Adventure Biography

If you enjoy a fast-paced, true story, Five Weeks in the Amazon is the book for you. It's an honest story filled with peaks of humor and valleys of despair. Author Sean Michael Hayes has written a book that many would put on their shelf next to Cheryl Strayed's blockbuster success, Wild. His adventure took him into the middle of the jungle alone, but Hayes' unique writing style makes the listener feel as though they are right there with him.

Narrated in his own voice, in this third book about his travels aboard the 28-foot sailboat Atom, James Baldwin creates an ode to the sea and to those who venture upon her in small voyaging sailboats. The Next Distant Sea continues the memoir of his second adventurous circumnavigation as begun in his earlier book Bound for Distant Seas.

Charley Boorman is back on his bike exploring the world's second-largest country - home to some of the most stunning and challenging terrain known to man. Canada is a country of extremes, and Charley knows all about pushing the limits. He goes dirt biking in New Brunswick, dives through old shipwrecks in Tobermory and rides along Butch Cassidy's old Outlaw Trail. He also meets a fascinating mix of people on his journey.

In the third book in the Seaside Practice Trilogy, which started with A Seaside Practice and continued with Going Loco, we follow the further adventures of Dr Tom as he returns to his native Ayrshire to set up a business and take on Locums. As ever, life is never simple, with murders, mayhem and colourful characters peppering his tales.

Jackie was an ordinary American woman whose life changed after a blind date with rugged Antarctic explorer Finn Ronne. After marrying, they began planning the 1946-1948 Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition. Her participation was not welcomed by the expedition team of red-blooded males eager to prove themselves in the frozen, hostile environment of Antarctica.

Early on August 12, 2000, four of America's best young rock climbers were sleeping in their portaledges high on the Yellow Wall, in the central Asian mountain range of Kyrgyzstan,. By daybreak, they would be taken at gunpoint by militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. In a life-and-death journey over six terrifying days, they would be forced to choose between saving their own lives and committing an act none of them thought they ever could.

747 is the thrilling story behind "the Queen of the Skies" - the Boeing 747 - as told by Joe Sutter, one of the most celebrated engineers of the 20th century, who spearheaded its design and construction. Sutter's vivid narrative takes us back to a time when American technology was cutting-edge and jet travel was still glamorous and new. With wit and warmth, he gives an insider's sense of the larger than life-size personalities - and the tensions - in the aeronautical world.

With the utterance of a single line - "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" - a remote meeting in the heart of Africa was transformed into one of the most famous encounters in exploration history. But the true story behind Dr. David Livingstone and journalist Henry Morton Stanley is one that has escaped telling. Into Africa is an extraordinarily researched account of a thrilling adventure - defined by alarming foolishness, intense courage, and raw human achievement.

Running Toward Mystery is the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi's profound account of his lifelong journey as a seeker. At its heart is a story of striving for enlightenment, the vital importance of mentors in that search, and of the many remarkable teachers he met along the way, among them the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mother Teresa.

Long before his finest hour as Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill emerged on the world stage as a brazen foreign correspondent, covering wars of empire in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa. In those far-flung corners of the world, reporting from the front lines between 1895 and 1900, Churchill mastered his celebrated command of language and formed strong opinions about war.

The plan is simple. George and Ben have three weeks to cycle 1000 miles from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland. There's just one small problem - they have no bikes, no clothes, no food, and no money. Setting off in just a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, they attempt to rely on the generosity of the British public for everything from food to accommodation, clothes to shoes, and bikes to beer.

The Last Great Mountain tells the story of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga the third highest but reputedly the hardest mountain in the world. It was an astonishing achievement for a British team led by Everest veteran Charles Evans. Drawing on interviews, diaries and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey begins his story in 1905 with the disastrous first attempt on the mountain by a team led by Aleister Crowley, explores the three dramatic German expeditions of the the late 1920s and brings it all to a climax 50 years later with the first ascent by Joe Brown and George Band.  

Back again with even more "mostly true" tales from the trail, Lawton Grinter's new book I Hike Again is sure to find a place in every adventurer's library! I Hike Again imparts hard-earned wisdom from trails both in the United States (Arizona Trail, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, Wind River High Route) and abroad (Spain's GR11 and New Zealand's Te Araroa).

Canoeing the Congo narrates the journey of Phil Harwood, who undertook an epic five-month solo attempt to canoe the Congo River in war-torn Central Africa. It was a historic 'first descent' from the true source in the highlands of Zambia. Just short of 3,000 miles long, the Congo River is the eighth longest in the world and the deepest river in the world, with a flow rate second only to the Amazon. Along the way, Phil encountered numerous waterfalls, huge rapids, man-eating crocodiles, hippos, aggressive snakes...

Betty Pack was charming, beautiful, and intelligent - and she knew it. As an agent for Britain's MI6 and then America's OSS during World War II, these qualities proved crucial to her success. This is the remarkable story of this "Mata Hari from Minnesota" ( Time) and the passions that ruled her tempestuous life - a life filled with dangerous liaisons and death-defying missions vital to the Allied victory.

A deeply personal travel memoir that combines alpine adventure, family connections, and spiritual encounters in two very different worlds: a Himalayan village and Vancouver, Canada. In 2012, Michael Schauch and his wife, Chantal, undertook an expedition deep in the Himalaya of northern Nepal, into a remote valley that had been closed off to outsiders for decades. They led a team of artists (a photographer, a musician, and a painter), with the objective of capturing a moment in time through their unique lenses.

On June 21, 1992, two best friends summited Mount Rainier. Within hours, their exquisite accomplishment would be overshadowed by tragedy. On their descent, Jim Davidson fell through an ice bridge on Rainier's northeast flank, plunging eighty feet into a narrow crevasse inside the Emmons Glacier and dragging Mike Price in after him. Mike fell to his death; Jim, badly injured and armed with minimal gear, faced an almost impossible climb back out of the crevasse, up a nearly vertical ice wall.

When Jeremy Hardy decided to explore his ancestry it was, in part, to get to the bottom of his grandmother Becky’s dubious claims that the family descended from a certain 17th-century architect and that, more recently, Jeremy’s great grandfather was personal bodyguard and confidant to the King. Other legends range from the uncle who died in police custody to the wronged Victorian aunt who bore an illegitimate son.

This is how Emmanuel Carrère, the magnetic journalist, novelist, filmmaker, and chameleon, describes his subject: "Limonov is not a fictional character. There. I know him. He has been a young punk in Ukraine, the idol of the Soviet underground; a bum, then a multimillionaire's butler in Manhattan; a fashionable writer in Paris; a lost soldier in the Balkans; and now, in the fantastic shambles of postcommunism, the elderly but charismatic leader of a party of young desperadoes."

Kathryn Hulme's life was radically changed and enriched by the influence of Gurdjieff. Undiscovered Country is a tribute to him and his teachings, a vivid personal memoir of her experience as his student, and of the burning spiritual intensity that dominated her life as a result of his influence.