Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Friday, January 23, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
Books reviews (Christmas time!)
Skate,Surf, rock, bikes and cars, very fun drawings and a good inspiration source.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Henry de Monfreid a French Adventurer
Henry de Monfreid (14 November 1879, Leucate - 13 December 1974) was a French adventurer and author. Born in Leucate, Aude, France, he was the son of artist Georges-Daniel de Monfreid and knew Paul Gauguin as a child.
"I have lived a rich, restless, magnificent life," Monfreid declared a few days before dying in 1974 at the age of 95.
Monfreid was one of those individuals who only find their true focus in life when they stumble across it on their travels. For Monfreid it was to be the African coast from Tanzania to Suez, treacherous routes that he tirelessly sailed in his various expeditions as adventurer, smuggler and gun runner.
In 1911 Monfreid went to Djibouti, then a French colony, in order to trade coffee. He built a boat for himself and used it to traverse the Red Sea. Between 1912 and 1940 he ran guns through the area, dove for pearls & sea slugs, and smuggled hashish into Egypt, earning several stays in prison in the process. He converted to Islam during this period. During the 1930s, Monfreid was persuaded by Joseph Kessel to write about his adventures, and the stories became bestsellers.
During World War II Monfreid served the Italians until he was captured by the British, who deported him to Kenya. After the war he retired to France where he quietly raised a plantation of opium poppies until he was discovered, narrowly escaping prosecution. He settled down to a life of writing, turning out around 70 books over the next 30 years—an astonishing number, to rival any of the great writers. Only a handful of his books have been translated into English and are difficult to find.
During barren periods, when writing was not bringing in enough money, Monfreid relied upon mortgaging the family collection of Gauguin paintings. Only after his death were these discovered to be fake.
Monfreid was far from a calculating merchant. Indeed, he affirmed himself to be "sick and disgusted with businessmen... who ruin with impunity the poor innocents who believe in the value of justice, honesty, integrity and conscience." Yet there was nothing more he feared than "to be obliged to accept the slavery of some dreary job and become a domestic animal." His business dealings were little more than a means for Monfreid to follow his star through the African skies and seas. He fully acknowledged his naïvete in the realm of business and trusted most in his intuition and Providence to sustain him on his precarious course.
Above all, Monfreid loved to be engaged in struggle with the elements: while navigating his way through tempests at sea, his life and the lives of his crew hanging by a thread, existence itself became something pure and precious. He longed only to be with "the sea, the wind, the virgin sand of the desert, the infinity of far-off skies in which wheel the numberless hosts of the skies... and the dream that I became one with them." The works of humanity held little sway for him compared to the majesty of nature itself. The desert taught him about the futility of ambition and when he finally beheld the Pyramids he couldn't wait to leave: "The only thing that one might possibly admire is the stupendous effort it took to build them, and this admiration demands the mentality of a German tourist."
Bibliography
As indicated, few of Monfreid's works have been translated into English. He is probably best known in the English-speaking world for the following two books:
Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale and
Secrets of the Red Sea, a book about gun running.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Extreme Surf ... its Wild
By Benjamin Marcus
Offering a history of extreme surf's evolution, this book takes readers to the most remote, most popular, and most dangerous surfing spots. It features images of the longest, fastest, coldest and warmest waves.
Ranking of the World's biggest Wave :
1) Jaws, Maui, Hawaii
2) Todos Santos, Mexico
3) Mavericks, California
4) Cortes Bank, Mexico/California
5) Puerto Escondido, Mexico
6) Dungeons, South Africa
7) Wimea Bay, Oahu, Hawaii
8) Punta Lobos, Chile
9) Ghost Trees, California
10) Belharra, Euzkadi/France
11) Teahupoo, Tahiti
12) Outer Bommie, Western Australia
13) Playa Gris, Spain
14) El Buey, Chile
Extreme Surf illustrates the most extreme surfing behaviour. It explores the candidates for the world's gnarliest wave and the fastest. It journeys up the Amazone to reveal the fearsome pororoca and travels to England for a surf ride that can last over an hour and where the major hazards are dead sheep, trees and old refrigerators...
Monday, October 20, 2008
Ted Simon "Jupiter's Travels"
When I was seventeen, my mother, who hated that I ride motorcycles, advised me the reading of entitled Ted Simon's book " the Jupiter's travels ". Ted Simon's story redrew is four years journey around the world, leaving is country of origin, UK, in 1972 and crossing the five continents on a T120 Triumph Bonneville. It was for me a real revelation, and an initiation into travel. A must be read!
http://www.jupitalia.com/jupiter.html
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0965478521/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link
READ MORE - Ted Simon "Jupiter's Travels"
unfortunaltly hard to find in french...
to read more about Ted Simon, follow the links:
to read more about Ted Simon, follow the links:http://www.jupitalia.com/jupiter.html
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0965478521/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Rin Tanaka : Book of Fashion
This new title was edited by Rin Tanaka, in order to be requested by Harley-Davidson Museum, which was just opened in Milwaukee, July 12th, 2008! About 600 old fashion photos of Harley-Davidson riders in 1910s-1950s, owned by Harley-Davidson Archives, were selected and edited by Rin Tanaka.
Also lots of vintage fashion products like motorcycle jackets, kidney belts, boots and hats were apeared in very heavy 312- page volumes!
It features lots of old but super kool fashion histories of Harley-Davidson riders, living in 1910s-1950s.
Take a look : http://www.myfreedamn.com/
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Greg Williams... a professional writer
Greg Williams is a professional writer, living in Calgary, Alberta.
His main area of interest is automotive and motorcycle journalism. A weekly column appears in the Calgary Herald’s Driving.ca section. The column is titled ‘On the Road’, see www.calgaryherald.com and click on Driving.ca under Weekly Sections. Monthly columns, titled ‘Western Perspectives’, run in Inside Motorcycles — a Canadian publication. He is also the book review editor for Inside Motorcycles. Feature articles run monthly in American Iron Magazine, the No. 1 motorcycle magazine on the newsstands, and every three months in the Antique Motorcycle, the publication of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America.
Take a look on his blog :http://www.gregwilliams.ca/
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Clive Cussler an american novelist
Clive Cussler, the Grand Master of the American action adventure novel, grew up in Alhambra, California. He later attended Pasadena City College for two years, but then enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War where he served as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer in the Military Air Transport Service. Upon his discharge, he became a copywriter and later creative director for two of the nation's leading ad agencies. At that time, he wrote and produced radio and television commercials that won numerous international awards one at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. If u like adventure jump to :
http://www.numa.net/clive_cussler.html
Frank
Friday, July 11, 2008
A Press Review July 08
I recommend the book of Malick SIDIBE a great photographer from Bamako (Mali)
http://www.holott.org/malicksidibe/msidibe/
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Above the roar
In this book, ex-Surfer Magazine editor Matt Warshaw captures the voice of surfing. By picking out the essential moment in a dleuge of interviews with the each of history's most influencial surfers, Warshaw exposes the true soul of surfing.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Black Journey 1924-1925
A great route to the "great isle"In crossing the Sahara two years earlier, Haardt and Audoin had clearly proved that the car was indeed the ideal means of locomotion for linking North Africa to West Africa. Others had already set their sights further. So it occurred that one day, French President Gaston Doumergue mentioned to André Citroën and Georges-Marie Haardt the advantages of a regular link between the African colonies and Madagascar, a French territory isolated in the Indian ocean.
http://www.citroen.com/CWW/en-US/HISTORY/ADVENTURE/BlackCruise/
Its an amazing book that i recommand you to read
Frank
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Bonneville - Worl's fastest motorcycles
Author: Horst Rosler
Motorcyclists have always been interested in Bonneville, but fueled by the movie, Worlds Fastest Indian, that interest has never been more intense than it is now. Over 150 bikes make the salt their home for one week in September of 2006. Among all those Suzukis and Harley-Davidsons, a group of bikes stood apart: the streamliners that came for only one reason, to break the Land Speed Record for motorcycles. By the end of the week a new top speed stood at 350 miles per hour, though the old record was exceeded a number of times by different machines on the way to the new record. The energy that makes Bonneville work isnt gasoline, its the drive of the teams, each trying to break a record or simply meet a self-imposed goal. Well-known photographer Horst Rosler captured the magic of Bonneville for this new book. The bikes, the limitless salt, the sunburned faces of crew and riders - theyre all here, printed on high quality paper and bound as a hardcover book. A book that deserves a place on the shelf or coffee table of any true motorcycle enthusiast.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
A must be read... Zulu by Caryl Ferey
Ali Neuman,Chief of the CapeTown police departement,the window of South-Africa must deal with two major danger which are violence and Aids.
If apartheid disapeared from the political scene,old enemies are still alive behind the curtain of "reconciliation"...
Caryl Ferey born in 1967 is one of the major writer of the french thriller scene
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Surfer's journal
Alo-ha!
A conversation with Paul Strauch, Jr. and Steve Pezman
Gifted but mild-mannered individuals who don’t seek the spotlight— existing softly amid those who loudly call for recognition—are too often overlooked. This could be said of Paul Strauch Jr., a truly remarkable surfer for over four decades who quietly exudes the qualities of Hawaiian aesthetics and humble leadership that puts our sport and culture in its best light. As a Hawaiian surfer, with all that connotes, Strauch has been a hugely respected figure among knowledgeable aficionados and his greatest surfing peers for all those years—a form of recognition undoubtedly more satisfying to him than a constant flow of high-profile surf media acclaim. —S.P.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
The Half Moon Bay review : Bullet Falcon 4 Jason Lee
the legend of motorcycles
Actor Jason Lee looks at the Bullet Falcon motorcycle built for him by Falcon Motorcycles using a 1950 Triumph Thunderbid motor. The bike was unveiled for the first time at the Legend of the Motorcycle event at the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay Saturday...
We made a private photoshoot for this marvel, and we prepare an interview of falcon man Ian P Barry
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)