At the beginning of thetwentieth century, the South Pole was the most coveted prize in thefiercely nationalistic modern age of exploration. In this brilliantdual biography, the award-winning writer Roland Huntford reexaminesevery detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain'sRobert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen. Scott, who died along theway with four of his men only eleven miles from his next cache ofsupplies, became Britain's beloved failure, while Amundsen, who notonly beat Scott to the Pole but returned alive, was largelyforgotten. This account of their race is a gripping, highlyreadable history that captures the driving ambitions of the era andthe complex, often deeply flawed men who were charged with carryingthem out. The Last Place on Earth is the first of Huntford's masterly trilogyof polar biographies. It is also the only work on the subject inthe English language based on the original Norwegian sources, towhich Huntford returned to revise and update this edition.
Most people think of yoga as a solitary activity that isinherently therapeutic. While that is generally true, yoga posesand breathing practices can also be prescribed for specific healthproblems—often in combination with dietary advice taken fromAyurveda, traditional Indian medicine. Yoga Therapy is an essentialguide for yoga teachers, advanced practitioners, and anyone whowants to make therapeutic use of yoga. A. G. and Indra Mohanprescribe postures, breathing techniques, and basic Ayurvedicprinciples for a variety of common health problems, includingasthma, back pain, constipation, hip pain, knee pain, menstrualproblems, and scoliosis. Yoga Therapy is one of the few books that shows yoga teachers howto put together appropriate yoga sequences and breathing techniquesfor their students. Mohan details how to correctly move into, hold,and move out of poses, how to breathe during practice to achievespecific results, and how to customize a yoga practice by creatingsequences of yoga poses for a particular pers
Here is a personal tribute to “the father of modern yoga” SriTirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888–1989), written by one of hislongtime disciples. Krishnamacharya was a renowned Indian yogamaster, Ayurvedic healer, and scholar who modernized yoga practiceand whose students—including B. K. S. Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois, T.K. V. Desikachar, and Indra Devi—dramatically popularized yoga inthe West. In this book, the author, A. G. Mohan, a well-respected yogateacher and yoga therapist, draws on his own memories andKrishnamacharya’s diaries and recorded material, to present afascinating view of the man and his teachings, and Mohan's own warmand inspiring relationship with the master. This portrait of thegreat teacher will be a compelling and informative read for yogateachers and students who truly want to understand the source oftheir tradition and practice.
Other cities have histories. Los Angeles has legends. Midcentury Los Angeles. A city sold to the world as "the whitespot of America," a land of sunshine and orange groves, wholesomeMidwestern values and Hollywood stars, protected by the world’smost famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this publicimage lies a hidden world of "pleasure girls" and crooked cops,ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coastgangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men–one L.A.’smost notorious gangster, the other its most famous policechief–each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city. Former street thug turned featherweight boxer Mickey Cohen leftthe ring for the rackets, first as mobster Benjamin "Bugsy"Siegel’s enforcer, then as his protégé. A fastidious dresser andunrepentant killer, the diminutive Cohen was Hollywood’s favoritegangster–and L.A.’s preeminent underworld boss. Frank Sinatra,Robert Mitchum, and Sammy Davis Jr.
