Showing titles in Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

Lynn Schooler had recently lost a dear friend and was feeling his marriage slipping away from him when he set out on a daring journey - first by boat, then on foot - into the Alaskan wilderness to clear his head. His solo expedition, recounted in Walking Home, is filled with the awe and danger of being on one's own in the wild, being battered by the elements and even, for two harrowing days, becoming the terrified quarry of a grizzly bear. But the formidable, lonely landscape is also rich with human stories....

Sprague Theobald, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and expert sailor with over 40,000 offshore miles under his belt, always considered the Northwest Passage - the sea route connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific - the ultimate uncharted territory. Since Roald Amundsen completed the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906, only 24 pleasure craft have followed in his wake.

This gripping true story follows a biologist's human-powered journey from the Pacific Northwest to the Arctic to rediscover her love of birds, nature, and adventure—perfect for fans of Cheryl Strayed.​ During graduate school, as she conducted experiments on the peculiarly misshapen beaks of...

"La nostra lingua manca di parole per esprimere questa offesa, la demolizione di un uomo". Con ostinazione e pacatezza, Primo Levi non ha mai smesso di cercare le parole per raccontare l'atrocità della deportazione e del campo di sterminio di Auschwitz, in cui venne internato dal febbraio 1944 al 27 gennaio 1945. Parole di testimonianza sconvolgente e di grande potenza narrativa che vengono qui accolte e restituite ad alta voce da Roberto Saviano.

Join Gordon Alexander in Nepal as he drags his "heavy ass" over the Himalayas in this hilarious, adventure-soaked account of the Three Passes Trek, culminating in a visit to Everest Base Camp. Together with guide Subash and porter Nima, Gordon tackles high passes in excess of 5,400 meters (17,700 feet) and explains how high altitude affects a mildly overweight road builder from sea level in the tropics. Each part of the journey brings new challenges, including sub-freezing temperatures, almost falling into a crevasse, and alarmingly warm beer.

42 letters written by Titanic passengers and crew, plus two documentaries relating survivors' stories and bringing the tragedy to life through the voices of the wireless operators The largest, most luxurious liner in the world, the RMS Titanic captured the public's imagination. But four days...

King Louis Philippe II created the Foreign Legion in 1831 as a way to rid France of penniless immigrants and others considered a liability to the French establishment. The Foreign Legion still exists today as an elite army of modern mercenaries from around the world, in the service of la France. Considered a haven for the dregs of society, joining the Foreign Legion was rumored to be simple, but it wasn't.

Travel across the US with David Reynolds as he explores Route 50, one of the few remaining two-lane highways running from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Driving as slowly as safety permits, stopping frequently and often going backwards to have a second look at something glimpsed in passing, Reynolds talks to people on the streets, in bars and cafes, motels and gas stations. They talk about everything from slavery and the traditional Indian sundance, to cannabis in Colorado and tornadoes in Kansas, and about everyone from George Washington and Aaron Burr to Marilyn Monroe and the Eagles.

*Now a major international TV series starring Rachel Griffiths and Martin Henderson* A poignant and darkly comedic memoir from a mother who opened an ethical escort agency in small town New Zealand – the only country in the world where sex work is fully legalised – and dared to make a...

Stephen McGown was en route from London to South Africa, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip by motorbike, returning home to Johannesburg. He had reached Timbuktu, in Mali, when he was captured, along with a Dutch and a Swedish national, by Al Qaeda Islamist militants. Steve was taken because he held a British passport. He was subsequently held hostage at various camps in the Sahara Desert in the north-west of Africa for nearly six years before eventually being released.

In January 2020, Amy Bloom travelled with her husband Brian to Switzerland, where he was helped by Dignitas to end his life while Amy sat with him and held his hand. Brian was terminally ill and for the last year of his life, Amy had struggled to find a way to support his wish to take control of his death, to not submerge "into the darkness of an expiring existence". Written with piercing insight and wit, In Love is Bloom's intimate, authentic and startling account of losing Brian, first slowly to the disease of Alzheimer's, and then on becoming a widow.

Brought to you by Penguin. Lucy Shepherd’s story of her journey to become an explorer, her world-first expedition across the Amazon’s Kanuku Mountains and her mission to share the wild places of our world. What does it really take to become an explorer? To travel beyond maps and certainty...

Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker, originally from Ohio, was best known as one of the commanders of the 94th "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron, a crack unit of World War I pilots that included many former members of the famed Lafayette Escadrille. The 94th ended the war in France with the highest number of air victories of any American squadron.

Edmund Hillary - A Biography is the story of the New Zealand beekeeper who climbed Mount Everest. A man, who against expedition orders, drove his tractor to the South Pole; a man honored around the world for his pioneering climbs, yet who collapsed on more than one occasion on a mountain, and a man who gave so much to Nepal yet lost his family to its mountains.

Fascinated by the expeditions of Sir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook? Then you’ll love this account of the Centurion’s circumnavigation of the globe, one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of maritime exploration and naval warfare. In 1740, George Anson and his fleet set off to harass Spanish commerce in the Pacific and attack towns on the coasts of Chile and Peru. Four years later, over half the men had died and of the seven ships which left Portsmouth only the Centurion had completed its objective of attacking Spanish possessions around the globe.

Karen Grassle, the beloved actress who played Ma on Little House on the Prairie, grew up at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in a family where love was plentiful but alcohol wreaked havoc.

Across Islands and Oceans is the memoir of 25 year-old James Baldwin and his epic two-year, solo circumnavigation in Atom, his trusty but aging 28-foot sailboat.

Rick Bettua should be dead. Many times over. The retired US Navy master diver suffered a devastating attack by a 12-foot bull shark that shredded his thigh from his knee to his hip. By the time he reached the shore 90 minutes later, he’d bled out, he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. Yet, emergency medical workers didn’t give up. His miraculous recovery in late 2020 was just the most recent of his numerous underwater life-and-death experiences.

This book is a lush and beautiful memoir of a very special house and a superb recreation of a bygone era. In 1967, veteran travel writer Eric Newby and his heroic wife Wanda fulfiled their dream of a return to life in the Italian hills where they first met during World War II. But this...

This gripping and triumphant memoir follows a living legend of extreme mountaineering as he makes his assault on history, one 8,000-meter summit at a time. For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing’s holy grail: to stand atop the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of...