Peter Allison was only nineteen when he left Australia for Africa, thinking he might travel around and see a bit of the country before going home to a 'proper job'. But Africa worked its magic, and Peter ended up falling, quickly and completely, in love with the country and its wildlife. Landing in a game reserve in the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta, he became a safari guide and, some twelve years later, his short holiday in Africa isn't over yet.Whatever You Do, Don't Run is his gu...

A hilarious, highly original collection of essays based on the Botswana truism: “only food runs!” With a new introduction and new material from the authorIn the tradition of Bill Bryson, a new writer brings us the lively adventures and biting wit of an African safari guide. Peter Allison gives us the guide’s-eye view of living in the bush, confronting the world’s fiercest terrain of wild animals and, most challenging of all, managing herds of gaping tourists. Passionate fo...

A new and expanded edition of Peter Allison’s hilarious, highly original collection of essays based on the Botswana truism: “Only food runs!”With biting wit and tales of outrageous adventure, Peter Allison gives us a safari guide’s first-hand account of working in the African bush. Allison regales us with stories about confronting the world’s fiercest terrain of wild animals and most, terrifying of all, managing herds of gaping tourists run amok. His humor is exceeded only by his l...

Plans are usually only good for one thing - laughing at in hindsight. So, armed with rudimentary Spanish, dangerous levels of curiosity and a record of poor judgement, I set off to tackle whatever South America could throw at me.Not content with regular encounters with dangerous animals on one continent, Peter Allison decided to get up close and personal with some seriously scary animals on another.Unlike in Africa, where all Peter's experiences had been safari bas...

On his nineteenth birthday, Peter Allison flipped a coin. One side would take him to Africa and the other to South America, the two places he wanted to explore before he died. He recounted his time spent as a safari guide in Africa to much acclaim in Whatever You Do, Don’t Run and Don’t Look Behind You. Sixteen years later, he makes his way to Santiago, Chile, ready to seek out the continent’s best, weirdest, and wildest adventures, and to chase the elusive jaguar.

It shouldn't be fun to be chased by an animal that outweighs you by a factor of seventy, but Peter Allison gets an odd thrill every time an elephant charges his beaten-up jeep or a peckish crocodile looks at him sideways.And now our favourite safari leader is back with more crazy, incredible, endearing and laugh-out-loud funny tales from his time guiding unsuspecting tourists through the African bush. By now you'd think he'd know his way around. You'd be wrong. From avoiding territ...

Whatever You Do, Don't Run is a hilarious collection of true tales from top -safari guide Peter Allison. In a place where thewrong behavior could get you eaten, Allison has survived face-to-face encounters with big cats, angry -elephants, and the world's most unpredictable animals—herds of untamed tourists and foolhardy guideswhose outrageous antics sometimes make them even more dangerous than a pride of hungry lions!Join Allison as he faces down charging lion...

Years after her successful and impactful career at the CIA, Christina Hillsberg became enthralled with the stories of the trailblazing women who forged new paths within the Agency long before she began her career there in the aughts. These were women who sacrificed their personal lives, risked their safety, defied expectations, and boldly navigated the male-dominated spy organization.Through exclusive interviews with current and former female CIA officers, many of whom have never s...

Into Enemy Waters is the story of World War II's most elite and daring unit of warriors, the direct precursors to the Navy SEALs, told through the eyes of its last living member, ninety-five-year-old George Morgan. Morgan was just a wiry, seventeen-year-old lifeguard from New Jersey when he joined the Navy's new combat demolition unit, tasked to blow up enemy coastal defenses ahead of landings by allied forces. His first assignment: Omaha Beach on D-Day.When he returned st...

A groundbreaking, breathtaking history of the Chinese workers who built the Transcontinental Railroad, helping to forge modern America only to disappear into the shadows of history until now.From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliff...

In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition held a tantalizing appeal...

Seduced by the government’s offer of 320 acres per homesteader, Americans and Europeans rushed to Montana and the Dakotas to fulfill their own American dream in the first decade of the twentieth century.Jonathan Raban’s stunning evocation of the harrowing, desperate reality behind the homesteader’s dreams strips away the myth—while preserving the romance—that has shrouded our understanding of our own heartland.