Check Out The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) for $4.53

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) Review

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780061730337
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) Overview

William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger. But William had read about windmills, and he dreamed of building one that would bring to his small village a set of luxuries that only 2 percent of Malawians could enjoy: electricity and running water. His neighbors called him misala—crazy—but William refused to let go of his dreams. With a small pile of once-forgotten science textbooks; some scrap metal, tractor parts, and bicycle halves; and an armory of curiosity and determination, he embarked on a daring plan to forge an unlikely contraption and small miracle that would change the lives around him.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a remarkable true story about human inventiveness and its power to overcome crippling adversity. It will inspire anyone who doubts the power of one individual's ability to change his community and better the lives of those around him.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) Specifications

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2009: Discarded motor parts, PVC pipe, and an old bicycle wheel may be junk to most people, but in the inspired hands of William Kamkwamba, they are instruments of opportunity. Growing up amid famine and poverty in rural Malawi, wind was one of the few abundant resources available, and the inventive fourteen-year-old saw its energy as a way to power his dreams. "With a windmill, we'd finally release ourselves from the troubles of darkness and hunger," he realized. "A windmill meant more than just power, it was freedom." Despite the biting jeers of village skeptics, young William devoted himself to borrowed textbooks and salvage yards in pursuit of a device that could produce an "electric wind." The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is an inspiring story of an indomitable will that refused to bend to doubt or circumstance. When the world seemed to be against him, William Kamkwamba set out to change it. --Dave Callanan

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Customer Reviews

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Apr 24, 2011 08:00:16

Check Out The Last Season (P.S.) for $4.41

The Last Season (P.S.) Review

I found the story of missing seasonal High Seirra ranger Randy Morgenson to be interesting as a mystery, biography, and education piece on a rugged and beautiful part of our country. It is not a survival book like Into Thin Air, nor is it as much a page-turning mystery as Into the Wild, but all in all I thought the book was good, and the author clearly put a lot of work into his research. The descriptions of the terrain are excellent, and Blehm paints a very thorough picture of the life of this conflicted man whose deepest love affair was ultimately with the mountains. Blehm enlightened me on the role of park employees, I had no idea how isolated their lives are, and I was appalled at the treatment of seasonal rangers by the government and wonder if this book resulted in any changes. I hope so.

From a critical eye, I felt Blehm went too easy on Morgenson's personal shortcomings, and it seemed like some of the people interviewed for the book struggled to rationalize what were obviously less than stellar opinions of the ranger. There are a lot of "we never got along that well, but....." type comments that Blehm glosses over in trying to place Morgenson on perhaps too high a pedestal. The author also never stops introducing new people to the story, almost to the book's end, and does it in haphazard chronological order. It became confusing enough I ignored most of them to focus on the key people. The writing on the rescue efforts also became redundant; I asked myself a few times "didn't he already talk about this?" I think 50 to 100 pages less text could have cured almost all of these shortcomings.

All in all, The Last Season is a good book, and worth reading. Unfortunately there were too many distractions to keep me on the edge of my seat as much as I would have liked, but I still enjoyed it.

The Last Season (P.S.) Overview

Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada—mountains as perilous as they are beautiful.

Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.

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Customer Reviews

Compelling story - beautifully written - K. Johnson - Los Angeles, CA
Although this book will really speak to those who have spent time in the mountains, (especially the Sierra) it is simply a beautifully written book. Randy Morgenson is a thoroughly interesting subject, complete with human frailties, but the allure of this book is in the details of both his life and death. The author treats us to little interesting tidbits throughout, such as the fact that Randy learned about photography from the iconic Ansel Adams. The author obviously took painstaking steps to exhaustively research the story, and the care he took is evidenced throughout. The man and the history is compelling, but it is the superb writing that takes you on the journey where you can picture every event as it unfolds, through the lost art of true storytelling.

I especially enjoyed reading at the end, that the rangers had "unofficially" named an unnamed peak after Randy Morgenson. Although officially denied this honor, Randy can look down from that great mountain range in the sky, and note that at least Google Maps recognizes it!

There was only one thing that disappointed me - evidently, the Kindle version does not contain the photos that are included in the book, nor has it been updated to the latest paperback release version. Come on now, don't Kindle users deserve the same experience as someone reading the paperback version?



The Last Season - Tasha -
For those who are interested in backpacking and are familiar with the Sierra, this is a very good read. The story of a truly committed back country ranger.
Quite well written, it takes you on a journey.



A passionate and respectful account - labnsabys - Nevada, USA
I discovered Eric Blehm quite recently through his involvement with "Molly the Owl" and his subsequent children's book on the subject. As I listened to the passion with which Mr. Blehm spoke of his projects, I felt compelled to seek out his other books. What a fortunate sequence of events for me! "The Last Season" held my rapt attention from cover to cover and left me feeling as if I had been part of the story myself. It is apparent throughout that this book took incredible amounts of painstaking and thorough research, but every detail and piece of minutiae is needed. You never feel as if he threw in facts just to show off -- it all contributes to the whole. The story is told with such depth and richness, you can't help but feel in awe of the backcountry rangers and their beloved Sierras. Randy Morgenson himself is portrayed with the respect and reverance he so clearly deserves, despite his personal shortcomings. I feel privileged to have found this book.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 09, 2010 09:55:05

Check Out Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.) for $2.99

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.) Review

The explosion of the volcano at Krakatoa, Java, on August 27, 1883, was loud enough to be heard on Rodriguez Island in the Indian Ocean 2968 miles away. The eruption was the fifth largest known volcanic explosion in human history, and it caused the greatest loss of life of any known volcanic disaster. More than 40,000 people were killed, mostly by a series of massive tsunamis. One of these waves drove the Dutch gunship Berouw over a mile and a half up a river, killing all aboard.

Simon Winchester tells the story of the disaster from both the historical and geological perspectives. The explosion was not just a geological cataclysm. It was one of the very first truly global news stories, and it marked the beginning of the end of Dutch rule, and the first stirrings of militant Islam in East Asia.

Winchester provides a host of fascinating details as he traces the weeks and days leading up the the explosion, as well as the background of the Dutch presence in Java and the development of plate tectonics, the theory that finally allowed scientists to understand the mechanism of subduction zone volcanoes like Krakatoa.

He also follows the aftermath of the eruption. The island of Krakatoa itself was obliterated in the blast, but a new volcanic island has risen from the sea, and has provided scientists with a natural laboratory to study a rare instance of primary succession.

Winchester does a nice job of mixing the historical and scientific details surrounding this literally Earth-shaking event.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780060838591
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.) Overview

Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, examines the legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa, which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island's destruction was heard in Australia and India and on islands thousands of miles away. Most significant of all -- in view of today's new political climate -- the eruption helped to trigger in Java a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy among fundamentalist Muslims, one of the first outbreaks of Islamic-inspired killings anywhere. Krakatoa gives us an entirely new perspective on this fascinating and iconic event.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.) Specifications

It may seem a stretch to connect a volcanic eruption with civil and religious unrest in Indonesia today, but Simon Winchester makes a compelling case. Krakatoa tells the frightening tale of the biggest volcanic eruption in history using a blend of gentle geology and narrative history. Krakatoa erupted at a time when technologies like the telegraph were becoming commonplace and Asian trade routes were being expanded by northern European companies. This bustling colonial backdrop provides an effective canvas for the suspense leading up to August 27th, 1883, when the nearby island of Krakatoa would violently vaporize. Winchester describes the eruption through the eyes of its survivors, and readers will be as horrified and mesmerized as eyewitnesses were as the death toll reached nearly 40,000 (almost all of whom died from tsunamis generated by the unimaginably strong shock waves of the eruption). Ships were thrown miles inshore, endless rains of hot ash engulfed those towns not drowned by 100 foot waves, and vast rafts of pumice clogged the hot sea. The explosion was heard thousands of miles away, and the eruption's shock wave traveled around the world seven times. But the book's biggest surprise is not the riveting catalog of the volcano's effects; rather, it is Winchester's contention that the Dutch abandonment of their Indonesian colonies after the disaster left local survivors to seek comfort in radical Islam, setting the stage for a volatile future for the region. --Therese Littleton

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Customer Reviews

Krakatau - Brett -
I teach Erath Science, and this book made the study of tectonics much more interesting, especially in imagining what awaits us, possibly Yellowstone erupting bigger, but especially in understanding what is still going on at the same faultline during our lifetime.






Riveting, Fantastic, Detailed and Informative - V. Agarwal - California US
Taking the book home there was no realization of the fun i was going to get from reading it. Even though in modern times an event that occured more than a century ago does not seem very relevant to be discussed in detail, Winchester weaves a spell over his readers with the potion of his writing, his in-depth knowledge and relentless research. With the description of the history leading up to the Krakatoa explosion the author enchants the curious minds by the events that give a fair glance into the lives of all those affected by the disaster. More importantly the scientific (geological, geographical, anthropological, botanical, zoological...) information in the book is a fun to read. This is quality writing that is extremely engaging and better than any fiction you are likely to buy.



Krakatoa by S. Winchester - Harold B. Dowse -
Simon Winchester's work is uniformly excellent. This is far and away the best discussion of the eruption of Krakatoa out there. When you are done, you will feel as though you must have lived through those times. He covers everything from the paradigm shift of plate tectonics in modern Geology to the rise of Islamist fundamentalism in the area as a result of the oppression of the colonial powers. You will even learn about the developing global communications network's beginnings with intercontinental telegraphy and news services. Not to be missed.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 26, 2010 00:15:06