True Adventure

The Thunderbird Motel, 1977. J. J. Wedick and Jack Brennan - two fresh-faced, maverick FBI agents - were about to embark on one of their agency's first wire-wearing undercover missions. Their target? Charismatic, globetrotting con man Phil Kitzer, whom some called the world's greatest swindler. From the Thunderbird, the three men took off to Cleveland, to Miami, to Hawaii, to Frankfurt, to the Bahamas - meeting other members of Kitzer's crime syndicate and powerful politicians and businessmen he fooled at each stop.

Just as Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations did for the world of food, Dopeworld is an intoxicating journey into the world of drugs. From the cocaine farms in South America to the streets of Manila, Dopeworld traces the emergence of psychoactive substances and our intimate relationship with them. As a former drug dealer turned subversive scholar, with unparalleled access to drug lords, cartel leaders, street dealers, and government officials, journalist Niko Vorobyov attempts to shine a light on the dark underbelly of the drug world.

Most young girls dream of becoming a princess. But unlike most girls, Jerramy Fine never grew out of it. Trapped in a rural Colorado with embarrassing hippie parents, Jerramy spends her childhood writing love letters to Buckingham Palace and studying modern-day princesses throughout the world. Years later, when her sense of destiny finally brings her to London, she dives headfirst into a whirlwind of society parties in search of her royal soulmate. She drinks way too many martinis and kisses far too many Hugh Grant lookalikes, yet life in England is not the fairy tale she hoped for.

Drawing on historical documents and contemporary accounts and on exclusive interviews with Carlsen's family, Delaney opens a window into the world of the merchant marine. With deep affection, and respect, for the weather and all that goes with it, he places us in the heart of the storm, a "biblical tempest" of unimaginable power. He illuminates the bravery and ingenuity of Carlsen and the extraordinary courage that the 37-year-old captain inspired in his stalwart crew.

In 1967, a retired army major and self-made millionaire named Paddy Roy Bates cemented his family’s place in history when he inaugurated himself ruler of the Principality of Sealand, a tiny dominion of the high seas. And so began the peculiar story of the world’s most stubborn micronation on a World War II anti-aircraft-gun platform off the British coast. Incorporating original interviews with surviving Sealand royals, Dylan Taylor-Lehman recounts the battles and schemes as Roy and his crew engaged with diplomats and even thwarted an attempted coup.

Experience the awesomeness of my unexpected voyage to an undiscovered land where I survive shipwrecks, arena death match spectacles, rampaging rhinoceraptors, naked and rather surly giants, and even dragons! Well, a dragon.... All in my pursuit of fame and glory. Every word of it is true. Totally true. How do I know? Because it's all about me. Gustav Gustavson, Legendary Viking Warrior.

On November 12, 1971, Bernard Patterson, a much-decorated Vietnam War hero, turned a real-life version of Don Quixote, Butch Cassidy, and Robin Hood all rolled into one package, robbed the Northern National Bank in Mars Hill, Maine. He escaped with $110,000; at the time, the largest bank robbery in the history of the state.

There’s no rule book for this deadly game. When Samantha’s friend and sometimes boss AJ Gunn is accused of murdering the star quarterback for the Oregon pro-team she knows three things: No way is AJ guilty even if he doesn’t have a solid alibi, this is not a one gal PI gig, she’s going to need help, and rich people are crazy. If Samantha thought she was out of her element in Wind River, investigating in a new town is like working in a foreign land. Looking for a real suspect, Samantha meets a host of powerful characters with deep pockets and dark secrets.

For more than 200 years, the wreck of the Whydah (and the riches that went down with it) eluded treasure seekers, until the ship was finally found in 1984 by marine archaeologists. The artifacts brought up from the ocean floor are priceless, both in value and in the picture they reveal of life in that much-mythologized era, changing much of what we know about pirates.

Rumors of dragon sightings are stirring up fears based on old stories that depict dragons as bloodthirsty, fire-breathing monsters. To protect his people, the Overking decrees that all dragons must die. Twelve-year-old Eliana knows the truth about dragons. After all, her best friend Winston is one! Fresh off an adventure where she saved her kingdom with her ability to communicate with Winston’s family, she is now excited to hone her skills through her Dragon Speaker apprenticeship.

A gloriously moving and entertaining, picaresque debut novel about a young man’s sentimental education in late 19th-century Europe; inspired by a real historical figure: ‘Captain’ Paul Boyton - the ‘Fearless Frogman’.

This story is about a man who had his feelings bottled up for way too long. Not able to tell his family why he did the things he did and not able to recoup the lost years away from the people who he loved. In the Mexican-American community, you never show your sadness, your pain, or weakness. As an act of pride, you always keep all your emotions to yourself like as if nothing is wrong. Showing everyone that you're not suffering and everything is fine is strength.

In 1690, a dramatic account of piracy was published in Mexico City. The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez described the incredible adventures of a poor Spanish-American carpenter who was taken captive by British pirates near the Philippines and forced to work for them for two years. After circumnavigating the world, he was freed and managed to return to Mexico, where the Spanish viceroy commissioned the well-known Mexican scholar Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora to write down Ramírez's account as part of an imperial propaganda campaign against pirates.

Through a series of fascinating events, Homer's older brother has been illegally sold to the Union Army. It is up to Homer to find him and save him. Along the way, he encounters strange but real people of that era: two tricksters who steal his money, a snake-oil salesman, a hot-air balloonist, and finally, the Maine regiment who saved Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg and won the war for the Union.

This enthralling audiobook takes us on a tour of the most dangerous, exciting, and often eccentric escapades of literature's sailing stars and how these true stories inspired and informed their best-loved works. Arthur Ransome, Erskine Childers, Jack London, and many others are featured as we find out how extraordinary fact fed into unforgettable fiction.

In April 1861, Wayland Fuller Dunaway left his college classroom and entered the ranks of the men who fought the bloodiest war ever waged on the North American continent. A Captain in the Army of Northern Virginia, he marched hundreds of miles in Stonewall Jackson's command; saw Generals Lee and Longstreet; was among the first soldiers to fight at Gettysburg, where he also participated in Pickett's Charge; and fought against the lines of strangers in blue who, no matter how many times they were defeated, always returned to invade his beloved Virginia.

Elora has been suspended from the council...but it’s only the beginning of her journey. Elf Elora is something of a celebrity in her home city. After being tested as a child, it’s discovered that her magical ability is off the charts - it can’t even be measured. Since working as a paranormal investigator at the royal palace and working on a cure for “half curses”, Elora has been putting her abilities to good use. Until now....

Julia is granted a working holiday visa and heads to Australia. Never one to do things quietly, she tours the country via a jumble of hostels, road trips, and randomness, indulging in more than her fair share of debauchery along the way. She attempts and fails to learn to surf, attends her very first festival, and explores the open-minded village of Nimbin.

Here is the astonishing true story of Ruth Harkness, the Manhattan bohemian socialite who, against all but impossible odds, trekked to Tibet in 1936 to capture the most mysterious animal of the day: a bear that had for countless centuries lived in secret in the labyrinth of lonely cold mountains. In The Lady and the Panda, Vicki Constantine Croke gives us the remarkable account of Ruth Harkness and her extraordinary journey, and restores Harkness to her rightful place along with Sacajawea, Nellie Bly, and Amelia Earhart as one of the great woman adventurers of all time.

Naive college students in the late 1960s, looking for excitement and adventure, smuggle kilos of marijuana on their backs over the Mexican border and into the United States. This memoir follows their lives, the cast of characters they meet along the way, and their smuggling adventures for the next two decades as their business ventures rise and fall and their escapades circle the globe, developing into a major criminal enterprise.