On October 12, 1972, a plane carrying a team of young rugby players crashed into the remote, snow-peaked Andes. Out of the forty-five original passengers and crew, only sixteen made it off the mountain alive. For ten excruciating weeks they suffered deprivations beyond imagining, confronting nature head-on at its most furious and inhospitable. And to survive, they were forced to do what would have once been unthinkable….

This is their story – one of the most astonishing true adventures of the twentieth century.

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, tells of his exasperation with colleagues who try to play both sides of the street: looking to science for justification of their religious convictions while evading the most difficult implications – the existence of a prime mover sophisticated enough to create and run the universe, “to say nothing of mind reading millions of humans simultaneously.” Such an entity, he argues, would have to be extremely complex, raising the question of how it came into existence, how it communicates – through spiritons! – and where it resides. Dawkins is frequently dismissed as a bully, but he is only putting theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand. Dawkins systematically peels away at the onion of blind faith by injecting wisdom through a logical and a rational process. A must read.

Humanity in the twenty-first century is facing what might be described as its ultimate environmental catastrophe: the destruction of the climate that has nurtured human civilization and with it the basis of life on earth as we know it. All ecosystems on the planet are now in decline. Enormous rifts have been driven through the delicate fabric of the biosphere. The economy and the earth are headed for a fateful collision—if we don’t alter course.

In The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both the problem and the solution. They argue that the source of our ecological crisis lies in the paradox of wealth in capitalist society, which expands individual riches at the expense of public wealth, including the wealth of nature. In the process, a huge ecological rift is driven between human beings and nature, undermining the conditions of sustainable existence: a rift in the metabolic relation between humanity and nature that is irreparable within capitalist society, since integral to its very laws of motion.

Critically examining the sanguine arguments of mainstream economists and technologists, Foster, Clark, and York insist instead that fundamental changes in social relations must occur if the ecological (and social) problems presently facing us are to be transcended. Their analysis relies on the development of a deep dialectical naturalism concerned with issues of ecology and evolution and their interaction with the economy. Importantly, they offer reasons for revolutionary hope in moving beyond the regime of capital and toward a society of sustainable human development.

Book of Green, the free eco living directory full of green and ethical businesses, confirms the strength and prosperity of the green sector. Despite the recession Book of Green has launched a larger edition of the paperback eco-directory, doubled its print run, and gone digital, launching an iPhone app.

“In less than a week since the launch advertisers in the book are already seeing results showing that consumers are spending. Innovative companies that can help save money, energy and show social responsibility by putting both people and planet first, are those that will thrive in this difficult climate.” says Sue Jueno – co-founder of Book of Green.

Book of Green provides readers with hundreds of eco-friendly companies in this year’s paperback. From architects, body & skincare and cleaning products to homeware, microgeneration and sustainable tourism as well as offers, articles and new this year a fabulous competition.

The competition will enable one lucky reader to win an entire Christmas shopping list. Winning 26 presents for friends and family, including goodies from Green People, Jo Wood Organics, Balm Balm, Weleda, a case of wine from Vintage Roots, a signed copy of ‘The Woodland Year’ by Ben Law, and many more. Plus there are 50 runner-up prizes, for a little pre-Christmas treat.

Book of Green is available for free across the country while stocks last, in stores such as Planet Organic, The Eden Project, health food shops, WHSmith, and is free with Permaculture magazine in July. To find your nearest copy visit the distribution page on the website. An online version is also available.

Destiny played a hand when Katja from Germany and Augustas from Lithuania met in Spain and then decided in France to share their lives together. In January 2006 they set off for Mexico with the conviction that their thumbs will guide them on their journey. Seeing life as an invitation to follow their dreams, they found themselves in most Central American countries within the first 16 months of their life-journey. With trust in human kindness, they were provided with all they needed during their trip – free transportation, shelter, and at times even food.

Katja Lachmann’s book provides a fascinating account of their experiences whilst hitch-hiking through Mexico, Central America, and Cuba. The intrepid travellers take you to past lives in Mexico, a self-created world in Belize, an illegal border crossing in Guatemala, a sailing adventure in the Caribbean Sea, a confrontation with Cuban authorities, and provide a unique view on a personal assault in Costa Rica. Follow them to meet the people of this world and gain a valuable insight to everyday life on the road.

One bright spring day in 1925, Gabriela arrives from the poverty-stricken backwoods of Brazil to the lively seaside port of Ilhéus amid a flock of filthy migrant workers. Though wearing rags and covered in dirt, she attracts the attention of Nacib, a cafe owner, who is in desperate need of a new cook. So dire is his situation that he hires the dishevelled girl. The savvy young woman quickly proves to be an excellent chef and once well-scrubbed and decently dressed, an eye-catching beauty. Nacib quickly finds himself the owner of the most prosperous business in town and the employer of its most sought-after woman. Lusty, satirical and full of intrigue, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon is a vastly entertaining panorama of small town Brazilian life.

Travel photography books tend to fall into two camps: dauntingly glossy affairs offering bags of inspiration but little clue as how to actually take a decent shot, and technical bibles brimming with f-stops and white balances that require the services of a translator.

Here, though, is a guide that’s both general and detailed enough to be of real value to anyone serious about taking memorable photographs on the road. Authored by Wanderlust photo guru Steve Davey – and distilled from his 20 years experience as a pro photographer – the book covers everything from buying a camera to selling your work.

Divided into six chapters, the book swiftly tackles equipment and pre-trip planning, before taking on the meaty issues of execution, inspiration and correction. Throughout, comparative shots show exactly how a particular technique or perspective can transform a photo from ho-hum to humdinger, as well as underlining the old adage about genius being 99% perspiration (the author has clearly spent a lot of time alone, up mountains, awaiting the arrival of dawn).

In the Execution chapter, there’s general advice on technical issues (from the basic – shutter speed – to the more advanced – fill-in flash, histograms), while in the Inspiration chapter, specific scenarios – cities, wildlife, underwater – come under discussion. The Correction chapter then offers a beginner’s guide to one of the fastest-moving and least-understood areas of modern photography: digital enhancing.

There’s a lot to absorb here (320 close-printed pages), but then it’s the sort of book you dip into before a trip – to brush up on shooting in deserts, or at festivals, say – rather than read from cover to cover.

It would have been good to see a section on common faults and how to correct them, and perhaps an in-depth analysis of a few truly great photos, and what makes them work. Instead, though, a linked website (www.footprinttravelphotography.info) offers a photo clinic for readers to submit their own shots and get a critique from Steve: brutal perhaps, but no doubt effective.

Whether or not you take up that offer, this remains an endlessly useful handbook and an inspiring reminder of the way in which the very act of taking a photograph can enhance and illuminate our travels.

Described as a little masterpiece of travel, history, and adventure, In Patagonia charts a six-month journey made by Bruce Chatwin in 1972 from the Rio Negro to the world’s southernmost city, Ushuaia.

Chatwin’s evocative descriptions, notes on the odd history of the region, and enchanting anecdotes make In Patagonia an exhilarating look at a place that still retains the exotic mystery of a far-off, unseen land. An instant classic upon publication in 1977, In Patagonia remains a masterwork of literature.

Indigenous societies today face difficult choices: can they develop, modernize, and advance without endangering their sacred traditions and communal identity? Specifically, can their communities benefit from national education while resisting the tendency of state-imposed programs to undermine their cultural sovereignty, language, and traditions? According to Lois Meyer and Benjamin Maldonado, these are among the core questions being raised by indigenous societies whose comunalidad – or communal way of life – is at odds with the dictates of big business and the social programs of the state.

To explore these issues in depth, Meyer and Maldonado conducted a series of dialogues with Noam Chomsky, and invited numerous organizers and intellectuals from indigenous communities of resistance to comment. In three in-depth conversations, Chomsky offers poignant lessons from his vast knowledge of world history, linguistics, economics, anti-authoritarian philosophy, and personal experience, and traces numerous parallels with other peoples who have resisted state power while attempting to modernize, develop, survive, and sustain their unique community identity and tradition. Following the interviews are commentaries from more than a dozen activists and intellectuals from the Americas, who speak from their own on-the-ground experiences and work with indigenous communities in Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, Peru, Panama, and Canada.

This is a powerful reflection on the interconnected issues of education, cultural preservation, globalization, forms of resistance, and possibilities for hope on local, regional, and national levels. It is Noam Chomsky at his best – lucid, accessible, and deeply informative.

A Mexican goes in search of his father. On her deathbed, his mother has told him to return to her native village in the south to search him out: ‘Just as you pass the gate of los Colimotes, there’s a beautiful view of a green plain tinged with the yellow of ripe corn. From there you can see Comala.’ But when the man gets to Comala, he finds an arid plain and an empty village, with nothing except the voices of the dead to speak to him. It soon seems that he too is bound to die.

From these slender elements, the Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo weaves a story that relentlessly draws the reader in, and says more about life as well as death in rural Mexico than many longer and more elaborate works. Rulfo is a story-teller who is well aware that poetry comes from knowing what to leave out as much as what to leave in.

The narrative of Pedro Paramo – the name of the protagonist’s father – consists of some 60 fragments. These fragments are the voices of the ghosts still present in the village of Comala, who between them gradually build up the jigsaw of his father’s life and death. Pedro Paramo, we discover, was the local landowner, who accumulated his lands and power by treachery or by brutally arranged marriages, until at last he fell for a woman he found it impossible to win, as she retreated first into madness and then – inevitably in this novel – death.

The 100 or so pages of the novel are held together not only by the gradually unfolding story, but by repeated images and expressions that broaden out the impact of the local events and endow them with a more general resonance. The voices of the former inhabitants of Comala give a stark impression of life as something suffered rather than created.

Pedro Paramo was originally published in Mexico in 1955. Despite the fact that Rulfo only wrote this novel and the short stories of The Burning Plain, he has been universally acknowledged as one of the masters of recent Mexican writing, both because of the sobriety and resonant understatement that he consistently achieves, and because of the way he uses these gifts to capture the emptiness and despair of rural Mexico. This is a Mexico which has been abandoned to suffering for centuries, but which still retains its capacity to burst into shocking life.

Pedro Paramo is a classic in the truest sense. It is a book that has profoundly influenced the making of literature, and continues to resonate in other books.