I am an Australian writer living in Europe. Returning to my hometown on the East Coast of Australia post-COVID, I confronted relentless rain and king tides threatening the beach promenade cafes. Witnessing the potential demise of these familiar spots sparked the idea for my novel. Opening with a dystopian scene of future tourists exploring submerged coastal cafes with snorkels, my work delves into the realm of "cli-fi" (climate fiction). Against the backdrop of imminent climate danger, my characters, a lovable yet obstinate Australian ensemble, navigate a world profoundly altered by the impacts of climate change. I hope what I have written is an exaggeration. I fear it may not be.
I first heard about this story of extraordinary heroism while listening to a podcast interview with one of the survivors of a plane crash in 1972.
The plane was carrying an entire football team and their families between Uruguay and Chile. A search party could not find them in the icy ridges of the Andes, and it came down to two of the survivors who, despite malnutrition and the extreme weather and terrain, made a days-long trek to find help. Thanks to them, the remaining survivors could be located and rescued.
While many readers might shudder at the lengths the group went to in order to survive (cannibalism), what shone for me was the selflessness of the two survivors who trekked for days to find help.
On October 12, 1972, a plane carrying a team of young rugby players crashed into the remote, snow-peaked Andes. Out of the forty-five original passengers and crew, only sixteen made it off the mountain alive. For ten excruciating weeks they suffered deprivations beyond imagining, confronting nature head-on at its most furious and inhospitable. And to survive, they were forced to do what would have once been unthinkable ...
This is their story -- one of the most astonishing true adventures of the twentieth century.
A long time ago, I was an early-aviation historian, but eventually realized that I knew only half the story—the part about airplanes. But what about airships? Initially, I assumed, like so many others, that they were a flash-in-the-pan, a ridiculous dead-end technology, but then I realized these wondrous giants had roamed and awed the world for nearly four decades. There was a bigger story here of an old rivalry between airplanes and airships, one that had since been forgotten, and Empires of the Sky was the result.
A magnificently illustrated guide to the Hindenburg, written and compiled by three airship experts, this book is an amazing resource, not just for its selection of extremely rare photos but for the depth of knowledge that’s contained within. I would say that if you’re going to buy a single book specifically about the Hindenburg, I’d make it this one. It’ll tell you pretty much everything you need to impress people at parties while also introducing you to the Wide World of Zeppelin.
ON 6 MAY 1937 the pioneering Zeppelin Hindenburg, LZ-129, ended its career in flames when its hydrogen lifting gas ignited while landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey. But the airship had already completed sixty-two successful flights before this fateful day, catering to Nazi officials, socialites and the well-heeled. Hindenburg offered cutting-edge transport technology with luxury and style, making it a spectacle to behold on both sides of the Atlantic, and was expected to be just the first of many giant passenger Zeppelins.
In this revised edition with additional material, three world-renowned experts have collaborated to create the definitive history of the…
The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy’s last novel (along with Stella Maris, a companion volume), contains writing as good as anything in his long career.
Bobby Western is a math savant, ex-race car driver, and (currently) deep-sea salvage diver. After diving to inspect a private plane submerged in the waters off the Louisiana coast, Bobby becomes embroiled in a life-and-death conspiracy; he’s also obsessed with the memory of his sister Alicia, another genius savant whose suicide opens the novel.
Some sections of The Passenger are over-the-top (extended bar-room monologues, Alicia’s cartoonish hallucinations) but the world McCarthy creates is deeply compelling and suggests great profundity lurking just beneath the surface. A hell of a way to close out a brilliant career.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road returns with the first of a two-volume masterpiece: The Passenger is the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God.
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“McCarthy returns with a one-two punch...a welcome return from a legend." —Esquire
Look for Stella Maris, the second volume in The Passenger series.
1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western…
Few Americans are aware of the grandiose ambitions of Great Britain’s Imperial Airship Scheme or its tragic consequences.
Gwynne does a terrific job recapturing all the glamour and folly involved in this important but little-known undertaking. Designed to connect England’s major colonies, including Canada, Africa, Australia, and India, by regularly scheduled airship travel, the Imperial Airship schemed resulted in two gigantic, big-rigid airships: the R100 and R101. One set out and successfully completed a transatlantic trip to Canada and back, promising great things to come, while her sister ship embarked on a voyage from England to India a few months later with Titanic-like consequences.
Reads like an aerial Poseidon Adventure, only it’s all true. Comes with my money-back-guarantee of satisfaction!
From the bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Empire of the Summer Moon comes a stunning historical tale of the rise and fall of the world’s largest airship—and the doomed love story between an ambitious British officer and a married Romanian Princess at its heart.
The tragic story of the British airship R101—which went down in a spectacular hydrogen-fueled fireball in 1930, killing more people than died in the Hindenburg disaster seven years later—has been largely forgotten. In His Majesty’s Airship, historian S.C. Gwynne resurrects it in vivid detail, telling the epic story of great ambition gone terribly wrong.…
As an engineer and a science teacher I am passionate about science and science fiction stories. I also enjoy adventures. Together these lifelong passions led me to write my first science fiction novel. I have years of technological and educational training. My first job was with IBM where I worked in the Quality Control and Engineering departments. Throughout my life, I’ve been an avid sportsman and have trained in powerlifting and a variety of martial arts. When I’m not writing or conjuring science fiction novels, I enjoy teaching my grandchildren how to drive my tractor while working the fields around my home in the Hudson Valley.
Clive Cussler is one of the few authors whose real-life adventures paralleled that of his action hero, Dirk Pitt, creating a compelling story. It is easier to convey an adventure story if you have actually lived it. I was humbled by an editorial review and a number of readers that stated my book is reminiscent of Clive Cussler’s works.
Fearless adventurer Dirk Pitt must unravel a historical mystery of epic importance in the latest novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling series created by the “grand master of adventure” Clive Cussler.
In 1959 Tibet, a Buddhist artifact of immense importance was seemingly lost to history in the turmoil of the Communist takeover. But when National Underwater and Marine Agency Director Dirk Pitt discovers a forgotten plane crash in the Philippine Sea over 60 years later, new clues emerge to its hidden existence.
But Pitt and his compatriot Al Giordino have larger worries when they are ordered to recover…
For people who know something about a technical field, there is nothing that can ruin a book or movie faster than inaccuracies about that field. I’ve worked as an armored car driver, police officer, and private investigator in and around Detroit, and have been writing for outdoor magazines for close to twenty years, so not only do I know a lot about the featured subjects/characters of most thrillers, I care about how accurately they’re portrayed, and have brought that passion to my writing. I’ve written five thrillers set in Detroit, many of them featuring a private investigator, and when writing Bestiarii and its sequels did extensive research on dinosaurs.
This novel, released in 1994, was one of The New York Times’ Notable Books of the Year, but these days, unfortunately few people have heard of it.
A thriller about a terrorist holding the entire American air traffic control system hostage, this novel stood out because of how accurate all the details of the U.S. ATC were—details Gruenfeld had become aware of while pursuing a pilot’s license.
Rush Limbaugh, an avid fan of aviation, raved about the book on his #1 rated radio show, and that’s where I heard about it.
After the near-crash of a passenger plane, the responsible party demands five million in cash to prevent worse accidents, and former NTSB investigator and Naval officer Jack Webster and combat pilot Bo Kincaid are partnered to investigate--if they can trust each other
I was a student in 1968-71 (see photo) and the memories of that vanished world still haunt me. When I was supposed to be studying relativity and topology I was reading Blake and Jung, Marcuse and Mao—all misfits in their own way. After a long and undistinguished career as a mathematics lecturer in far-flung locations—Lesotho, New Guinea, Uxbridge—I retired in 2019 to write speculative comic fiction which would bring the Swinging Sixties back to life. Something of a misfit myself, I look at today's world and ask despairingly, “Is this really happening?” The books on my list provide me some solace.
Published in 1979, but it reads like 1960s psychedelia. The hero, Blake, descends—literally—on the sleepy riverside town of Shepperton (where Ballard himself lived), and conjures it and its inhabitants into a sensual Amazonian Eden. I imagine Ballard walking the streets each day and seeing visions: flamingos perched atop the filling station, orchids overrunning the hardware store, his neighbours throwing off their business suits and coupling naked in their front gardens. Seeing, like his hero’s namesake, "a world in a grain of sand, or heaven in a wildflower." The rich prose, evocative but never repetitive, works the same magic on the reader.
With a new introduction by John Gray and striking new cover from the artist Stanley Donwood, the author of 'Cocaine Nights' brings you the story of suburban London transformed into an exotic dreamworld.
When a light aircraft crashes into the Thames at Shepperton, the young pilot who struggles to the surface minutes later seems to have come back from the dead. Within hours everything in the dormitory suburb is surreally transformed. Vultures invade the rooftops, luxuriant tropical vegetation overruns the quiet avenues, and the local inhabitants are propelled by the young man's urgent visions through ecstatic sexual celebrations towards an…
Jane Finch lives in Norfolk, England and is married with one son. Jane has travelled extensively and has also lived in Canada, Spain, and the Caribbean. Having spent over twenty-five years working in English Law, Jane decided to try her hand at writing crime thrillers. Her first novel, Due Process, is based in her hometown in Norfolk. Her book, The Black Widows, published by Solstice Publishing, reached the top ten of Amazon’s crime thriller list. Jane is a member of International Thriller Writers Inc. Now retired, Jane is free to write full-time, when inspired to do so, although she says, “None of my friends tell me anything anymore because they know I’ll write about it!”
A mystery that confounds the world. How can a flight completely disappear? There are several conspiracy theories and ideas but the truth is – no one really knows what happened and probably never will. This book sets out the facts and leaves the reader to decide and it will have you mulling over the endless possibilities. The facts are troubling and the theories continue. Every time I board a plane I think of Flight MH370 and what those passengers must have endured. Bad enough as fiction but to realise it’s true is devastating.
On 8 March, 00:41, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. At 01:19, the pilot bid air traffic control 'good night'. Two minutes later, the plane and its 227 passengers vanished from the skies. No trace has been found. The disappearance of flight MH370 has horrified people across the globe. In an age where a stolen smartphone can be pinpointed to any location on earth, the vanishing of a cruise liner and 227 passengers is the greatest mystery since the Mary Celeste. Experienced author and journalist Nigel Cawthorne has researched the case with incredible thoroughness, revealing…
I read many different genres, but my favorite to write and read is romance. I love ones that have angst, adventure, danger, and a passionate push and pull between the love interests. Those seem to stick with me long after I turn the last page. In my own writing, I like to do the same, giving readers a love story they want to visit again and again. The books I’ve listed are just some of the wonderful, unforgettable novels I’ve read, and I hope you enjoy them too! Happy reading!
Tracey Garvis Graves writes amazing, deeply moving books. I have read everything she publishes and recommend them constantly.
This one was her first and it has stayed with me ever since I read it. Two people, a plane crash, and a deserted island. Talk about different! I couldn’t put it down! What it took to survive and the forbidden love that develops is a story that stayed with me for a long time. If you are a romance novel addict, this novel should be on your shelf, and I know it will become one of your all-time favorites. I can’t say enough about this book or its wonderful, creative author.
THE EMOTIONALLY GRIPPING AND ADDICTIVE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
'I cannot put into words the love I have for Anna and T.J. I felt as though I was right there with them' 5***** Reader Review 'I'd give this more than 5 stars if I could! Will stay with me for a very long time' 5***** Reader Review _________
When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a summer job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family's holiday home in the Maldives, she immediately accepts.
When
Claire’s abusive, powerful politician husband sends her out of town, she
intends to use the opportunity to leave him and disappear. But a last-minute
itinerary change foils her plans and alerts her husband that she intends to leave
him.
In a chance encounter, she meets Eva, who is also looking to escape. Thinking
they can solve each other’s problem, the two women swap identities and tickets
and board the other’s plane. But
Eva’s plane crashes, leaving no
survivors. Claire realizes the tragedy might be her true ticket to freedom
—until she discovers the secrets Eva left behind.
This
book kept me on the edge of my seat until the last page. Everything about The
Last Flight is top-notch: the plot, the twists, the characters, the pacing,
the setting details, and the writing. I was sorry when I finished reading it.
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY BESTSELLER, & INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER! "The Last Flight is thoroughly absorbing-not only because of its tantalizing plot and deft pacing, but also because of its unexpected poignancy and its satisfying, if bittersweet, resolution. The characters get under your skin."-The New York Times Book Review Two women. Two flights. One last chance to disappear. Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is…
