Showing titles in Expeditions & Discoveries

A stunningly illustrated portrait of life and death in a hostile, high-altitude environment where no human can survive for long, Everest invites you to join Breashears, his climbers, and his crew as they make photographic history. Author Broughton Coburn traces each step of the team's progress toward a rendezvous with history - and suddenly you're on the scene of a disaster that riveted the world's attention.

A New York Public Library Best Book of 2025 | A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2025 “A beautiful and powerful book.” —Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt “Valuable, revelatory, and contagiously page-turning.” —David Michaelis, New York...

Michael Fomenko is familiar with adversity. But when he gets shut out of the Commonwealth Games for financial and political reasons at the ripe age of 20, he questions everything. Setting a new course for himself, he dreams of a feat that will require unimaginable determination. With no companions or guides, he will paddle a dugout canoe over 1,000 nautical kilometers from Cairns, Australia, to Dutch, New Guinea.

‘Will undoubtedly become a classic narrative of this scenically magnificent, legend-rich and geologically unique part of Scotland’ Cameron McNeish, The Herald Rising a kilometre out of the storm-scoured waters around Scotland’s Isle of Skye is a dark battlement of pinnacles and ridgelines...

This is a comprehensive history of Portugal that covers the whole span, from the Stone Age to today. An introduction provides an understanding of geographical and climatic issues, before an examination of Portugal's prehistory and classical Portugal, from the Stone Age to the end of the the Roman era. Portugal's history from AD 420 to the 13th century takes in the Suevi, Visigoths and Moors. Then, a look at medieval Portugal, covers the development of Christian Portugal culminating with the expulsion of the Moors, with a focus on key sites.

Everybody imagines the world's most interesting man to be a fictional, gray-haired lothario who drinks Mexican beer and boasts of his legendary exploits. But what if a man like this really lived? It turns out he did, and there were two of them--both Victorian explorers.

As 1909 dawned, the greatest jewels of exploration - set at the world's frozen extremes - lay unclaimed: the North and South Poles and the so-called "Third Pole", the pole of altitude, located in unexplored heights of the Himalaya. Before the calendar turned, three expeditions had faced death, mutiny, and the harshest conditions on the planet to plant flags at the furthest edges of the Earth.

A deeply moving story of the beauty and brutality of life, and death, on the world's most unpredictable and perilous mountain. Sitting just lower than Everest at 8,611 meters above sea level on the China-Pakistan border, the Savage Mountain claims the lives of even the most experienced climbers. Alongside severe altitude, the weather is notoriously volatile and the climb relentlessly steep. A staggering one in four attempts result in death on the mountain.

Reaching the top of the world in 1953 was one of the most significant achievements in the history of human endurance.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2024 NATIONAL OUTBOOK AWARD FOR JOURNEYS SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 SPEAKER'S BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR THE BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK COMPETITION FOR ADVENTURE TRAVEL From Canada’s most accomplished adventurer and storyteller comes a gripping journey into the...

Amelia Earhart was a legend - but perhaps an unlikely one at that. You see, Amelia Earhart was not always the dashing heroine that most of us associate with her name. She began life as a rather shy girl, who often found herself having to hide from her troubled upbringing. As her family life spiraled out of control, Amelia Earhart was forced to move from state to state, town to town, never getting the chance to put down roots. The high school she graduated from was one of many she attended, and a caption by her photo for that semester’s yearbook seems to have said it all.

On the evening of April 13, 1970, the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13 were just hours from the third lunar landing in history. But as they soared through space, 200,000 miles from Earth, an explosion badly damaged their spacecraft. Thirteen is the shocking and miraculous true story of how the astronauts and ground crew guided Apollo 13 back to Earth. Expanding on dispatches written for The New Yorker, Henry S. F. Cooper Jr. brings listeners unparalleled detail on the moment-by-moment developments of one of NASA’s most dramatic missions.

Over two centuries have passed since his death on 4 May 1799, yet Tipu Sultan’s contested legacy continues to perplex India and her contemporary politics. A fascinating and enigmatic figure in India’s military past, he remains a modern historian’s biggest puzzle as he simultaneously means...

In a male-driven world, Bell managed to become one of the greatest policymakers the world has ever known; without her, the Middle East might very well be a much different place, and her influence in the territory gave her the nickname "Queen of the Desert". This biography tells the extraordinary story of one of the most adventurous and fascinating women you will ever encounter.

Renowned naturalist Kenn Kaufman examines the scientific discoveries of John James Audubon and his artistic and ornithologist peers in this fascinating “blend of history, science, art, biography, and memoir” (Booklist, starred review) that is “a bird lovers’ delight” (Kirkus Reviews)...

The heroes of each generation reflect the conditions, priorities, and goals of the era in which they reside. In the United States and throughout Europe, the wilderness explorer enjoyed widespread public adulation long before leading sports figures, rock stars, and astronauts of later decades. The ingenuity of the Industrial Revolution gave way to early manned flight, and other breakthroughs in communication and travel.

For hundreds of years, the history of the conquest of Mexico and the defeat of the Aztecs has been told in the words of the Spanish victors. Miguel León-Portilla has long been at the forefront of expanding that history to include the voices of indigenous peoples. In this new and updated edition...

Until the early 1870s, very little was known about the creatures lurking in the depths of our oceans. The first systematic investigation into life in our oceans was made during the circumnavigation of the HMS Challenger. Scientists credit this voyage as the beginning of modern oceanography. In this book, Graham Bell takes listeners through the voyage station by station, following the progress of the expedition and introducing some of the new and strange animals that were hauled up from the depths of the ocean and seen by human eyes for the first time.

Everest–the highest peak in the world, the ultimate challenge to a mountaineer's skill and endurance. It had been climbed before, but never like this. Chris Bonington and his team had ambitions to climb it–the hard way.

Two thousand books have been written about Columbus, most of them spirited defenses or relentless attacks. Recently, the balance has shifted: the Genoese navigator, once considered a hero, is now blamed for bringing plunder and genocide to the Americas. In The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus, historian Matthew Restall takes us beyond polemic, sifting through the evidence across nations, languages, and five centuries to explore the central questions of Columbiana.