Explorer Memoirs

After travelling the whole world, can exploring a single map ever be enough? Adventurer Alastair Humphreys spends a year investigating the small map around his own home. Can this unassuming landscape, marked by the glow of city lights and the hum of busy roads, satisfy his wanderlust? Could a single map provide a lifetime of exploration?

Jacques Cartier prépare minutieusement son premier voyage. Comme il est soutenu par le roi de France, il parvient à lever son équipage. Le 20 avril 1534, il assiste à la messe et au sortir de l’église, toute la ville l’accompagne sur les quais. La foule en liesse veut assister au départ de ce grand personnage auquel rien ne résiste. Il appareille avec deux navires ornés du drapeau fleurdelisé, symbole de la royauté. C’est le départ pour la grande aventure. En moins de trois semaines d’une traversée assez tranquille, Jacques Cartier passe au large de Terre-Neuve.

Au début des années soixante, Thompson, alors journaliste à San Francisco, est fasciné par les Hell's Angels. Son article sur ces seigneurs de la route fait sensation, il se lance dans la version longue : un an passé à rouler et à écrire à leurs côtés. Mais l'équipée se termine sauvagement : parce qu'il refuse de partager ses royalties, les Angels abandonnent l'homme de lettres sur une route, à moitié mort et le crâne défoncé à coups de pierres.

By 1930, no place in the world was less well explored than Greenland. The native Inuit had occupied the relatively accessible west coast for centuries. The east coast, however, was another story. In August 1930, Henry George Watkins (nicknamed “Gino”), a twenty-three-year-old British explorer, led thirteen scientists and explorers on an ambitious expedition to the east coast of Greenland and into its vast and forbidding interior to set up a permanent meteorological base on the icecap, 8,200 feet above sea level.

The third and most ambitious of Michael Palin's adventures is a voyage of epic proportions - the circumnavigation of the Pacific Rim. He travels for almost a year through the 18 countries that border the world's largest ocean, and is forced to negotiate mountains, plunging gorges, cross glaciers and dodge icebergs. Volcanoes also mark Palin's journey. He climbs one which has freshly erupted and follows great rivers like the Yangtze and the Amazon to some of the most remote places on earth.

In Pole to Pole we join Michael Palin on the second of his epic challenges. Travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, he experiences every extreme the globe has to offer. As he crosses 16 countries by train, truck, raft, Ski-Doo, barge, balloon and bicycle, he meets a diverse range of fascinating characters and landscapes while his own endurance is tested to the limit. With his customary aplomb, he plunges himself into the local cultures, starring in a crayfish documentary in Novgorod, attending a baby-rolling ceremony at a Cypriot wedding, and consulting an Mpulugu witch-doctor.

No American president has been more enthusiastic in appreciating the wilderness and in conserving our nation’s natural treasures than Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919). And no other president wrote more about nature and his explorations of it than T. R., in scattered books, such as African Wilderness, and in his countless letters, including those collected in The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt).

Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire's history has for centuries been distorted, misrepresented, and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470-1520).

Sue Tidwell lived in awe of Africa’s extraordinary wildlife. After years spent appreciating the animals in her imagination, the tenderhearted American hated the idea of joining her husband on a big game hunting safari. And getting attacked by blood-sucking tsetse flies the moment she stepped off the plane gave no hint of the mind-blowing change of perspective in her future. With her initial animosity turning into curiosity as they breathlessly tracked dangerous beasts, Sue formed a surprising bond with their young female government-assigned game scout.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself strapped to a giant rocket that's about to go from zero to 17,500 miles per hour? Or to look back on Earth from outer space and see the surprisingly precise line between day and night? Or to stand in front of the Hubble Space Telescope, wondering if the emergency repair you're about to make will inadvertently ruin humankind's chance to unlock the universe's secrets? Mike Massimino has been there, and in Spaceman he puts you inside the suit.

The true account of the 2017-2018 solo nonstop circumnavigation by Jerome Rand aboard the Westsail 32 Mighty Sparrow. A testament to endurance and adventure, this memoir recounts what life is like aboard a small sailboat during a 271-day voyage around the globe, alone, and without stopping. One of the greatest challenges of both body and mind, the author will take you onboard during the good times and the bad. As one of only a handful of people to have ever succeed in such a small boat, this story is truly the adventure of a lifetime.

Bestselling author the Countess of Carnarvon tells the thrilling behind-the-scenes story of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun on its centennial, and explores the unparalleled life of family ancestor George Herbert—the famed Egyptologist, world-traveler, and 5th Earl of Carnarvon behind it—whose country house, Highclere Castle, is the setting of the beloved series Downton Abbey.

"J'ai 52 ans, cinq enfants, et un bateau avec lequel j'ai fait le tour du monde. Pour participer à cette aventure du Vendée Globe, j'ai tout cédé, tout sacrifié, tout vendu. Aujourd'hui, je ne possède rien, ni carrière, ni chez-moi."

In Defying Limits, Dave Williams shares the events that have defined his life, showing us that whether we’re gravity-defying astronauts or earthbound terrestrials, we can all live infinite, fulfilled lives by relishing the value and importance of each moment. The greatest fear that we all face is not the fear of dying but the fear of never having lived. Each of us is greater than we believe. Together, we can exceed our limits to soar farther and higher than we ever imagined.

In the late 1880s, Frank Lenz of Pittsburgh, a renowned high-wheel racer and long-distance tourist, dreamed of cycling around the world. He finally got his chance by recasting himself as a champion of the downsized "safety-bicycle" with inflatable tires, the forerunner of the modern road bike that was about to become wildly popular. In the spring of 1892 he quit his accounting job and gamely set out west to cover 20,000 miles over three continents as a correspondent for Outing magazine. Two years later, after having survived countless near disasters and unimaginable hardships, he approached Europe for the final leg. He never made it....

On September 11th 2001 British TV documentary filmmaker Paul Berriff was in New York shooting a series for the Discovery Network. As soon as the first plane hit the World Trade Center he and his team rushed to the scene. Paul was soon alongside the FDNY's Assistant chief Fire Commissioner who was setting up the incident command post immediately below the South Tower. Twenty minutes later the South Tower collapsed on them.

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.

At age 47, a mother of two, Debbie Moderow was not your average musher in the Iditarod, but that's where she found herself when, less than 200 miles from the finish line, her dogs decided they didn't want to run anymore. After all her preparation, after all the careful management of her team, and after their running so well for over a week, the huskies balked. But the sting of not completing the race after coming so far was nothing compared to the disappointment Moderow felt in having lost touch with her dogs.

During the Age of Exploration, some of the most famous and infamous individuals were Spain's best known conquistadors. Naturally, as one of the best known conquistadors, Francisco Pizarro (1471/6-1541) is also one of the most controversial. Like Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortés before him, Pizarro was celebrated in Europe for subduing the Inca Empire, a culture that fascinated his contemporaries.

The flight of Apollo 11 made Aldrin one of the most famous persons on our planet, yet few people know the rest of this true American hero's story. In Magnificent Desolation, Aldrin not only gives us a harrowing first-person account of the lunar landing that came within seconds of failure and the ultimate insider's view of life as one of the superstars of America's space program, he also opens up with remarkable candor about his more personal trials - and eventual triumphs - back on Earth.