Showing titles in Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

In 2021, Montana firefighter Dan Steffensen tried to outrun a 60 mile-an-hour wall of fire. But it overcame him, burning over 60% of his body. He should have died. The citizens of Red Lodge, Montana needed him and prayed for his life. Three more tragedies hit his hometime that "Summer of Hell". Through interviews and research, author A.J. Otjen tells this inspiring story of first responders, doctors, loved ones, his community, fellow firefighters, and Dan's own internal battle to live or die.

A young man heads off on a journey to find out if magic still exists in the world, to know its wonder, and to see if it might save him when his own life is unexpectedly at stake. Instead of retreating after being deported from Mexico, or beaten up in Guatemala, he travels to the Caribbean where he meets a Rastafarian Don Juan who teaches him about the "natural mystic", a magical tradition that had travelled to the Caribbean centuries earlier with the slavery trade.

When Adam Piggott rode his motorbike across Australia chasing a girl he barely knew, he didn't understand much about anything at all. He wanted to change his life, but he didn't know how or what to change. The girl was the catalyst that forced him out of his comfortable existence. This is the story of how a young man with no direction ended up working as a river guide in a range of exotic locations around the world.

Narrated in his own voice, in this third book about his travels aboard the 28-foot sailboat Atom, James Baldwin creates an ode to the sea and to those who venture upon her in small voyaging sailboats. The Next Distant Sea continues the memoir of his second adventurous circumnavigation as begun in his earlier book Bound for Distant Seas.

In the snow country of Japan during World War II, we meet Morie Sawataishi, a fierce individualist who has chosen to break the law by keeping an Akita dog hidden in a shed on his property. By the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945, there are only sixteen Akitas left in the country. The survival of the breed becomes Morie's passion and life. Devoted to the dogs, Morie is forever changed.

In beautiful prose that is a joy to read, Sherrill opens up the world of the Dog Man and his wife, providing a profound look at what it is to be an individualist in a culture that reveres conformity, and what it means to live.

Peter Beard lived an astonishing life. The artist, wildlife photographer, and bon vivant enthralled and inspired both because of his work and his legendary lifestyle. In Twentieth-Century Man, Wallace has rendered this towering figure in all of his contradictions and complexities—a deeply romantic and idiosyncratic personality, beloved by so many, whose sensibilities nonetheless remained firmly rooted in an era characterized by racist and colonialist attitudes. Stirring and visceral, Twentieth-Century Man is the definitive portrait of Peter Beard.

Mais do que judeu, Eddie Jaku sempre se considerou alemão. Ele sentia orgulho do seu país natal. Mas, em novembro de 1938, tudo mudou: dez nazistas invadiram sua casa e o espancaram quase até a morte. Naquela noite, que ficou conhecida para sempre na história como a Noite dos Cristais, Eddie foi preso e levado a um campo de concentração.

In No Easy Way, his third volume of climbing memoirs following Vertical Pleasure and On Thin Ice, Fowler recounts a series of expeditions to stunning mountains in China, India, Nepal, and Tibet. Alongside partners including Paul Ramsden, Dave Turnbull, Andy Cave and Victor Saunders, he attempts striking, technically challenging unclimbed lines on Shiva, Gave Ding and Mugu Chuli - with a number of ascents winning prestigious Piolets d’Or, the Oscars of the mountaineering world.

Depressed and suicidal, Helen was admitted to a psychiatric ward and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. At her lowest, she almost succeeded in taking her own life. But somehow, she endured and later, she recovered. love lay down beside me and we wept sprang from these emotionally shattering experiences.

In 2014, Mount Everest was closed to all climbers after a devastating avalanche claimed the lives of 16 Nepali mountain workers ferrying loads up through the Khumbu Icefall on the mountain's southern approach through Nepal. Almost a year to the day later, in late April 2015, the mountain was once more rocked to its core after a large earthquake struck Nepal, sending shock waves rippling across the Himalayas.

Wallace picked up the name "Big-Foot" while in a Mexican prison, because the prison attendants couldn’t find a boot large enough to fit him. Not only was he large of foot but also of deeds. Big-Foot Wallace was an Indian-fighter, hunter, and Texas Ranger. Few men have witnessed as many stirring incidents, had more hair-breadth escapes, or gone through more of the hardships and perils of a border life than Big-Foot Wallace.

At the age of 22, Geordie Stewart became the youngest Briton to climb the Seven Summits - the highest mountain on every continent. Aged 17, he read a book about Everest and, despite no climbing experience, became obsessed with achieving this ambition. Four years later, despite turning around 150 meters from the summit on his first attempt, he stood on top of the world. This audiobook offers a raw, emotive, and passionate insight into the complexity of teenage vulnerabilities.

Migration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, the promise and peril of a technological and communications revolution: these forces shaped the life and work of Joseph Conrad at the dawn of the 20th century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature, Maya Jasanoff reveals Conrad as a prophet of globalization as we recognize it today.

74-year-old Derbyshire man Ken Smith has spent the past four decades in the Scottish Highlands, living alone in a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig, known as 'the lonely loch'. He has no electricity or running water. He lives off the land, fishing for his supper, chopping wood, and even brewing his own tipple. For the first time, Ken shares the story of his life.

Roy Ratnavel’s astonishing journey began at age seventeen, when he was seized by government soldiers and interned in a notorious prison camp for no reason other than being born a Tamil. He saw friends die, and was tortured for a few months—until an unlikely encounter allowed him to send a message beyond the prison walls, which led to his release.

Experience Alexandra David-Neel's captivating and inspirational journey to become the first Western woman to reach the Tibetan holy city of Lhasa and be received by the Dalai Lama. Enduring backbreaking travel, threatening militaries, disease, and countless other dangers, David-Neel's journey is an epic demonstration of perseverance and courage.

In the summer of 1942, 22-year-old Franci Rabinek - designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto 40 miles north of her home in Prague. Franci, a spirited and glamorous young woman, was known among her fellow inmates as the Prague dress designer. During an Auschwitz selection, Franci would spontaneously lie to Nazi officer Dr Josef Mengele and claim to be an electrician. It was a split-second decision that would go on to endanger - and save - her life.

“And So, She Did: Life Lessons, Reflections and Stories” is a powerful non-linear autobiography unveiling the author’s remarkable life—a symbol of resilience and continuous self-improvement. Key moments depict her evolution from fear to forgiveness, offering profound lessons as metaphors for life’s challenges.

The Voyage of The Aegre is a dramatic true account of how a plan to sail a little fishing boat from the Highlands of Scotland down the coast to England turned into a trans-oceanic odyssey for Nick and Julie Grainger. It was the 1970s and their simple wooden boat was equipped with none of the aids modern yachts enjoy. Navigation was by sextant and compass, food cooked on a Primus, and weather forecasting by guesswork.

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.