Adventure Writing

In his most challenging journey to date, Palin tackles the Himalayas, the greatest mountain range on earth. It is a virtually unbroken wall of rock stretching 1,800 miles from the borders of Afghanistan to south-west China. Penetrated but never conquered, it remains the world's most majestic natural barrier, a magnificent wilderness that shapes the history and politics of Asia to this day.

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.

If you have never ridden a mule along a 48-inch wide trail whose ledge drops off, in places, 700 feet to the Colorado River, straight down, you may have difficulty picturing the temporary insanity that leads otherwise responsible adults to sign away the remainder of their natural life expectancy just for the chance to see the Grand Canyon's natural beauty close-up.

Bookish and retiring, Garry Wills has been an outsider in the academy, in journalism, even in his church. Yet these qualities have, paradoxically, prompted people to share intimate insights with him - perhaps because he is not a rival, a competitor, or a threat. The result is the most personal book Wills has ever written.

Two Years Before the Mast, written by Richard Henry Dana, provides a vivid account of "the life of a common sailor at sea". Dana sails from Boston, around Cape Horn, stopping in several ports along the California coast including San Diego, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. On the return trip around Cape Horn in the middle of the Antarctic winter Dana describes terrifying storms and incredible beauty, giving vivid descriptions of icebergs and the scurvy that afflicts members of the crew.

Travel is one of the most effective ways to gain insight into yourself and the world. The essays contained in this book all center around some of the insights the author, Edwin Harkness Spina, gained while traveling to Peru, Tibet, Bali and Santa Monica.

Buddha, Moses, Jesus, and Mohamed - every great avatar spent at least part of their lives traveling - in part to spread their message - but more importantly for their own spiritual growth.

By captivating millions during his six-year, 50-country tenure as The New York Times' "Frugal Traveler", Seth Kugel has become one of our most internationally beloved travel writers. While his famously unassuming journeys around the globe have forged a signature philosophy of whimsy and practicality, they have also revealed the seemingly infinite booby traps of on-the-grid tourism. In a book with widespread cultural reverberations, Kugel takes the modern travel industry to task, determined to reignite humanity's age-old sense of adventure.

In Time on Rock Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing, and the new developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her. Through the story of her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber she shows us how placing hand and foot on rock becomes a profound new way into the landscape. Anna takes us from the gritstone rocks of the Peak District and Yorkshire to the gabbro pinnacles of the Cullin, the slate of North Wales and the high plateau of the Cairngorms.

For 20,000 miles, Peter Matthiessen crisscrossed the South American wilderness, traveling from the Amazonian rain forests to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, down to the edge of the world at Tierra del Fuego and back. In the course of his journey he followed the trails of old explorers, encountered river bandits, wild tribesmen, and the evidence of ancient ruins, and discovered a fossilized snout of a giant unknown crocodilian hidden in the depths of the jungle on the wild mountain rivers of Peru.

After the Italian Armistice of 1943, Eric Newby escaped from the prison camp in which he'd been held for a year. He evaded the German army by hiding in the caves and forests of Fontanellato, in Italy's Po Valley. Against this picturesque backdrop, he was sheltered for three months by an informal network of Italian peasants who fed, supported and nursed him before his eventual recapture. Love and War in the Apennines is Newby's tribute to the selfless and courageous people who were to be his saviours and companions during this troubled time.

Drive Nacho Drive tells the hilarious and sometimes harrowing story of what happens when Brad and Sheena Van Orden trade in the American dream for a year on the roads of Central and South America aboard “Nacho”, their quirky and somewhat temperamental Volkswagen van. As a result of questionable decision-making skills and intermittent bad luck, Brad and Sheena repeatedly find themselves in over their heads.

Like a well-crafted stage play, Just Passin' Thru delivers one suspenseful scene after another. But in this historic setting a store on the Appalachian Trail called Mountain Crossings the characters who show up are no fictional creations. Like any good drama, there are the good guys (and gals) and the weirdos, too. Some show up once (and that’s enough), and some appear again and again. But all are united by two things: the author’s story-capturing talent, and whatever it is that lures them to attempt (or conquer) a 2,200-mile path that climbs and plummets from Georgia to Maine.

After Kim and her husband, Brian, decide to quit their jobs to travel around the world, they're given a yellow envelope containing a check and instructions to give the money away. There are only three rules for the envelope: don't overthink it, share your experiences, and don't feel pressured to give it all away. Through Ecuador, Peru, Nepal, and beyond, Kim and Brian face obstacles, including major challenges to their relationship.

From the incomparable Peter Gethers comes true-life adventure featuring the author and his Scottish Fold feline, Norton - seasoned world-traveler and renowned ice-cream critic. Whether it is the trademark flattened ears of his breed or the personality quirks individual to Norton, this cat has an uncanny knack for attracting celebrity attention. Norton’s feline adventures in France are a must for the consummate cat-lover, but also great fun for those not enamored of anything feline.

India is one of the oldest places to inhabit civilization, with a history dating back thousands of years. Since time immemorial, people have visited this country for various reasons - to work, shelter, tourism, spiritual uplifting and the like. India is surrounded by the great Himalayas in the north, Arabian Sea on the West, Indian Ocean in the South, and the Bay of Bengal in the East. India is a very diverse country in terms of people, climate, locales, languages, customs, cuisines, cultures and beliefs.

Faced with buying a car and getting a real job - or taking the money and blowing it on a six-month adventure around Asia...well, there really is no contest! Who wouldn't want to visit exotic places, like Borneo, Cambodia, and China? Who wouldn't want to tackle the world's most dangerous hiking path, tangle with the Vietnamese Mafia, and suffer days in the dreaded Mongolian saddle? And who wouldn't want to try five-organ soup? All he has to do is survive long enough to realize his dreams.

Delve into the home of the world's most beloved bear! The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh explores the magical landscapes where Pooh, Christopher Robin, and their friends live and play. The Hundred Acre Wood - the setting for Winnie-the-Pooh's adventures - was inspired by Ashdown Forest, a wildlife haven that spans more than 6,000 acres in southeast England.

An honest look at some of the questions and myths about living overseas, using entertaining and informative real-life examples to illustrate what is true and what is not so true. The goal is to provide the listener with the good and the bad - not to persuade you to become an expat or not - but to provide enough insight to decide what might be best for you.

In book one of his witty and insightful travelogue series, Andy chronicles his family’s move from grey, rainy England to hot and steamy Atlanta. He transports his wife, two kids, two dubious dogs and one very unhappy cat 4,000 miles across the pond. Through laugh-out-loud anecdotes and hard-won wisdom, Andy shares the thrilling highs, frustrating lows, and daunting challenges of uprooting your entire life to start over in a strange land.

In 1834, the British Lord Chancellor, Lord Henry Brougham, was on his way to Nice, still part of Italy and already a popular winter resort with English aristocrats. Because of a cholera epidemic in Provence, the governor of Nice had closed the border so Brougham and his daughter Eleanore were turned back. On their way to Grasse, they stopped for the night at an inn on what is today the Rue du Port in Cannes.