Adventure Biography

Life as a war baby in Oklahoma is the start of the Adventures of a Baby Boomer series....

Henry David Thoreau has long been an intellectual icon and folk hero. In this strikingly original profile, Michael Sims reveals how the bookish, quirky young man evolved into the patron saint of environmentalism and nonviolent activism. Working from 19th-century letters and diaries, Sims charts Henry’s course from his time at Harvard through the years he spent living in a cabin beside Walden Pond. Sims uncovers a previously hidden Thoreau - the rowdy boy reminiscent of Tom Sawyer, the sarcastic college iconoclast, the devoted son who kept imitating his beloved older brother’s choices in life.

In 2016, Nuseir Yassin quit his job to travel for 1,000 consecutive days. But instead of the usual tourist traps, Nas set out to meet real people, see the places they call home, and discover what unites all of us living on this beautiful planet - from villages in Africa and slums in India, to the high-rises of Singapore and the deserts of Australia. While he journeyed from country to country, Nas uploaded a single 60-second video per day for his Nas Daily Facebook following to highlight the amazing, terrifying, inspiring and downright surprising sh*t happening all over the world.

When Anna Maxymiw accepts a summer job as a housekeeper at a fishing lodge in Northern Ontario, she has little idea what to expect. At 23, she has decided to step away from her master's degree and city life to board a floatplane bound for the remote boreal forest. For 67 days, Anna will be working and living alongside 12 strangers. Together this group of young men and women will keep the lodge running. While the fishing guides head out on the water with the fishermen who are the lodge's guests, the women stay on land to clean and serve.

Here is the story of the infamous 1910 race to the South Pole, as told by its fearless yet desperate leader, Robert Falcon Scott. The New York Times called Scott's Last Expedition "A splendid record of heroism not soon to be forgotten."

In Chinese, the closest expression to oh my god is wo de ma ya. It’s an interjection, a polite expletive, something to say when you’re out of words. Translated literally, it means oh my mother—the instinctual first person you think of when you’re on the cusp of losing it, or putting it all together.

When Alice Cooper became the stuff of legend in the early '70s, their shows were monuments of fun and invention. Riding on a string of hits like "I'm 18" and "School's Out", they became America's highest-grossing act, producing four platinum albums and hitting number one on the US and UK charts with Billion Dollar Babies in 1973. Their utterly original performance style and look, known as shock rock, was swiftly copied by countless bands.

From the authors of the number-one best-selling The Sea Hunters comes more unforgettable true adventures with famous shipwrecks.

All her life, Katherine Keith has hungered for remote, wild places that fill her soul with freedom and peace. Her travels take her across America, but it is in the vast and rugged landscape of Alaska that she finds her true home. Alaska is known as a place where people disappear - at least a couple thousand go missing each year. But the same vast and rugged landscape that contributed to so many people being lost is precisely what has gotten her found.

On 30 January, 1981 Joe Tasker and Ade Burgess stood at 24,000 feet on the west ridge of Mount Everest. Below them were their companions, some exhausted, some crippled by illness, all virtually incapacitated. Further progress seemed impossible. Everest the Cruel Way is Joe Tasker's story of an attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth - an attempt which pushed a group of Britain's finest mountaineers to their limits. The goal had been to climb Mount Everest at its hardest: via the infamous west ridge, without supplementary oxygen and in winter.

Joe Simpson, with just his partner Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed west face of the remote 21,000 foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June of 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into base camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead.

We all marvel at the miracle of flight, but without the human pilot, all those pretty metal curves are nothing but inanimate objects lying dead and dormant on the tarmac. In his latest volume of true tales from the sky, Eric "Cap'n Aux" Auxier celebrates these intrepid pilots and their stories. In the final volume of this series, Cap'n Aux features over 10 aviation personalities, who spin their own adrenaline-pumping yarns. Only difference is, these tall tales are true!

What really happened at the Chappaquiddick Bridge was hidden under a fog of deception for over four decades, until the advent of voice stress technology shined the light of truth on Ted Kennedy's statements to the police.

In the spring of 1940, the aspiring but unknown writer Albert Camus and budding scientist Jacques Monod were quietly pursuing ordinary, separate lives in Paris. After the German invasion and occupation of France, each joined the Resistance to help liberate the country from the Nazis and ascended to prominent, dangerous roles. After the war and through twists of circumstance, they became friends, and through their passionate determination and rare talent they emerged as leading voices of modern literature and biology, each receiving the Nobel Prize in their respective fields.

Born to a family of modest means in Kentucky, Jim Glidewell overcame insurmountable odds to create a business of staggering success. In January of 1970, he opened Glidewell Laboratories - one of the largest and most successful dental laboratories in the world with multiple locations worldwide. Jim Glidewell’s story is one of the great American success stories of our times and offers valuable wisdom on topics ranging from relationships to investing and ways to navigate insurmountable obstacles in a changing world.

Georgie Codd never had a dad. And she didn’t think she wanted one – until a stranger’s practical joke made her wonder what she was missing. This book tells the story of Georgie’s quest for a father figure, placing notices – dadverts – in newspapers and pursuing the idea all around the globe. Interwoven with her story of finding a dad – the conversations, meetings, twists and turns of seeking family-style relationships with near-strangers – is a broader look at the societal, cultural and biological role of fathers and family today.

Jessica Hepburn is an unlikely athlete–she was labelled the ‘arty’ not the ‘sporty’ one in school. She hates exercise and believes the only reason to do it is for food, booze and box-sets on the sofa. However, in her forties, following a succession of hard and sad life experiences she started to try and exercise her way out of heartbreak. She has now become one of the world’s most extraordinary endurance athletes.

In a collection of gripping stories of adventure, Doug Peacock, loner, iconoclast, environmentalist, and contemporary of Edward Abbey, reflects on a life lived in the wild, asking the question many ask in their twilight years: “Was It Worth It?”

Some months before, my husband, three children and I had casually unzipped and discarded our comfortable Australian lifestyle and slipped on life in the country of haute couture. On arrival, there was no celebrity designer waiting for us, ready to pin and fit our new life to us; so we threw it on and wore it loosely, tightly, uncomfortably, any old how—until we learned for ourselves how to trim, hem and stitch à la française. This book is testament to the joyous, but not always easy, journey that we took along the way.

Uncover the truth behind the myths of rebellion, justice, and the pursuit of freedom that defined the lives of the notorious James brothers in Missouri Marauders: The Life and Adventures of Frank and Jesse James by J.A. Dacus. Experience the colorful characters and daring lawlessness that defined the James brothers' legacy in this riveting biography written while the James brothers were still alive!