The Falcon Thief fans have personally recommended if you like
The Falcon Thief.
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I am an author specializing in nature, travel, and adventure writing. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many of the places featured in my books – including Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I even to travelled to Morocco to study the art of storytelling with the last of the great storytellers. I’ve always been intrigued by stories that tell a personal journey about overcoming obstacles, especially if the story takes the reader to exotic places. So no wonder I jumped at the opportunity to co-author a book with a game ranger and conservationist in Africa that combines historical perspectives, larger-than-life characters, and dangerous experiences with wildlife.
I love nonfiction adventure books that immerse you in the details of an adventure while providing enough background information to understand the historical, cultural, and scientific perspectives of an era. In the mid-19th century, Paul du Chaillu spent years in Western Africa tracking down the njena, the mythical beast. This book makes for interesting reading as the author weaves the true-life adventure story of the discovery of the gorilla with Darwin’s evolutionary debate,and the challenges a Victorian-era scientist faced to prove his credibility.
In 1856, Paul Du Chaillu ventured into the African jungle in search of a mythic beast, the gorilla. After wild encounters with vicious cannibals, deadly snakes, and tribal kings, Du Chaillu emerged with 20 preserved gorilla skins—two of which were stuffed and brought on tour—and walked smack dab into the biggest scientific debate of the time: Darwin's theory of evolution. Quickly, Du Chaillu's trophies went from objects of wonder to key pieces in an all-out intellectual war. With a wide range of characters, including Abraham Lincoln, Arthur Conan Doyle, P.T Barnum, Thackeray, and of course, Charles Darwin, this is a…
I have learned about the nature of magic and the mythical firsthand. I have always been a seeker, fiercely curious and an avid reader to try to understand the world so as to find myself and my destiny. Wise women appeared to guide my path as I quested the heroine’s journey with its many helpers and spirits, its coincidences, and its marvels. When I dreamt about the Roma, I knew the story was important; I attended UCLA and got to work. My passion has never dwindled during the 20 years it took to manifest the Destiny's Consent book series.
I think more than anything, I loved the way she described everything. Her language is as if her words were first sent to her heart and then to her soul before they came onto the page. The warmth and the power are overwhelming in her style. It is obvious she loved grandly Africa and its denizens, and as a reader, I couldn’t help but feel the same.
I love heroines in exotic places and situations, especially if it is much of their own makings or seemingly destiny. This book is a memoir of a tomboy girl in East Africa, so even though it is all true, it feels epic.
I could really relate to Beryl as a girl with her animals. (Growing up, I loved and collected animals from nature, too.) Beryl grew up with a zebra for a pet, horses for friends, and, of course, the most loyal dog.…
WEST WITH THE NIGHT appeared on 13 bestseller lists on first publication in 1942. It tells the spellbinding story of Beryl Markham -- aviator, racehorse trainer, fascinating beauty -and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and 30s.
Markham was taken to Kenya at the age of four. As an adult she was befriended by Denys Finch-Hatton, the big-game hunter of OUT OF AFRICA fame, who took her flying in his airplane. Thrilled by the experience, Markham went on to become the first woman in Kenya to receive a commercial pilot's license.
I am an author specializing in nature, travel, and adventure writing. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many of the places featured in my books – including Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I even to travelled to Morocco to study the art of storytelling with the last of the great storytellers. I’ve always been intrigued by stories that tell a personal journey about overcoming obstacles, especially if the story takes the reader to exotic places. So no wonder I jumped at the opportunity to co-author a book with a game ranger and conservationist in Africa that combines historical perspectives, larger-than-life characters, and dangerous experiences with wildlife.
I remember my first encounter with African wildlife. I was standing in front of a museum diorama, facing a lion standing full height, its glass eyes gleaming. These displays were crafted so carefully, the animals posed so perfectly, the backgrounds painted so realistically. But who turned these dead animals into works of art? This book describes the life of the man who traveled the world to find and preserve the best specimens. Carl Akeley’s journey is both gruesome and fascinating.
In this epic account of an extraordinary life lived during remarkable times, Jay Kirk follows the adventures of legendary explorer and taxidermist Carl Akeley, who revolutionized taxidermy and environmental conservation and created the famed African Hall at New York's Museum of Natural History. Akeley risked death time and again in the jungles of Africa as he stalked animals for his dioramas and hobnobbed with outsized personalities of the era, such as Theodore Roosevelt and P. T. Barnum. Kingdom Under Glass is "a rollicking biography…an epic adventure…[and] a beguiling novelistic portrait of a man and an era straining to hear the…
"an intense narrative of family and intangible inheritance. . .this novel unfolds like a fragrant, steeped tea." -Chanticleer Book Reviews, 5 Stars
"like a glorious sunrise, we are gifted the 'après,' the hope and goodness of 'after me.'" -Maria Giuseppa, author of R&R: A Feast of Words
A man in France receives a package from America containing an autobiographical manuscript relating the events of a summer long ago.
When Ellande and Madeleine-Grace visit the family summer house on the Alabaster Coast of Normandy for the first time without their parents, they find themselves growing aware of the importance of their…
A man in France receives a package from America containing an autobiographical manuscript relating the events of a summer long ago.
When Ellande and Madeleine-Grace visit the family summer house on the Alabaster Coast of Normandy for the first time without their parents, they find themselves growing aware of the importance of their parents' choices in raising them. Under the care of their beloved Aunt Adèle, they explore their heritage and what their parents stood for while determining the value of customs and traditions of both family and France's stunning Pays de Caux. In the face of cruelty, carelessness, and…
I am an author specializing in nature, travel, and adventure writing. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many of the places featured in my books – including Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I even to travelled to Morocco to study the art of storytelling with the last of the great storytellers. I’ve always been intrigued by stories that tell a personal journey about overcoming obstacles, especially if the story takes the reader to exotic places. So no wonder I jumped at the opportunity to co-author a book with a game ranger and conservationist in Africa that combines historical perspectives, larger-than-life characters, and dangerous experiences with wildlife.
An art teacher recommended this book to me when I wanted to learn more about sketchbook journaling. What better way to learn than to page through the field notes and illustrations from the diaries and journals of 70 famous world travelers and adventurers! For each of these daring men and women, there is a brief introduction followed by a visual treasure trove of sketches, original diary pages, and watercolor paintings. This book will remind you of what exploration and encountering wildlife and other cultures were like before cameras and cell phones.
The sketchbook has been the one constant in explorers' kits for centuries of adventure. Often private, they are records of immediate experiences and discoveries, and in their pages we can see what the explorers themselves encountered. This remarkable book showcases 70 such sketchbooks, kept by intrepid men and women as they journeyed perilous and unknown environments—frozen wastelands, high mountains, barren deserts, and dense rainforests—with their senses wide open. Figures such as Charles Darwin and Sir Edmund Hillary are joined here by lesser-known explorers such as Adela Breton, who braved the jungles of Mexico to make a record of Mayan monuments.…
I didn’t realize I enjoyed this dimension of a story until I noted how many of my most enjoyable reads had this in common. I enjoy the emphasis on relationships and characterization, but the element of distance adds depth to these relationships, making for a page-turning read!
I could not stop reading this novella once I started, largely because of the characters I came to enjoy and the relationship they explored with each other. Despite fifty or so years of friendship established already, so much is still before them at this point in their lives. The distance in this book is physical, as Rachi lives in Chicago and Raffi in New York.
The emergence of secrets and how they are handled introduces a different sort of distance. Amid both kinds, the strength of their relationship is tested, and the depth of their friendship is reiterated. This book's writing, topics, and discussions provide so much food for thought that a second read is inevitable.
Life flows in ways of its own choosing, not always relinquishing control to each individual. Often, we cannot change the course of events that determine health, death, and so many other emotional and physical trials. Each of them could certainly defeat us if we had to face them alone. But what if we had one person, just one, that we could always count on? One person to whom being young or beautiful, rich or even right, mattered not at all?
One person that could endure distance and time, sorrow and joy, secrets and revelations, silence or a feast of words.…
I didn’t realize I enjoyed this dimension of a story until I noted how many of my most enjoyable reads had this in common. I enjoy the emphasis on relationships and characterization, but the element of distance adds depth to these relationships, making for a page-turning read!
The distance in this novella takes a unique form as Toni, working on the building of her bookshop in the space of a one-time bakery belonging to her family, discovers something special in the walls. The discovery takes her to the arrival and experiences of her ancestors in Chicago’s Little Italy, the same locale of the soon-to-be bookshop.
My favorite part of the book is the relationship that develops between the Toni of today and the Vittorio of the past, as well as the understanding Toni comes to about her ancestors through Vittorio’s voice. Time and death present forms of distance, but Vittorio’s message transcends both, reaching Toni in a positive way. The possibility that someone can forge a beautiful relationship with a deceased ancestor is a neat feature of this book.
"Be careful with the wooden frame," I instructed the workers. "I'm told it's original to the building."
"You actually want to keep these old studs, Toni?"
"Of course! I can breathe new life into them. Repurpose them into shelves or a tabletop."
It's what I was attempting to do with my own self, breathe new life into a shattered one.
Antonia "Toni" Russo is broken, but reimagining a family business in Chicago's Little Italy might bring back her inner strength and joy. When venturing into this new future, Toni discovers that she's not the first Russo to face obstacles and…
I didn’t realize I enjoyed this dimension of a story until I noted how many of my most enjoyable reads had this in common. I enjoy the emphasis on relationships and characterization, but the element of distance adds depth to these relationships, making for a page-turning read!
In this novel, in five parts, Thea learns to leave her Colorado antecedents to make it big as an opera singer. Thea develops a relationship with music from an early age, yet something about home always calls to her and, in a way, cannot leave her.
As she travels to Chicago, New York, and Europe, keeping the small Colorado town distant in geography and memory, it always finds a way back into her life, often in beautiful ways. Leaving is a sacrifice she felt she had to make for her art, and the relationship between artist and craft is featured in a way that highlights its beauty and the expenses that accompany a life devoted to the arts.
In this powerful portrait of the self-making of an artist, Willa Cather created one of her most extraordinary heroines.
Thea Kronborg, a minister's daughter in a provincial Colorado town, seems destined from childhood for a place in the wider world. But as her path to the world stage leads her ever farther from the humble town she can't forget and from the man she can't afford to love, Thea learns that her exceptional musical talent and fierce ambition are not enough.
It is in the solitude of a tiny rock chamber high in the side of an Arizona cliff--"a cleft…
I didn’t realize I enjoyed this dimension of a story until I noted how many of my most enjoyable reads had this in common. I enjoy the emphasis on relationships and characterization, but the element of distance adds depth to these relationships, making for a page-turning read!
Sally shares an autobiographical account of her turning from atheism to Catholicism, revealing through her narration a relationship between herself and God. The shape that distance takes in this memoir is illusive in a way, for the God that Sally eschewed had been calling to her for years.
Soon, Sally finds herself in pursuit of God only to discover, once again, that God is and has been near to her. Read’s writing presents some beautiful passages, and the telling of her faith journey progresses beautifully.
Staunchly atheist Sally Read converted to Catholicism in the space of nine electric months. In 2010, Read was heralded as one of the bright young writers of the British poetry scene. Feminist and deeply anti-Catholic, she was writing a book about female sexuality when, during her research, she spoke with a Catholicpriest. The interview led her on a dramatic spiritual quest that ended up at theVatican itself, where she was received into the Catholic Church.
Unsurprisingly, this story is written in the vivid language of poetry. Read relates her encounters with the Father, the Spirit and then the Son exactlyin…
Poems irritated me as a child. They seemed parodies of counting, chants of rhythm, and repetition. I included them in my moratorium against reading fiction. On the other hand, I respected the alphabet, a kind of poem of pure form. It was orderly for no good reason and didn't mean anything. So I concluded that poems were meaningless forms that had their uses, but were not serious. I changed my mind, but it took a while—studying math and science, theology, and then philosophy and literature. I'm now a professor who studies and teaches modern literature and philosophy. I got my Ph.D. from Harvard, became a professor at Stanford, and teach at the University of Dallas.
A photograph gives me the form of the bird, but it remains up to me to see the bird as a bird. And that can be difficult. What do we see when we see a bird?
The Peregrine, J. A. Baker’s masterpiece of descriptive prose, provides an answer, an answer that is as much about how we see as it is about what we see when we see birds. Sometimes we pull ourselves into the sight of others and the world emerges as more than its light. We see by being seen.
Baker achieves this kind of seeing both in his efforts to see a pair of peregrines and in his description of this achievement.
David Attenborough reads J. A. Baker's extraordinary classic of British nature writing.
The nation's greatest voice, David Attenborough, reads J. A. Baker's extraordinary classic of British nature writing, The Peregrine.
J. A. Baker's classic of British nature writing was first published in 1967. Greeted with acclaim, it went on to win the Duff Cooper Prize, the pre-eminent literary prize of the time. Luminaries such as Ted Hughes, Barry Lopez and Andrew Motion have cited it as one of the most important books in twentieth-century nature writing.
Despite the association of peregrines with the wild, outer reaches of the British Isles,…
Indie authors and presses are sometimes dismissed as “lesser-than” and not carried by bookstores. The stories are labeled as “amateurish” or “boring.” (Some are, but so are some books coming from big publishers!) Size doesn’t really matter in the world of publishing. Being published with a small press showed me a realm beyond the huge, traditional publishing houses—it’s populated with fantastic books written by gifted authors who often write, not for fame or money, but because they love writing. I’ve found many hours of enjoyment in indie books (and lost hours of sleep, as well!) I hope, with this list, you find the same.
Kristina Mahr does an amazing job creating two fantastical worlds, a beautiful one the heroine Reeve experiences by day, the other a nightmarish realm when she falls asleep. Reeve must navigate her dreamworld without dying (a serious problem with carnivorous, killer falcons) and discover why she’s experiencing this phenomenon. The author pulled me into the story, causing me to root for both Reeve and the hero Bran, as they make choices that affect both of their lives. I deeply felt the emotional connection between them and stayed up way too late to finish the story. The entire duology has a HEA (happily-ever-after), but book one’s cliffhanger is rough! Have book two on standby.
Every night, seventeen-year-old Reeve Lennox finds herself under a noose.
By day she is a lady of Acarsaid’s royal house, daydreaming of adventure and love. But every night in sleep she wanders through a nightmarish city, an invisible witness to the screeches of monsters and the screams of their victims. Her only consolation is Bran, a battle-torn young man with a selfless heart and eyes that reflect the stars.
Yet while Reeve falls deeper into her dreams, in truth she is engaged to Arden, a mercurial nobleman who has long been cured of his belief in love and breathes fire…
