Return To Shangri La

It was Sunday afternoon on December 7th at the home of Charles Reed. His wife, daughter and six year old son Chip hear the radio report that Pearl Harbor is under attack by Japanese planes. Charles learns days later his brother stationed at Wheeler Field was killed, which ignites an uncontrolled permanent hatred for the Japanese which his son Chip quickly inherits. Thirty six years later, Chip Reed, a senior airline pilot and successful real estate investor, loses his wife and son in a head on crash in her Japanese sports car hit by a Japanese pickup truck. A year later he buys a B-25, has it restored and named “Ruptured Duck. After the show, he is in a real dogfight with a Japanese pilot flying a Zero fighter from the show which blows up in his flight path causing severe damage to his plane and forced to crash land killing his best friend. While recuperating he learns his life will be cut short due to a blood disease. He makes plans to settle his grievances and hate for the Japanese and makes plans to have revenge with the Japanese automaker for killing his uncle, his wife and son and best friend. With his plane completely restored, he tells the Chinese Government he wants to take his plane of tour of China visiting the towns and cities the Doolittle Raiders escaped through. His plan was approved and he ships his plane to China to begin his mission to end his life flying into the auto maker in Tokyo who killed his family and best friend. Chip Reed will have to outsmart the Chinese and Japanese defense systems before he can reach Tokyo.

A sequel to James Hilton's 1933 classic, Lost Horizons, on a hidden valley of permanent youth in Tibet. The time is the 1960s and Hugh Conway, the hero of Hilton's book, returns to Shangri-La to save the inhabitants from the evil designs of a Chinese Communist general who has found a map to the place.

“A lost world, man-eating tribesmen, lush andimpenetrable jungles, stranded American fliers (one of them a dame withgreat gams, for heaven's sake), a startling rescue mission. . . . This is atrue story made in heaven for a writer as talented as Mitchell Zuckoff. Whew—what an utterly compelling and deeplysatisfying read!" —Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic Award-winning former Boston Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoffunleashes the exhilarating, untold story of an extraordinary World War IIrescue mission, where a plane crash in the South Pacific plunged a trio of U.S.military personnel into a land that time forgot. Fans of Hampton Sides’ Ghost Soldiers, Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor, and David Grann’s The Lost Cityof Z will be captivated by Zuckoff’s masterfullyrecounted, all-true story of danger, daring, determination, and discovery injungle-clad New Guinea during the final days of WWII.

A chronicle of a kayak team's quest to make the first descent through the dangerous Tsangpo Gorge describes how the four expert members of the team took on an adventure that ended in tragedy.

Shipwrecked on an atoll in the Indian Ocean, the author and his wife receive help from visiting sailors and adapt to life in primitive conditions. After emergency repairs, they leave on the 3000-mile voyage home. Illustrated with 25 color photos.

Ancient adventurers have often spoken of a mystical land of perfect harmony and eternal bliss nestled in the forbidding remoteness of the Tibetan Plateau - the legendary Shangri La. No one has managed to pinpoint its exact location on a map. In the local belief system, Shangri La may well not be a place at all but rather the mental state of a pure and exalted body, speech and mind. Fascinated by this concept, the photographer and author Mahendra Singh set out on his quest. Most of it currently occupied by China, the Tibetan Plateau has been significantly distorted over time under state pressure. Therefore, the author traveled through some of the last surviving remnants of authentic Tibetan life found in the valleys of Ladakh and Spiti; often and justifiably referred to as 'Little Tibet'. He traveled through remote valleys, ventured across stark landscapes and visited the improbable green oases of human habitation, culture and religion, to bring together this comprehensive portrait of the region through his vivid photographs and meticulously researched text. This book aims to take the readers on a journey of discovery and reflection, and hopefully, a little further along the path to finding their own Shangri La.

The Chamagudao, or Tea-Horse Road, winds through dizzying mountain passes, across famed rivers like the Mekong and the Yangtze, and past monasteries and meadows in a circuitous route from Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces in western China to the Tibetan capital city of Lhasa. Following this legendary route, photographer Michael Yamashita takes a rare and enchanting look into the changing world of Tibet--ancient and modern, sacred and secular--before the legends and mysteries of the Tea-Horse Road disappear into the Tibetan mist.