The book tells the story of the CIA owned airline Air America which was at its height the biggest airline in the world. Air America main operation base was Asia and the airline flow everything from food supplies from aid-organizations over troops in the war of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to rescue operation.

The book is interesting to read but did not tell the expected stories about what the Americans really did during the war in that region of the world.

I picked this book up in the hut at the Summit of the Haines Highway and started to read it while I was waiting in the hut till the rain had passed.

The book tells the story of a lady how owns a home-stay somewhere in the middle of the USA. Because here place was recommended in jet-set magazine, the fames and rich were staying at here place, this till the place burned down. After reopening the fames and rich have moved to other places and the home-stay was running less then more well. One weekend veterans stayed at the home-stay and one of them went missing and so the story goes.

It was fun to read this book since the lady that owned the home-stay was a impudent one and had always a good saying on here lips – I often had to laugh as I was reading the book.

From the Internet:
After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature. Krakauer, a contributing editor to Outside and Men’s Journal, retraces McCandless’s ill-fated antagonism toward his father, Walt, an eminent aerospace engineer. Krakauer also draws parallels to his own reckless youthful exploit in 1977 when he climbed Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska-British Columbia border, partly as a symbolic act of rebellion against his autocratic father. In a moving narrative, Krakauer probes the mystery of McCandless’s death, which he attributes to logistical blunders and to accidental poisoning from eating toxic seed pods

Actually, Maya picked this book up in Thailand but somehow it ended up I my backpack and so I brought it to Alaska. The book tells the story of a search of a lost Inca temple in Peru. The temple is thought to be the resting place of a Inca idol made of a special material. The material was needed to build a super bombe which would hade been able to blow up 1/3 of the earth. Because this would be the first bomb capable to actually destroy the earth, different groups are after the Idol and they are not nice to each other.

I found it a gripping book to read though in some parts it is a very bloody. The book tells also the story of an Inca Prince how tries to save the Idol from the grippes of the Spanish conquistadores.

From the Internet:
Into Thin Air is a riveting first-hand account of a catastrophic expedition up Mount Everest. In March 1996, Outside magazine sent veteran journalist and seasoned climber Jon Krakauer on an expedition led by celebrated Everest guide Rob Hall. Despite the expertise of Hall and the other leaders, by the end of summit day eight people were dead. Krakauer’s book is at once the story of the ill-fated adventure and an analysis of the factors leading up to its tragic end. Written within months of the events it chronicles, Into Thin Air clearly evokes the majestic Everest landscape. As the journey up the mountain progresses, Krakauer puts it in context by recalling the triumphs and perils of other Everest trips throughout history. The author’s own anguish over what happened on the mountain is palpable as he leads readers to ponder timeless questions.

From the Internet:
The Climb is Russian mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev’s account of the harrowing May 1996 Mount Everest attempt, a tragedy that resulted in the deaths of eight people. The book is also Boukreev’s rebuttal to accusations from fellow climber and author Jon Krakauer, who, in his bestselling memoir, Into Thin Air, suggests that Boukreev forfeited the safety of his clients to achieve his own climbing goals. Investigative writer and Climb coauthor G. Weston DeWalt uses taped statements from the surviving climbers and translated interviews from Boukreev to piece together the events and prove to the reader that Boukreev’s role was heroic, not opportunistic. Boukreev refers to the actions of expedition leader Scott Fischer throughout the ascent, implying that factors other than the fierce snowstorm may have caused this disaster. This new account sparks debate among both mountaineers and those who have followed the story through the media and Krakauer’s book. Readers can decide for themselves whether Boukreev presents a laudable defense or merely assuages his own bruised ego.

In 1966 the plan was to send a few men from Vietnam to the neutral Laos to direct Air Force firepower in the secret war against the North Vietnamese Army.
This book is a close and personal look at the guys that were known as “Ravens”. They fought a secret war flying light aircraft and they made a daily affair at flying these aircraft into the enemy bullets on a daily basis without any real weaponry for protection.

From the Internet:
A brief, but well-focussed application of some of the principles applied by Chomsky in a huge variety of contexts – e.g. that we in powerful, relatively free societies should look more closely at what is done in our names and with our money by the states that claim to represent us, that we should apply the same standards to ourselves as we apply to others, that because states are not moral agents, and what they do often differs significantly from what we are told they do, we have to look at the facts rather than simply accept what we are told, etc.

One basic point to emerges is that to accuse those who question what the US, UK and their clients are now doing, or who seek to raise broader issues, of condoning terrorism is not only fundamentally illogical and amoral, but also profoundly dangerous in the longer term.

The book is a collection of edited transcripts of interviews conducted with Chomsky in September and October of this year. Although brief, it is a very useful starting point for any serious consideration of September 11 and its consequences.

From the Internet:
The animals of Manor Farm are unhappy, in fact, downright angry. Jones the farmer is a brute and not even a good farmer. Led by the pigs, who are the cleverest and most persuasive, they rise up and stage a revolution. They plan a future for the good of all animals, all for one and one for all. They run the farm themselves, they struggle through the hard times and battles to retake the farm, they weather the internal political struggles of the pigs who cannot agree who should be leader, and in general make a better life for themselves. Then disaster strikes. The pigs seem to be changing the rules to suit themselves and have ways of frightening those who speak out. The one pig who really had a good heart is ousted by the bad pigs. The dream turns into a nightmare, will it all end in tears?