Download or read book Small Avalanches and Other Stories written by Joyce Carol Oates and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2003-03-18 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When The Sky Blue Ball comes soaring over the fence, a high-school girl is confronted with the haunting memory of childhood. A jealous teen lets her cousin go off alone with a dangerous Capricorn, aware of the terrifying possibilities. A vulnerable young girl cunningly outwits a menacing stranger and exults in her newfound power, surviving the first of many Small Avalanches. In these twelve riveting tales, master storyteller Joyce Carol Oates visits the dark, enigmatic psyche of the teenage years. Intense and unnerving, uplifting and triumphant, the stories in this collection explore the fateful consequences of the choices we make in our everyday lives.

Download or read book Small Avalanches and Other Stories written by Joyce Carol Oates and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of twelve short stories for young people including "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been," "Life After High School," and "How I Contemplated the World."

Download or read book Heat and Other Stories written by Joyce Carol Oates and published by New York, N.Y. : Dutton. This book was released on 1991 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poet, novelist, critic, and the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for lifetime achievement in the short story as an art form, Joyce Carol Oates in this collection offers readers 25 rich, hard-edged stories stamped with her inimitable touch: tales of violence ... or uncertainty ... or with the macabre running like lifeblood through them. In the O. Henry Award-winning title story, "Heat," young twin sisters are murdered, and both they and their killer are remembered by a woman who was their contemporary and, in a way, a victim as well. ... In "Leila Lee," a young woman who marries an older man tries to develop a relationship with her husband's angry teenage son. ... In "House Hunting," a husband perplexed by his disintegrating marriage goes house- hunting without his wife, and embarks on a quest-not only for a house, but for his future. From small towns to big cities, from the working class to the upper class, there is scarcely an aspect of the American experience that Joyce Carol Oates has not magically made her own. Her stories shock, provoke, and astound us with their commentary on the human condition.

Download or read book Whiter Than Snow written by Sandra Dallas and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale comes the moving and powerful story of a small town after a devastating avalanche, and the life changing effects it has on the people who live there Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado's Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o'clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There's Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke's only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There's Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there's Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child's parentage from all the world. Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it's through each character's defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent's purpose for living. In the end, it's a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family.

Download or read book A Wall of White written by Jennifer Woodlief and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-02-23 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most amazing survival stories ever told -- journalist Jennifer Woodlief's gripping account of the deadliest ski-area avalanche in North American history and the woman who survived in the face of incalculable odds. On the morning of March 31, 1982, the snow had already been falling at a record rate for four days at Alpine Meadows ski resort near Lake Tahoe, California. For the vacationers and employees at the resort, this day would change their lives forever. The unprecedented avalanche that day at Alpine Meadows was a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe. Much like the nor'easter that bedeviled the fishermen in Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, an unforeseeable confluence of natural events created the conditions for an unimaginable disaster -- and, in one woman's case, an astonishing ordeal of survival. Jennifer Woodlief movingly tells the story of the massive slab avalanche that killed seven and left one victim buried alive under the snow. In this freak event, millions of tons of snow roared into the ski area and beyond, engulfing unsuspecting vacationers as well as resort employees working in spite of the danger. At the center of this wrenching tale of nature's fury are ski patrolman Larry Heywood and his team, who heroically fought with the help of a search-and-rescue dog to save a twenty-two-year-old woman trapped for five days underneath the suffocating snow -- a tale of survival that is itself an exploration of the capacity of courage. Written with all the suspense of a thriller, A Wall of White is an inspiring story of a group of strangers brought together by an inconceivable calamity -- a testament to the unwavering dedication of a band of rebel rescuers, driven only by a commitment to saving lives, battling not just extreme conditions but seemingly impossible odds.

Download or read book Buried written by Ken Wylie and published by Rocky Mountain Books Ltd. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 20, 2003, at 10:45 a.m., a massive avalanche in the Selkirk Range of British Columbia struck three members of two guided backcountry skiing groups and buried them. After a frantic hour of digging by those still standing, an unthinkable outcome became reality: seven people were dead. The tragedy made international news, splashing photos of the seven dead Canadian and US skiers on television screens and newspaper pages. The official analysis was that guide error was not a contributing factor in the accident. This interpretation was insufficient for some of the victims’ families, the public and some members of the guiding community. Buried is the assistant guide’s story. It renders an answerable truth about what happened by delving deep into the human factors that played into putting people in harm’s way as well as the peace that comes from accountability and the personal growth that results from understanding.

Download or read book A Study Guide for Joyce Carol Oates s When I Was a Little Girl and My Mother Didn t Want Me written by Gale, Cengage Learning and published by Gale, Cengage Learning . This book was released on with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Study Guide for Joyce Carol Oates's "When I Was a Little Girl and My Mother Didn’t Want Me ", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.

Download or read book Autonomy Mastery and Purpose in the Avalanche Patch written by Lee Thompson and published by Bruce Kay. This book was released on 2015-10 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are our survival odds in avalanche country? Author Bruce Kay explores this puzzle in Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Drawing from the experiences of his peers and his own 35 years as a climber, skier and avalanche professional, Kay explains why avalanche country demands a unique mindset of managing risk by consideration of the unknown as much as the known. He explores related topics, including: - The Siren Song of Culture - Intuition and Bias - what is the difference? - Optimism and Luck - do we roll the dice or calculate risk? - The Expert Illusion - Strategic Mindset Using the work of Ian McCammon, Gary Klein and the Nobel Prize winning Kahnemen, Kay shows how the avalanche problem is nearly perfectly designed to produce errors in judgement, yet still provide opportunity for solution. This is brought to life using case studies and adrenaline - pumping stories from fellow professionals and recreationists. He warns that his book may at times "demand a bit more of the reader than the average ski video," but if truly interested in surviving to ski another day, this book is for you.

Download or read book Darkness Descending written by Ken Jones and published by Quercus. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January 2003, Ken Jones, an adventurer and former British Special Forces soldier, was caught in a devastating avalanche as he climbed deep in the frozen wilderness of Romania's Carpathian Mountains. Swept over the edge of a 75-foot cliff, he plummeted to the rocks below. Against all odds, he survived the fall--regaining consciousness shrouded in darkness and sub-zero temperatures, separated from his supplies, and in excruciating pain from a broken leg and shattered pelvis. With frostbite and internal bleeding beginning to take their toll, Jones summoned his deepest will to live and began three agonizing days dragging himself over frozen terrain to safety--only to discover that his true ordeal was yet to begin. The doctors who initially treated him were astonished that any person could sustain such massive trauma and exposure and still be alive. Then, after an initial round of extensive surgeries and recoveries that equaled if not exceeded the pain of the injuries themselves, Jones was told he would almost certainly never walk again. Over the next two years he endured constant physical therapy and additional surgery, with latent effects from the fall still threatening his life. At one point, he slipped into unconsciousness under anesthesia just as he heard a doctor telling his mother he was going to die. But with a soldier's heart he made his way to recovery, regained full mobility, and has made his story known in this remarkable book. In the bestselling tradition of Into Thin Air and Touching the Void, Darkness Descending is a classic tale of triumph over adversity and what it means to never give up. Jones's remarkable feat has already been featured on Animal Planet's hit series I Shouldn't Be Alive, and stands tall as an unforgettable testament to the strength of the human spirit.

Download or read book Companion to Literature written by Abby H. P. Werlock and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 859 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the previous edition:Booklist/RBB "Twenty Best Bets for Student Researchers"RUSA/ALA "Outstanding Reference Source"" ... useful ... Recommended for public libraries and undergraduates."

Download or read book High Lonesome written by Joyce Carol Oates and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No other writer can match the impressive oeuvre of Joyce Carol Oates. High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006 gathers short fiction from the acclaimed author's seminal collections and includes eleven new tales that further demonstrate the breathtaking artistry and striking originality of an incomparable talent who "has imbued the American short story with an edgy vitality and raw social surfaces" (Chicago Tribune).

Download or read book Big Mouth Ugly Girl written by Joyce Carol Oates and published by HarperTeen. This book was released on 2002-05-14 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book Last Breath written by Peter Stark and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2002-02-05 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sudden, extreme deaths have always fascinated us-- and now more than ever as athletes and travelers rise to the challenges of high-risk sports and journeys on the edge. In this spellbinding book, veteran travel and outdoor sports writer Peter Stark reenacts the dramas of what happens inside our bodies, our minds, and our souls when we push ourselves to the absolute limits of human endurance. Combining the adrenaline high of extreme sports with the startling facts of physiological reality, Stark narrates a series of outdoor adventure stories in which thrill can cross the line to mortal peril. Each death or brush with death is at once a suspense story, a cautionary tale, and a medical thriller. Stark describes in unforgettable detail exactly what goes through the mind of a cross-country skier as his body temperature plummets-- apathy at ninety-one degrees, stupor at ninety. He puts us inside the body of a doomed kayaker tumbling helplessly underwater for two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. He conjures up the physiology of a snowboarder frantically trying not to panic as he consumes the tiny pocket of air trapped around his face under thousands of pounds of snow. These are among the dire situations that Stark transforms into harrowing accounts of how our bodies react to trauma, how reflexes and instinct compel us to fight back, and how, why, and when we let go of our will to live. In an increasingly tamed and homogenized world, risk is not only a means of escape but a path to spirituality. As Peter Stark writes, "You must try to understand death intimately and prepare yourself for death in order to live a full and satisfying life." In this fascinating, informative book, Stark reveals exactly what we’re getting ourselves into when we choose to live-- and die-- at the extremes of endurance.

Download or read book The White Cascade written by Gary Krist and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2008-01-22 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The never-before-told story of one of the worst rail disasters in U.S. history in which two trains full of people, trapped high in the Cascade Mountains, are hit by a devastating avalanche In February 1910, a monstrous blizzard centered on Washington State hit the Northwest, breaking records. The world stopped—but nowhere was the danger more terrifying than near a tiny town called Wellington, perched high in the Cascade Mountains, where a desperate situation evolved minute by minute: two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found themselves marooned without escape, their railcars gradually being buried in the rising drifts. For days, an army of the Great Northern Railroad's most dedicated men—led by the line's legendarily courageous superintendent, James O'Neill—worked round-the-clock to rescue the trains. But the storm was unrelenting, and to the passenger's great anxiety, the railcars—their only shelter—were parked precariously on the edge of a steep ravine. As the days passed, food and coal supplies dwindled. Panic and rage set in as snow accumulated deeper and deeper on the cliffs overhanging the trains. Finally, just when escape seemed possible, the unthinkable occurred: the earth shifted and a colossal avalanche tumbled from the high pinnacles, sweeping the trains and their sleeping passengers over the steep slope and down the mountainside. Centered on the astonishing spectacle of our nation's deadliest avalanche, Gary Krist's The White Cascade is the masterfully told story of a supremely dramatic and never-before-documented American tragedy. An adventure saga filled with colorful and engaging history, this is epic narrative storytelling at its finest.

Download or read book You Think That s Bad written by Jim Shepard and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-03-22 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following Like You’d Understand, Anyway—awarded the Story Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award—Jim Shepard returns with an even more wildly diverse collection of astonishingly observant stories. Like an expert curator, he populates the vastness of human experience—from its bizarre fringes and lonely, breathtaking pinnacles to the hopelessly mediocre and desperately below average—with brilliant scientists, reluctant soldiers, workaholic artists, female explorers, depraved murderers, and deluded losers, all wholly convincing and utterly fascinating. A “black world” operative at Los Alamos isn’t allowed to tell his wife anything about his daily activities, but he can’t resist sharing her intimate confidences with his work buddy. A young Alpine researcher falls in love with the girlfriend of his brother, who was killed in an avalanche he believes he caused. An unlucky farm boy becomes the manservant of a French nobleman who’s as proud of his military service with Joan of Arc as he’s aroused by the slaughter of children. A free-spirited autodidact, grieving her lost sister, traces the ancient steps of a ruthless Middle Eastern sect and becomes the first Western woman to travel the Arabian deserts. From the inventor of the Godzilla epics to a miserable G.I. in New Guinea, each comes to realize that knowing better is never enough. Enthralling and unfailingly compassionate, You Think That’s Bad traverses centuries, continents, and social strata, but the joy and struggle that Shepard depicts with such devastating sensitivity—all the heartbreak, alienation, intimacy, and accomplishment—has a universal resonance.

Download or read book The Next Everest written by Jim Davidson and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic account of the deadly avalanche on Everest—and a return to reach the summit. On April 25, 2015, Jim Davidson was climbing Mount Everest when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake released avalanches all around him and his team, destroying their only escape route and trapping them at nearly 20,000 feet. It was the largest earthquake in Nepal in eighty-one years and killed nearly 8,900 people. That day also became the deadliest in the history of Everest, with eighteen people losing their lives on the mountain. After spending two unsettling days stranded on Everest, Davidson's team was rescued by helicopter. The experience left him shaken, and despite his thirty-three years of climbing and serving as an expedition leader, he wasn’t sure that he would ever go back. But in the face of risk and uncertainty, he returned in 2017 and finally achieved his dream of reaching the summit. Suspenseful and engrossing, The Next Everest portrays the experience of living through the biggest disaster to ever hit the mountain. Davidson's background in geology and environmental science makes him uniquely qualified to explain why the seismic threats lurking beneath Nepal are even greater today. But this story is not about “conquering” the world’s highest peak. Instead, it reveals how embracing change, challenge, and uncertainty prepares anyone to face their next “Everest” in life.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of the American Short Story written by Abby H. P. Werlock and published by Infobase Learning. This book was released on 2015-04-22 with total page 3225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two-volume set that presents an introduction to American short fiction from the 19th century to the present.