Showing titles in Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

From Alexander von Humboldt to Charles and Anne Lindbergh, these are stories of people of great vision and daring whose achievements continue to inspire us today, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. The bestselling author of Truman and John Adams, David McCullough has written...

With the quick wit and dry humour of a true Irishman, David "Irish" Anderson documents his epic eighteen-month motorcycle adventure from Ireland to South Africa in this captivating memoir. What begins as a lofty idea in a pub becomes a reality after six years of planning when Irish and his wife purposefully set out with their two heavily loaded motorcycles. Somewhere along the way, Irish loses his wife, but amidst the heartbreak, turmoil, and challenges on the long and often bumpy road, he gains a whole new perspective on life.

The author was a cannoneer in the historic Rockbridge (Va.) Artillery, which made for itself, from Manassas to Appomattox, a reputation second to none in the Confederate service. No more vivid picture has been presented of the private soldier in camp, on the march, or in action. It was written evidently not with any commercial view, but was an undertaking from a conviction that its performance was a question of duty to his comrades.

On the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Carpathia is an unremarkable passenger ship crossing the North Atlantic under the command of Captain Arthur Rostron. Far from the luxury and prestige of the Titanic, Carpathia is smaller, slower, and carrying no expectations beyond a routine voyage. Everything changes when a faint distress signal crackles through the wireless room. Without hesitation, Rostron orders the ship turned toward the Titanic’s last reported position—straight into dangerous, ice-choked waters. Boilers are pushed beyond safety limits, heat and hot water are diverted from ...

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.

In the dead of night, Tennyson and Kyle Jacobson's world is shattered when a violent home intruder forces them into a fight for their lives. The traumatic ordeal leaves the headlines buzzing with the gripping story of survival, but the true journey—the one most people never see—takes place in the quiet aftermath.

For fans of The Lost City of Z, Walking the Amazon, and Turn Right at Machu Picchu comes naturalist and explorer Paul Rosolie’s extraordinary adventure in the uncharted tributaries of the Western Amazon—a tale of discovery that vividly captures the awe, beauty, and isolation of this endangered land and presents an impassioned call to save it.

Anne Marie Allen was 15 when she was accepted onto a cookery school course that promised real qualifications and a future in the career of her dreams. Her happiness was short-lived as it became clear she had been tricked instead into a life of domestic servitude to the members of the Opus Dei cult. What followed were years of misery in slavery, forced celibacy and traumatic physical suffering under an ambitious and tyrannical institution that demanded perfection, humiliation and pain.

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat and Facing the Mountain comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier “An ideal pairing of talent and material.… Engrossing.… A deft and ambitious storyteller.” — Mary Roach, New York Times...

After thirty years cultivating fruits and vegetables, raising children, and teaching literature, Deborah Lee Luskin stepped out of her garden and into the forest. At sixty, it was time to age fiercely, overcome her suburban fear of getting lost in the woods and her urban reliance on street signs to know where she was. She wanted to forge her own path through the forest by following the deer. A dedicated locavore, Luskin didn’t want just to read the landscape, she also wanted to eat it.

Canada’s greatest modern-day explorer sets out into the arctic wilderness to solve a mystery more than 100 years old. In November 1910, explorer Hubert Darrell vanished in the uncharted wilds of the Northwest Territories. A prospector who had been swept up in the Klondike Gold Rush, Darrell...

She packed for three days. She survived twenty-three. On April 11, Maya Calloway rode her electric bike into one of the most remote wilderness areas in the Sierra Nevada with a simple plan: three days alone in the mountains before she turned thirty. A solo adventure. A bucket-list moment. A chance to test herself against real wilderness before the next chapter of her life began. The first storm arrived the next morning. Then the second. Then the third. Over the next twenty-three days, Maya would face thirteen consecutive snowstorms, one avalanche, a serious ankle injury, and forty miles of ...

This is not a quest for the elusive secret to everything; instead, this book focuses on the secret itself. The author draws from personal experiences to illuminate the path to having it all in life and achieving a state of bliss without the constant strain of effort. Written in a memoir-philosophy style, the text seamlessly intertwines existential psychology, spiritual reflection, and genuine life experiences, creating a narrative that is both engaging and enlightening. Readers are invited to explore their own lives through the author's journey, which serves as a mirror for introspection ...

From the internationally beloved YouTube adventurer and National Geographic TV host, a singular and fearless new travel memoir packed with inspiration for leading a more vibrant, wild, and authentic life. Are you living with a capital “L”? When was the last time you truly felt you were your...

Gaza. For months, the name has dominated every headline and news broadcast. But what do we truly know about life there, beyond the slogans and reports of war? — The most profound and honest answer isn't in the news; it's in the life story of someone who grew up there. This is the story of Ayman Abu Soobuch, born in 1977 in Khan Yunis, in the very heart of the Gaza Strip. He grew up as the third child of a Muslim family, living near monsters like Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Yahya Ayyash. But a single, transformative moment changed the course of his life. In his gripping story, he ...

As the adopted son of two cult leaders, Benjamin Risha was raised to someday assume a place of leadership in the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation with the Bible, and his parents’ interpretation of it, as his guide. He believed the prophecies of his adoptive mother and father. However, when none of it happened, and the foundation slid from bucolic communal lifestyle to insufferable criminality that included absolute obedience to the Alamos, Benjamin knew he had to escape.

West with the Night is the story of a remarkable woman molded and shaped by many things: the African jungle, a certain dog, horses, airplanes, friendships with white men and black. There is no life, no story quite like it.

In the aftermath of tragedy, Barry Hoffner wanted to feel the pulse of the world again. The whole world. When Barry Hoffner lost his wife and travel partner, Jackie, in a sudden tragedy, his grief was a black hole that consumed everything. But amid the quiet wreckage of loss, something unexpected stirred: the call to move, to reconnect, and to live fully again.

In Sacred Becoming, Maria Kang - mother, movement leader, and cancer survivor - invites listeners into a raw, radiant journey of remembering. Through illness, heartbreak, and spiritual initiation, she peels back the layers of cultural expectation, familial pain, and self-betrayal to reveal the one truth that changed everything: healing is an inside job. With poetic storytelling, lived wisdom, and unapologetic honesty, Maria shares the soul work that carried her from a Stage IV cancer diagnosis to a life of embodied purpose. This is not just a memoir... it’s a manual for awakening.

He was a correctional officer who upheld the law. Then he became a homeless addict in America's largest open-air drug market. Budd's life was built on a foundation of order and discipline, following his father's footsteps into a career in corrections. But beneath the uniform, a relentless addiction was tearing his world apart, brick by agonizing brick. In a harrowing descent, he lost everything: his job, his family's trust, and finally, his home. He ended up on the streets of Kensington, Philadelphia—a neighborhood ravaged by a new, flesh-eating drug called "tranq." His slow suicide was ...