Showing titles in Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

In The Last of His Kind, renowned adventure writer David Roberts gives readers a spellbinding history of mountain climbing in the twentieth century as told through the biography of Brad Washburn, legendary mountaineering pioneer and photographer. Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, has praised David Roberts, saying, “Nobody alive writes better about mountaineering” - and nowhere is that truth more evident than in this breathtaking account of the life and exploits of America’s greatest mountain climber.

Lieutenant William Frederick “Bill” Harris was 25 years old when captured by Japanese forces during the Battle of Corregidor in May 1942. This son of a decorated Marine general escaped from hell on earth by swimming eight hours through a shark-infested bay; but his harrowing ordeal had just begun. Shipwrecked on the southern coast of the Philippines, he was sheltered by a Filipino aristocrat, engaged in guerilla fighting, and eventually set off through hostile waters to China.

Over the course of twenty years of delivering sailboats to far-flung quaysides, John Kretschmer has had innumerable adventures, both humorous and terrifying. In Flirting with Mermaids, he recounts the most memorable of them. He crosses the Western Caribbean with a crew of eccentric Swedes researching ancient Mayan mariners, lands in Aden at the outbreak of civil war, and endures a North Atlantic crossing during which he discovers the existence of Force 13 winds.

From the internationally beloved YouTube adventurer and National Geographic TV host, a singular and fearless new travel memoir packed with inspiration for leading a more vibrant, wild, and authentic life. Are you living with a capital “L”? When was the last time you truly felt you were your...

In August 2017, 32-year-old Jeremy Evans endured multiple ferocious attacks by a protective female grizzly bear while hunting in the Alberta wilderness. Jeremy’s injuries were massive, his scalp and face destroyed, an eye and his jaw dangling down. The tendons on one leg had been fully severed during the mauling. His hands were damaged where he had physically fought the bear. It was more than a dozen kilometres to where he had parked his truck in darkness early that morning and absolutely no one was near.

‘Incredible individual, incredible book, incredible story.’ CHRIS HEMSWORTH ‘A hero who is as humble as he is resilient… testament to a “never give up” spirit!’ BEAR GRYLLS ‘From reading this book, the message that comes shining through is this: you can achieve anything.’ ANT...

She was 17 years old on a Christmas Eve flight 40 years ago to join her father for Christmas when the unimaginable happened. The Lockheed L-188A Electra, on the way from Lima to Pucallpa, flew directly into a thunderstorm. A strike of lightning left the plane incinerated and Juliane Diller (Koepcke) still strapped to her plane seat falling through the night air two miles above the Earth. Her survival is unexplainable and considered a modern-day miracle. Her mother was among the 91 dead and Juliane the sole survivor.

In 1972, Jackie was twenty-two years old, married twice, and divorced once. After finally getting out of her turbulent second marriage, she learns that her baby daughter, Jenny, is profoundly brain-damaged. Despite pressure to institutionalize her, Jackie decides to care for Jenny alone. Jackie works two jobs to pay for Jenny’s mounting medical bills: a cocktail waitress on weekends and an office girl at Cessna during the week. Despite her sin and naivety, God patiently draws Jackie to Himself through Jenny.

It is the early 19th century, and the land recently purchased by President Thomas Jefferson stretches west for thousands of miles. Who inhabits this vast new garden of Eden? What strange beasts and natural formations can be found? Thus was the birth of Manifest Destiny and the resulting bloody battles with Indigenous tribes encountered by white explorers. Also in this volatile mix are the grizzled fur trappers and mountain men, waging war against the Native American tribes whose lands they traverse.

As a scout, I needed all my five senses and every faculty of my mind at highest efficiency at all times. There is nothing that sharpens a man’s senses so acutely as to know that bitter and determined enemies are in pursuit of him night and day. In many lines of endeavor, errors may be repeated without fatal results, but in an Indian or savage war, or in a bitter feud, one little slip entails the “absent” mark forever against a man’s name. Solitude intensifies the perceptions. The herd with a thousand eyes trusts itself to a solitary sentinel with only two.

In 2017, world-class ultrarunner Hillary Allen was at the top of her sport - and it felt like she was running on top of the world as she competed in Norway's Tromsø Skyrace. Allen was nearly halfway through the 50-kilometer race when she fell 150 feet off an exposed ridge, fracturing her back and breaking multiple ribs, both feet, and both of her lower arms. Beginning with the dramatic story of her accident and rescue, Out and Back: A Runner's Story of Survival Against All Odds recounts Allen's fight to return to the life she loves.

"In the Eye of the Hurricane: Winds of Time and Sea Combine Alone on a hand-built search tower that he and his crew rigged at sea—west of Key West—Mel Fisher’s past, present, and future came together when the first feeder band winds of a growing hurricane sprang to life around him..." In the masterful oral history tradition of Studs Terkel, where the interviewer is deceptively quiescent and unobtrusive, journalist Wendy Tucker brings to the page the fully realized life story of Mel Fisher. Today’s the Day! is Mel Fisher’s memoir, in his own straightforward and unfailingly fair and...

“Offers an entertaining look at Kerkorian’s outsize life… an interesting portrait of a billionaire.” – Wall Street Journal The rags-to-riches story of one of America’s wealthiest and least-known financial giants, self-made billionaire Kirk Kerkorian—the daring aviator, movie mogul...

TWO LOST HOURS ABOARD A UFO—THE ABDUCTION OF BETTY AND BARNEY HILL One of the most extraordinary UFO tales of our time—a thrilling, otherworldly, and wildly entertaining adventure that enraptured America and stands as the quintessential extraterrestrial encounter "True believers will see...

Lindbergh was the first solo pilot to cross the Atlantic non-stop from New York to Paris, in 1927. This awe-inspiring fight made him the most celebrated men of his day-a romantic symbol of the new aviation age. However, tragedy struck in 1932, where his baby was kidnapped and found dead. The...

In the vein of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, a riveting work of narrative nonfiction centering on the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India—one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley. For centuries, India has...

The legendary explorer of the Titanic shares inside stories of danger, suspense, and discovery - plus previously untold stories about his own dyslexia and how it has shaped his life.

The 1956 collision of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm triggered a night of sheer terror for the Andrea Doria’s 1,134 passengers and set in motion one of history’s most dramatic rescues at sea. From the moment the Andrea Doria settled on the sea floor in 240 feet of water, skilled amateur divers have risked their lives to simply touch her broken hull. In 1981, wealthy adventurer Peter Gimbel enlisted the aid of commercial salvage divers to torch open the Andrea Doria’s Foyer Deck doors in search of treasure and answers. The unprecedented access to deep within the sunken ship’s ...

Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple John C. Frémont, one of the United States’s leading explorers...

An old-fashioned quest by a modern-day adventurer. When A. J. Mackinnon quits his job in Australia, he knows only that he longs to travel to the well at the world’s end, a mysterious pool on a remote Scottish island whose waters, legend has it, hold the secret to eternal youth.