True Survival

Jungle Hostages, CIA Ties, and a Ghost Helicopter The Shocking True Story of Operation Jaque Fifteen hostages. A fake NGO. A guerrilla army conned on live radio. This isn’t fiction. This is psychological warfare at its most daring. On July 2, 2008, a battered helicopter lifted off from the Colombian jungle. Inside were shackled hostages—three American contractors, a former Colombian presidential candidate, and others who had endured years of brutal captivity under the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). But something was wrong. The helicopter crew weren’t rebels—they were...

For a year and a half, Christopher Nyerges took and occupied a hilltop home on one acre whose ownership was being disputed in probate court. Due to not having to pay rent, Nyerges was able to experiment and practice many of the skills that he later used in his ongoing classes, and books (“Urban Wilderness,” “Extreme Simplicity,” etc.). This book describes how this all came about, some of the specific experiences during that time, and practical lessons about gardening, use of resources, how we relate to our land, etc. The book is intended to appeal to a general reader (such as ...

In 1976, Francis Beaumont spirited 11-year-old Kim Chown and her brother away from their mother to Africa, where he had taken a job as a university lecturer. There, behind a veneer of respectability, he terrorised and brutalised his own child, Kim, sexually and emotionally abusing her several times a day. Only aged 20 did Kim feel able to escape from him, descending into alcoholism, after her siblings and mother refused to help her seek justice. But after almost ending her own life, Kim fought back.

Thomas Geve was just 15 years old when he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp on 11th April 1945. It was the third concentration camp he had survived. Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Thomas was separated from his mother and left to fend for himself in the men’s camp of Auschwitz I, at the age of 13. During the 22 months he was imprisoned, he was subjected to and forced to observe first-hand the inhumane world of Nazi concentration camps.

Experience a hurricane in Cabo San Lucas, where 27 boats went up on the beach. Then sail across the pacific with nothing but a sextant, make an 800 mile error, and then end up arriving as a volcano is erupting!

Maxwell Smart tenía solo once años cuando toda su familia fue asesinada. Pudo haber muerto también, pero su madre le ordenó salvarse. Huyó al bosque, cavó un hoyo para refugiarse y buscó comida en las granjas cercanas. Con la ropa hecha harapos y al borde de la inanición, escapó repetidamente de la muerte a manos de los nazis. Después de meses en soledad, Maxwell se encontró con otro niño que deambulaba por el bosque en busca de comida. Janek, al igual que Maxwell, era huérfano y los dos se hicieron amigos.

A romantic wilderness cabin becomes a dream-box of catastrophe and survival, in this true adventure with a paranormal twist. Will, a treeplanter, hikes with a companion to meet his wife and 3-year-old daughter in BC's remote Jumbo Pass. An overnight storm pushes them to the brink of deadly choices, at fate's mercy. Caught in the strands of a deadly time-loop, Will must navigate a series of doorways to survival. Each choice means a different outcome, a different life… or even death. The story’s mystery plays out against the backdrop of vast natural beauty in the Purcell Mountains of ...

From a young boy in the Philippines with nothing but a dream to a self-made success in America, Amboy is the gripping true story of resilience, relentless determination, and the pursuit of a better life. Rome’s journey wasn’t easy. He didn’t speak fluent English. He had no money, no connections, and no clear path forward. What he did have was an unshakable work ethic and a belief that in America, anything was possible if you worked hard enough. This inspiring immigrant memoir follows Rome from his humble beginnings in the Philippines to his daring escape from a shipping job that took ...

Childhood or wildhood? This collection of stories begins with a young boy whose cleverness, ability, and determination are more in line with an adult rather than the curious-minded six-year-old that we are introduced to in the first story. Normal was never to be a part of Marcel Pontbriand’s life. Orphaned at the tender young age of 14 and with only pennies to his name, you’ll listen about how he took to the ice roads of Canada and met with fear, tragedy, and obstacles that only few could even imagine.

In the winter of 1959, a group of nine young and experienced hikers embarked on a journey into the Ural Mountains of Russia. Although they had previously undertaken cold-weather trips, this particular expedition would tragically be their last. During their trek, the hikers encountered something unexpected in the supposedly desolate region, resulting in the demise of the entire group. The exact events of that fateful night remain unknown, but the incident has since become one of the world's most perplexing mysteries.

Lidia was just three years old when she arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau with her mother, grandparents and foster brother. They were from Belarus, their ‘crime’ that they supported the partisan resistance to Nazi occupation. Lidia was picked by Dr Josef Mengele for his experiments and sent to the children’s block where she survived eighteen months of hell. Injected with infectious diseases, desperately malnourished, she came close to death. Her mother - who risked her life to secretly visit Lidia - was her only tie to humanity.

This audiobook is all about mass disappearances which have occurred in history. These events run the gamut from entire villages whose inhabitants disappeared to a flight of military planes gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle.

What Secrets Does Your Legacy Hold? Bonnie shares her incredible story about the power of love, family, and legacy and how these helped her overcome the chaos that not only surrounded her in the Jim Crow south, but also boiled inside her own soul. Nana always told little Bonnie that she had the feet of a princess. Her small, perfect feet meant that she was something special. Nana also drilled into little Bonnie that the most important things she could have were an education and Jesus, because those are the only two things nobody could ever take away. Set in a middle class neighborhood in ...

October 8, 2017 sparked the Tubbs Fire: the most destructive California wildfire at that time. Entire communities were burned to the ground, and scores of people lost their lives. It was also the evening Armando and Carmen Berriz, Cuban immigrants, stayed at a friend's house in the Santa Rosa hills of northern California. While they slept, the Tubbs Fire advanced toward them. Armando and Carmen, in a frantic attempt to escape the flames, would spend seven hours sheltering in a swimming pool while the mountain burned around them.

As paramedic Kathy Harms navigates the devastation in the aftermath of the catastrophic 2005 Kashmir Earthquake as a first-time medical aid worker, she is confronted by the scale of suffering she observes in the region, and her own lack of experience in the area of humanitarian work.

On 17th November, 2012, Salvador Alvarenga left the coast of Mexico for a two-day fishing trip. A vicious storm killed his engine and the current dragged his boat out to sea. The storm picked up and carried him West, deeper into the heart of the Pacific Ocean. Alvarenga would not touch solid ground again for fourteen months. When he was washed ashore on January 30th, 2014, he had drifted over 9,000 miles.

James Bond: author, ornithologist, marksman, and...identity-theft victim? When James Bond published his landmark book, Birds of the West Indies, he had no idea it would set in motion events that would link him to the most iconic spy in the Western world and turn his life upside down. Born into a wealthy family but cut off in his early 20s, James Bond took off to the West Indies in search of adventure.

In 2013 Jaivet Ealom fled Myanmar's brutal regime, where Rohingya like him were being persecuted and killed, and boarded a boat of asylum seekers bound for Australia. Instead of finding refuge, he was transported to Australia's infamous Manus Regional Processing Centre. Blistering hot days spent in shipping containers on the island melted into weeks, then years . . . until, finally, facing either jail in Papua New Guinea or being returned to almost certain death in Myanmar, he took matters into his own hands.

Michelle Segrest dreamed of checking one giant challenge off her bucket list. Boarding a 43-foot sailboat to rekindle her relationship of six years, she set out on the eight-month voyage from North Germany to Alabama filled with hope. But suffering extreme seasickness and heavy gales in the Baltic proved the least of her problems when she faced abusive gaslighting from her partner. Unable to keep food down long enough to help when maintenance issues struck, Michelle’s only comfort came from her two devoted beagles.

An unflinching memoir of survival, redemption, and the unstoppable human spirit. Born into violence, poverty, and chaos on the unforgiving streets of Southeast London, Mark Anthony seemed destined for a life of destruction. Abandoned by his father, battered by abuse, entangled in crime, drugs, and despair, his early years read like a grim checklist of everything that could go wrong. Expelled from schools, locked in children’s homes, betrayed, imprisoned — even battling cancer, bankruptcy, and false accusations — Mark’s life spiraled again and again to the brink of ruin. But in his ...