Try free for 30 days
-
Limits of the Known
- Narrated by: David Chandler
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $31.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
The Last of His Kind
- The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Last of His Kind, renowned adventure writer David Roberts gives readers a spellbinding history of mountain climbing in the twentieth century as told through the biography of Brad Washburn, legendary mountaineering pioneer and photographer. Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, has praised David Roberts, saying, “Nobody alive writes better about mountaineering” - and nowhere is that truth more evident than in this breathtaking account of the life and exploits of America’s greatest mountain climber.
-
The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah
- Two Mountaineering Classics
- By: David Roberts, Jon Krakauer - foreword
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The publication of The Mountain of My Fear in 1968 and Deborah in 1970 changed the face of the mountaineering narrative. Now these two classic expedition narratives by acclaimed writer David Roberts are together again in one volume for a new generation of readers.
-
Into the Great Emptiness
- Peril and Survival on the Greenland Ice Cap
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
Finding Everett Ruess
- The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive biography of Everett Ruess, the artist, writer, and eloquent celebrator of the wilderness whose bold solo explorations of the American West and mysterious disappearance in the Utah desert at age twenty have earned him a large and devoted cult following.
-
Touching the Void
- By: Joe Simpson
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott, Daniel Weyman
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 1985. 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. For three days he wrestled with guilt as they prepared to return home. Then a cry in the night took them out with torches, where they found Joe, badly injured.
-
-
A really slow start
- By Walker on 24-03-2019
-
The Tower
- A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre
- By: Kelly Cordes
- Narrated by: Bernardo de Paula
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patagonia's Cerro Torre, considered by many the most beautiful peak in the world, draws the finest and most devoted technical alpinists to its climbing challenges. But controversy has swirled around this ice-capped peak since Cesare Maestri claimed first ascent in 1959. Since then a debate has raged, with world-class climbers attempting to retrace his route but finding only contradictions. This chronicle of hubris, heroism, controversies, and epic journeys offers a glimpse into the human condition, and why some pursue extreme endeavors that at face value have no worth.
-
-
Great book
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-2023
-
The Last of His Kind
- The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Last of His Kind, renowned adventure writer David Roberts gives readers a spellbinding history of mountain climbing in the twentieth century as told through the biography of Brad Washburn, legendary mountaineering pioneer and photographer. Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, has praised David Roberts, saying, “Nobody alive writes better about mountaineering” - and nowhere is that truth more evident than in this breathtaking account of the life and exploits of America’s greatest mountain climber.
-
The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah
- Two Mountaineering Classics
- By: David Roberts, Jon Krakauer - foreword
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The publication of The Mountain of My Fear in 1968 and Deborah in 1970 changed the face of the mountaineering narrative. Now these two classic expedition narratives by acclaimed writer David Roberts are together again in one volume for a new generation of readers.
-
Into the Great Emptiness
- Peril and Survival on the Greenland Ice Cap
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
Finding Everett Ruess
- The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive biography of Everett Ruess, the artist, writer, and eloquent celebrator of the wilderness whose bold solo explorations of the American West and mysterious disappearance in the Utah desert at age twenty have earned him a large and devoted cult following.
-
Touching the Void
- By: Joe Simpson
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott, Daniel Weyman
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 1985. 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. For three days he wrestled with guilt as they prepared to return home. Then a cry in the night took them out with torches, where they found Joe, badly injured.
-
-
A really slow start
- By Walker on 24-03-2019
-
The Tower
- A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre
- By: Kelly Cordes
- Narrated by: Bernardo de Paula
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patagonia's Cerro Torre, considered by many the most beautiful peak in the world, draws the finest and most devoted technical alpinists to its climbing challenges. But controversy has swirled around this ice-capped peak since Cesare Maestri claimed first ascent in 1959. Since then a debate has raged, with world-class climbers attempting to retrace his route but finding only contradictions. This chronicle of hubris, heroism, controversies, and epic journeys offers a glimpse into the human condition, and why some pursue extreme endeavors that at face value have no worth.
-
-
Great book
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-2023
-
Escalante's Dream
- On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In July 1776 a pair of Franciscan friars, Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante, were charged by the governor of New Mexico with discovering a route across the unknown Southwest to the new Spanish colony in California. They had other goals as well, some of them secret: converting the indigenous natives along the way to the true faith, discovering a semi-mythical paradise known as Teguayo, hunting for sources of gold and silver, and paving the way for Spanish settlements from Santa Fe to Monterey. In strict terms, the expedition failed.
-
Eiger Dreams
- Ventures Among Men and Mountains
- By: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Philip Franklin
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant victories and hardships more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest essays and reporting, Krakauer writes of mountains from the memorable perspective of one who has himself struggled with solo madness to scale Alaska's notorious Devils Thumb.
-
Classic Krakauer
- 'Mark Foo's Last Ride,' 'After the Fall,' and Other Essays from the Vault
- By: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism.
-
Into the Planet
- My Life as a Cave Diver
- By: Jill Heinerth
- Narrated by: Jill Heinerth
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More people have died exploring underwater caves than climbing Mount Everest, and we know more about deep space than we do about the depths of our oceans. From one of the top cave divers working today - and one of the very few women in her field - Into the Planet blends science, adventure, and memoir to bring listeners face-to-face with the terror and beauty of Earth’s remaining unknowns and the extremes of human capability.
-
-
Interesting listen
- By Fred on 08-05-2022
-
The Will to Climb
- Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna - the World's Deadliest Peak
- By: David Roberts, Ed Viesturs
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The bestselling author of No Shortcuts to the Top and K2 chronicles his three attempts to climb the world's tenth-highest and statistically deadliest peak, Annapurna in the Himalaya, while exploring the dramatic and tragic history of others who have made -- or attempted – the ascent, and what these exploits teach us about facing life's greatest challenges.
-
-
Great read
- By Anonymous User on 13-11-2020
-
Kiss or Kill
- Confessions of a Serial Climber
- By: Mark Twight
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mark Twight is a BANFF award-winner, an extreme climber, an extreme writer, and an extreme personality. No matter what he's doing, Mark Twight takes a definite, and often controversial , stand. Anyone who knows climbing knows Twight's name, and anyone who knows Twight's name will want to listen to this audiobook. Each story is told in Twight's taut, in-your-face style. Brand-new epilogues bring each piece full circle, providing updated information and fresh, hindsight perspectives.
-
-
Annoying narrator
- By Anonymous User on 24-04-2020
-
The Mountain
- My Time on Everest
- By: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts - contributor
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Mountain, veteran world-class climber and bestselling author Ed Viesturs—the only American to have climbed all fourteen of the world's 8,000-meter peaks—trains his sights on Mount Everest in richly detailed accounts of expeditions that are by turns personal, harrowing, deadly, and inspiring.
-
Beyond the Mountain
- By: Steve House, Reinhold Messner - foreword
- Narrated by: Steve House
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it take to be one of the world's best high-altitude mountain climbers? A lot of fundraising; traveling in some of the world's most dangerous countries; enduring cold bivouacs, searing lungs, and a cloudy mind when you can least afford one. It means learning the hard lessons the mountains teach. Steve House built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram, and the Himalaya that have expanded possibilities of style, speed, and difficulty.
-
-
really enjoyed the honesty and fallibility
- By John C on 31-01-2021
-
Life Lived Wild
- Adventures at the Edge of the Map (Patagonia)
- By: Rick Ridgeway
- Narrated by: Rick Ridgeway
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the beginning of his memoir Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map, Rick Ridgeway tells us that if you add up all his many expeditions, he’s spent over five years of his life sleeping in tents: “And most of that in small tents pitched in the world’s most remote regions.” It’s not a boast so much as an explanation. Whether at elevation or raising a family back at sea level, those years taught him, he writes, “to distinguish matters of consequence from matters of inconsequence.” He leaves it to his listeners to do the final sort of which is which.
-
-
A great, inspiring read
- By Anonymous User on 05-02-2023
-
No Shortcuts to the Top
- Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
- By: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 18 years, Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Peter Bondy on 11-04-2016
-
The Last Season
- By: Eric Blehm
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada - mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.
-
In Some Lost Place: The First Ascent of Nanga Parbat’s Mazeno Ridge
- By: Sandy Allan
- Narrated by: Saethon Williams
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 2012, a team of six climbers set out to attempt the first ascent of one of the great unclimbed lines of the Himalaya - the giant Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth highest mountain. At 10 kilometers in length, the Mazeno is the longest route to the summit of an 8,000-meter peak. Ten expeditions had tried and failed to climb this enormous ridge.
-
-
Just what I was after
- By Sam on 17-06-2019
Publisher's Summary
A celebrated mountaineer and author searches for meaning in great adventures and explorations, past and present.
David Roberts, "veteran mountain climber and chronicler of adventures" (Washington Post), has spent his career documenting voyages to the most extreme landscapes on earth. In Limits of the Known, he reflects on humanity's - and his own - relationship to extreme risk. Part memoir and part history, this book tries to make sense of why so many have committed their lives to the desperate pursuit of adventure.
In the wake of his diagnosis with throat cancer, Roberts seeks answers with sharp new urgency. He explores his own lifelong commitment to adventuring as well as the cultural contributions of explorers throughout history: What specific forms of courage and commitment did it take for Fridtjof Nansen to survive an 18 month journey from a record "farthest north" with no supplies and a single rifle during his polar expedition of 1893-96? What compelled Eric Shipton to return, five times, to the ridges of Mt. Everest, plotting the mountain's most treacherous territory years before Hillary and Tenzing's famous ascent? What drove Bill Stone to dive 3,000 feet underground into North America's deepest cave? What motivates the explorers we most admire, who are willing to embark on perilous journeys and push the limits of the human body? And what is the future of adventure in a world we have mapped and trodden from end to end?
More from the same
Author
Narrator
What listeners say about Limits of the Known
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 12-03-2023
Amazing Life Story
This is an incredible view into one mans life and adventures. Maybe it's just me but I found it bounced around a little uncontrollably. I lost track of the time and found myself having to pause and think about it (probably not a bad thing).
Over all, I enjoyed. Really interesting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!