Adventure Biography

The universal appeal of Laura Ingalls Wilder springs from a life lived in partnership with the land, on farms she and her family settled across the Northeast and Midwest. In this revealing exploration of Wilder's deep connection with the natural world, Marta McDowell follows the wagon trail of the beloved Little House series. You'll learn details about Wilder's life and inspirations, pinpoint the Ingalls and Wilder homestead claims on authentic archival maps, and learn to grow the plants and vegetables featured in the series. Excerpts from Wilder's books, letters, and diaries bring to light her profound appreciation for the landscapes at the heart of her world.

An inspiring memoir about a courageous woman's survival and recovery from an adventure-induced trauma - and the power of her dreams to overcome tragedy and live life to the fullest. Her wilderness adventure turned into a nightmare. After skiing more than 200 miles along California's John Muir Trail, Jean faces death from a mountaineering accident on Mount Whitney. Broken and bleeding on the highest peak in the continental United States, she vows to realize her greatest dreams if she lives until morning.

Since the opening of Glacier National Park in 1910, there were no reported fatal bear attacks until one summer night in 1967, when two grizzlies attacked campers and killed two young women. Inspired by the dramatic and tragic story of that night, and how it eventually influenced the fate of the grizzly bear in the continental United States, Lauren Tarshis has crafted yet another gripping novel in the I Survived series that is sure to shine a light on a terrifying and mostly unknown moment in US history.

In American on Purpose, Craig Ferguson delivers a moving and achingly funny memoir of living the American dream as he journeys from the mean streets of Glasgow, Scotland, to the comedic promised land of Hollywood. Along the way, he stumbles through several attempts to make his mark - as a punk rock musician, a construction worker, a bouncer, and, tragically, a modern dancer.

In the midst of the Go-Go '90s, the culture of greed infused the MIT campus. A small blackjack club sprang up, dedicated to counting cards and beating the house at major casinos around the country. The Club grew slowly at first, but by the late 1990s, the right people had come up with the right system to take some of the world's most sophisticated casinos for all they were worth.

In the late 2000s, Molly Bloom, a 20-something petite brunette from Loveland, Colorado, ran the highest stakes, most exclusive poker game in existence. Hundreds of millions of dollars were won and lost at her table. Molly's game became the game for those in the know - celebrities, business moguls and millionaires. Molly staged her games in palatial suites with beautiful views and exquisite amenities. She flew privately, dined at exquisite restaurants, hobnobbed with the heads of Hollywood studios, was courted by handsome leading men....

Ironworker Wayne Colson and his spirited wife Carmen are witnesses to a shakedown scam — witnesses who must be eliminated. Enter Armand Degas (a.k.a. Blackbird), the brains of the operation, and his partner Richie Nix, an ex-con whose highest goal is to rob a bank in every state. After the Colsons enter the Federal Witness Security Program, a lively chase ensues — with two bumbling but determined killers on Wayne and Carmen's trail.

After years of watching Kenyan athletes win the world's biggest races, Adharanand Finn set out to discover just what it was that made them so fast - and to see if he could keep up. Packing up his life he moved from Devon to Iten, in Kenya, to eat with, interview, sleep beside and - most importantly – run with, some of the greatest runners in the world. In the distance rests his dream, to join the best of the Kenyan athletes in an epic first marathon across the Kenyan plains.

In the annals of seafaring and exploration, there is one name that immediately evokes visions of the open ocean, billowing sails, visiting strange, exotic lands previously uncharted, and civilizations never before encountered - Captain James Cook. Full of realistic action, lush descriptions of places and events, and fascinating historical characters such as King George III and the soon-to-be-notorious Master William Bligh, Dugard's gripping account of the life and death of Captain James Cook is a thrilling story of a discoverer hell-bent on going farther than any man.

Merging memoir, anecdotes, and masterclasses on guitar, songwriting, and the artist's mindset, Lay It on the Line offers insight and perspective into the many roles Rik Emmett took on. "It" was always a parboiling, psychological gumbo: and this book attempts to finally share the recipe.

It has been nearly five decades since Shirley MacLaine commenced her brave and public commitment to chronicling her personal quest for spiritual understanding. Now Shirley is back - with her most breathtakingly powerful and unique book yet.

The acclaimed author of seven ALA Best Books for Young Adults, Will Hobbs pens a spellbinding true-to-life adventure. With nothing but dogged determination, 15year-old Victor leaves his Mexican village to illegally enter the U.S. and help his starving family. Soon he must outwit gangs, drug-runners, and border agents as he endures shivering nights, blistering days, and gnawing hunger. But can his longing for the beckoning opportunity of El Norte carry him through such impossible obstacles?

A paramedic story that takes places in the wild and sheds a never-seen-before light on wilderness medicine, our national parks, and conflicts that arise between tourism and protecting the land. Wild Rescues is a fast-paced, firsthand glimpse into the exciting lives of paramedics who work with the National Park Service: a unique brand of park rangers who respond to medical and traumatic emergencies in some of the most isolated and rugged parts of America.

It's the height of World War II. Michael O'Shaunessey, son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany, lives with his family in Berlin. But Michael, like his parents, is a spy. He joins the Hitler Youth, taking part in their horrific games and book burning, despising everything they stand for but using his insider knowledge to bring important information back to his parents and the British Secret Service. When Michael is tasked to find out more about Projekt 1065, a secret Nazi mission, things get even more complicated.

From one of our most interesting literary figures, former editor of Granta, former fiction editor at The New Yorker, acclaimed author of Among the Thugs, a sharp, funny, exuberant, close-up account of his headlong plunge into the life of a professional cook.

Carrot Quinn fears that she's become addicted to the Internet. The city makes her numb, and she's having trouble connecting with others. In a desperate move, she breaks away from everything to walk 2,660 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. It will be her first long-distance hike.

The real stories behind the scenery of America’s national parks. For 12 years, Andrea Lankford lived in the biggest, most impressive national parks in the world, working a job she loved. She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon. She won arguments with bears. She slept with a few too many rattlesnakes. Hell yeah, it was the best job in the world! Fortunately, Andrea survived it.

In 1845, Sir John Franklin and his men set out to "penetrate the icy fastness of the north, and to circumnavigate America." And then they disappeared. The truth about what happened to Franklin's ill-fated Arctic expedition was shrouded in mystery for more than a century. Then, in 1984, Owen Beattie and his team exhumed two crew members from a burial site in the North for forensic evidence, to shocking results. But the most startling discovery didn't come until 2014, when a team commissioned by the Canadian government uncovered one of the lost ships: Erebus.

From London to New York, Ewan and Charley chased their shadows through Europe, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, across the Pacific to Alaska, then down through Canada and America. But as the miles slipped beneath the tyres of their big BMWs, their troubles started. Exhaustion, injury and accidents tested their strength. Treacherous roads, unpredictable weather and turbulent politics challenged their stamina.

Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe. After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place.