Explorer Memoirs

From Frederick Forsyth, the grand master of international suspense, comes his most intriguing story ever - his own. For more than 40 years, Frederick Forsyth has been writing extraordinary real-world novels of intrigue, from the groundbreaking The Day of the Jackal to the prescient The Kill List. Whether writing about the murky world of arms dealers, the shadowy Nazi underground movement, or the intricacies of worldwide drug cartels, every plot has been chillingly plausible because every detail has been minutely researched.

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 April 2013, 50-year-old Brett Archibald was onboard a surf-charter boat, making a nighttime crossing of the remote Mentawai Strait off Sumatra, Indonesia. In the middle of a storm, ill with severe food poisoning, he blacked out. When he came to, he found himself in the raging sea, 60 miles from shore. As Brett saw the lights of his boat disappearing into the darkness, it became clear that no one had seen him fall and that no one would hear his shouts for help. He was alone in the ocean.

Since its inception, however, America’s public land system has been embroiled in controversy - caught in the push and pull between the desire to develop the valuable resources the land holds or conserve them. Alarmed by rising tensions over the use of these lands, hunter, angler, and outdoor enthusiast Mark Kenyon set out to explore the spaces involved in this heated debate, and learn firsthand how they came to be and what their future might hold.

Unexpectedly denied a visa to remain in the United States, Qanta Ahmed, a young British Muslim doctor, becomes an outcast in motion. On a whim, she accepts an exciting position in Saudi Arabia. This is not just a new job; this is a chance at adventure in an exotic land she thinks she understands, a place she hopes she will belong. What she discovers is vastly different. The Kingdom is a world apart, a land of unparalleled contrast. She finds rejection and scorn in the places she believed would most embrace her.

Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived. The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography, then sailing for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner - all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud.

In 2016, Joel and Brad cycled from Belgium to India in support of women and children impacted by human trafficking. Their resolve was tested by crooked cops, rogue truckers, mountain passes, and the unrelenting desert sun. When the obstacles seemed insurmountable, the kindness of strangers and the strength of their purpose kept them moving forward.

Michael Palin is off again, this time to the seemingly desolate Sahara Desert. There's no easy way across, as he and his team discover on their most challenging expedition yet.

In his second memoir, a true crime story, David Alan Arnold takes us on a life and death adventure in his helicopter as an aerial cameraman for Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch. He also gets into adventures at home, when he picks a fight with an organized crime ring that took over a school bus stop. David's town has so few residents that good people are afraid to speak about the crimes, for fear of reprisal.

Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech - not evolution - is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements.

When we remember the Second World War in the air, we think of fighter pilots and bomber crews. But what was it like for the men and women working as ground crew and in the aircraft factories who also played a crucial role in defeating Hitler? What was it like making history? What sense did these individuals have of what they were doing, either at the time or later? Did they feel they were caught up in the tide of great events? Or were they simply doing their demanding and often dangerous duty?

Ex-paratrooper Christian Lewis had hit rock bottom, suffering with depression so severe he would shut himself in his bedroom for weeks. Then while surfing – his only respite – he cast his eyes along the coastline and realized it was the only place he really wanted to be.

In 1839 rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world's most intrepid travelers. Seized by the reports, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood sailed together out of New York Harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rainforests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. What they found would rewrite the West's understanding of human history.

Alastair Humphreys walked across India, from the Coromandel Coast to the Malabar Coast, following the course of a holy river. Walking alone and spending the nights sleeping under the stars, in the homes of welcoming strangers, or in small towns and villages, he experienced the dusty enchantment of ordinary, real India on the smallest of budgets. There Are Other Rivers tells the story of the walk through an account of a single day as well as reflecting on the allure of difficult journeys and the eternal appeal of the open road.

Letters from Everest is an eye-opening set of personal letters from Mallory to his family, recently discovered hidden in a drawer. In the letters, Mallory is completely open about his life, his climbing and especially the three Everest Expeditions he was a part of – 1921, 1922 and the last in 1924. His writing is full of extraordinary insights – most of which have never been published in any form.

Buckle up and get ready to embark on an adrenaline-fueled journey inside All In Adventure Stories. With heart-racing accounts of his past 25 years of pushing the limits of adventure in his hometown of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the iconic Grand Teton National Park, and across the globe, Tim Walther will leave you spellbound, empowered, and ready to seize life by the horns. From extreme skiing to high stakes rock climbing to blue water hunting to exploring the depths of ayahuasca in the Amazon, these eighteen adventure stories will take you on a journey of the human experience lived to the fullest.

Two stories about William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army; two stories about amazing women aviators; and two true-to-life adventures!

Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say.

One survivor chooses loneliness. One chooses exile. One chooses oblivion. Some have violent tendencies, ruining lives indiscriminately. Some seal their own fate in slow motion; others do so in the blink of an eye. Award-winning true-crime writer Steve Braunias retells twelve mysteries of human nature—unusual stories of how people choose to survive their own lives, and their decisions, desires, impulses... and failings.

Situated in the early decades of the magnificent Mughal Empire, this first ever biography of Princess Gulbadan offers an enthralling portrait of a charismatic adventurer and unique pictures of the multicultural society in which she lived. Following a migratory childhood that spanned Kabul and north India, Gulbadan spent her middle years in a walled harem established by her nephew Akbar to showcase his authority as the Great Emperor.