Climbing Legends

Fifteen-year-old Vidya dreams of going to college - an unusual aspiration for a girl living in British occupied India during World War II. Then tragedy strikes, and Vidya and her brother are forced to move into a traditional household with their extended family, where women are meant to be married, not educated. Breaking the rules, Vidya finds refuge in her grandfather’s library. But then her brother does something unthinkable, and Vidya’s life becomes a whirlwind of political and personal complications. The question is, will she be strong enough to survive?

Dave Hahn, a local of Taos, New Mexico, is a legendary figure in mountaineering. Elite members of the climbing community have likened him to the Michael Jordan, Cal Ripkin, or Michael Phelps of the climbing world. The 2015 expedition he would lead came just one short year after the notorious Khumbu Icefall avalanche claimed the lives of 16 Sherpas. Dave and his team spent weeks honing the techniques that would help keep them alive through the Icefall and the Death Zone. None of this could have prepared them for the earthquake that shook Everest and all of their lives on April 25, 2015.

Over the course of a decade, authors Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar conducted a series of interviews with Sherpas from Darjeeling, as well as their family members, descendants, friends, and contemporary climbers. Headstrap weaves a vivid tapestry of this particular Sherpa community, giving them the recognition in mountaineering literature that they deserve.

Ron Fawcett is a natural-born climber. In 1969, while still at school in his native Yorkshire, he tied into a climbing rope for the first time and was instantly hooked. From that moment on, it seemed nothing else in his life mattered nearly as much as his next vertical fix... Fawcett found the pressures of the limelight too much to bear, and at the end of the 1980s he faded from view. Now, for the first time, he tells his extraordinary story, of how his love of nature and the outdoors developed into a passion for climbing that took him to the top - and almost consumed him.

Due to multiple requests from dozens of people online, I was motivated to roll up my sleeves again for Season Seven. So I wrote the book you are about to listen to next - 21 Days to Diamond and Beyond. It is a longer and more detailed, improved, enriched and polished version of 30 Days to Diamond and it has been created specifically for Season Seven.

Before I tell you what 30 Days to Diamond is about, let me tell you what it isn't. This book is not the next three-dollar booklet promising you all the "tips and tricks" nobody else knows. Any book that makes such a claim is ridiculous, misleading, and a waste of time. 30 Days to Diamond is 143 minutes worth of specialized teaching, produced by a Master Tier player on both EUW and EUNE servers. It teaches all technical, strategic, and psychological aspects of the game, from A to Z, in a very unique and effective manner.

A determined girl gives up on kissing a frog. A fearless heroine comes face-to-face with a not-so Big Bad Wolf. A monstrous princess, held captive on a deserted island, yearns to break free. Within this book are seven famous fairy tales turned into enchanting, inspiring and sometimes hair-raising stories for today's world, about girls with their own dreams and desires. These are no damsels in distress, but real young women of flesh and blood — who certainly don't need rescuing.