Adventure Writing

Stark narrates a series of outdoor adventure stories in which thrill can cross the line into mortal peril. Each death or brush with death is at once a suspense story, a cautionary tale, and a medical thriller. He describes what goes through the mind of a cross-country skier as his body temperature plummets - apathy at 91 degrees, stupor at 90 - and explores the physiology of a snowboarder trying not to panic as he consumes the tiny pocket of air trapped around his face under thousands of pounds of snow.

'I would be most unhappy to think that any part of this memoir should be cut on grounds of 'decency', for those bits are essential....' So begins the lively true story of aristocrat and travel writer Roderic Fenwick Owen. Born in 1921, Fenwick Owen had an extraordinary life, which careered between some of the biggest moments in history and took him to the ends of the earth, meeting (and even living with) some of the 20th century's most well-known people along the way, including Eisenhower, Jackson Pollock, Christopher Lee and Sean Connery.

A powerfully built man more than six feet tall, Amundsen’s career of adventure began at the age of fifteen (he was born in Norway in 1872 to a family of merchant sea captains and rich ship owners); twenty-five years later he was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles. Lynne Cox, adventurer and swimmer, author of Swimming to Antarctica (“gripping”—Sports Illustrated) and Grayson (“wondrous, and unforgettable”—Carl Hiaasen), gives us in South with the Sun a full-scale account of the explorer’s life and expeditions.

Early in the French Revolutionary War, a young British naval officer, Lieutenant Joseph Duncan, finds himself unexpectedly in charge of a powerful frigate. Sailing alone in the Caribbean Sea with no one to ask for advice, he makes a fateful decision to engage a superior enemy force.

Here is the story of the infamous 1910 race to the South Pole, as told by its fearless yet desperate leader, Robert Falcon Scott. The New York Times called Scott's Last Expedition "A splendid record of heroism not soon to be forgotten."

This is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible. First, he set a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world, during the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a breakdown atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan, and lost three of the five men who started with him - two to disease, one to the Vietcong.

1853, Victoria, Australia. Five bushrangers led by the murderous outlaw Warrigal Anderson raid a small homestead. When they ride away, 19-year-old Toby O'Rourke's life is changed forever. His parents lay dead at his feet and his brother, Patrick, is badly wounded. But Toby O'Rourke is made of steel forged in the hardship of colonial life. Forced into adulthood, he and Patrick will seek to restore the family fortunes and outwit not only the rich businessman who conspired to rob them of their birth right but the vicious men who murdered their parents....

Put the career on hold, pull the children out of school, sell the house, and buy a boat in Greece to sail the Mediterranean? Why not? And so begins Heyward and Charlotte’s one-year businessman’s sabbatical. But with the winter months approaching and the Gulf War under way, this dream cruise will soon present them with a whole new set of obstacles.

Mark and his Suzuki DL 650 that he calls “Mabel” love adventure. This is a collection of some of the adventures that they have shared. Like most motorcyclists, a certain relationship develops with the motorcycle; Mabel and Mark trust each other. As they have found out on many occasions adventures are those things that happen to plans and sometimes you need someone you can trust. These are some of those stories.

The Languedoc is a hidden jewel of Europe; the most discriminating tourists are delighted to discover it. The area has many of the same traits that endear people to neighboring Provence: a warm coastline, outdoor markets, picturesque hillside villages, gourmet dining, and vineyards dotting the landscape. Yet Provence is the one with the reputation that causes tourists to flock there.The Languedoc has a certain immeasurable quality to it. Fond memories cling to you well after you return home.

Polly Letofsky left her Colorado home and headed west across four continents and over 14,000 miles - by foot - to become the first woman to walk around the world. In a spirit of adventure, along with the goal of raising global awareness for breast cancer, strangers welcomed her into their homes. The world had embraced her. But in the middle of Polly's journey, 9/11 flung us all into a crossroads in world history, and she found herself navigating a vastly changing world.

Thoreau gives an account of three canoe and hiking journeys - by himself and with others - through the mostly uninhabited forests of Maine in the 1850s. Identifying birds, trees and plants by their botanical as well as their common names, he also records the Indian names of lakes, rivers and plants. He investigates the connections between waterways and trails, and provides detail on camping, fishing and hunting in the woods, using whatever is at hand. Extolling the beauty of the wilds that he encounters, Thorough’s narrative is also imbued with elements of his philosophy.

What would it be like to cast aside the industrial bustle of the early 20th century to hop a freighter bound for the verdant jungles and untamed wildlife of the fabled Amazon? H.M. Tomlinson did just that, trading the streets of Swansea, Wales, for the open sea of the Atlantic. Thanks to Tomlinson's sharp eye for detail, his spellbinding account of this 1909 journey is much more than a standard travel narrative.

For 20,000 miles, Peter Matthiessen crisscrossed the South American wilderness, traveling from the Amazonian rain forests to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, down to the edge of the world at Tierra del Fuego and back. In the course of his journey he followed the trails of old explorers, encountered river bandits, wild tribesmen, and the evidence of ancient ruins, and discovered a fossilized snout of a giant unknown crocodilian hidden in the depths of the jungle on the wild mountain rivers of Peru.

Faced with buying a car and getting a real job - or taking the money and blowing it on a six-month adventure around Asia...well, there really is no contest! Who wouldn't want to visit exotic places, like Borneo, Cambodia, and China? Who wouldn't want to tackle the world's most dangerous hiking path, tangle with the Vietnamese Mafia, and suffer days in the dreaded Mongolian saddle? And who wouldn't want to try five-organ soup? All he has to do is survive long enough to realize his dreams.

An adventure to blow you away! That's what Jack and Annie get when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to the 1870s. They land on the prairie near a one-room schoolhouse, where they meet a teenaged schoolteacher, some cool kids, and one big, scary bully. But the biggest and scariest thing is yet to come.

Guy Thatcher walked the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route, hoping to discover the reason for the compulsion that drove him there. What he found instead was the timeless land of Northern Spain, beauty, silence, mountains and plains, rain and relentless sun, snow in May, heartbreaking climbs, fatigue, and injury; friendly and welcoming people, new friendships, despair, transcendental joy, birth and death, and churros con chocolate.

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 1995. 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.

These stories exude suffering at its worst - from the desperate cannibalism of the Donner Party to the brutal starvation and bitter cold endured by Ernest Shackleton's team. Tales of such suffering may be distressing to their listeners, but at the same time, they engage us, offering glimpses of our most fundamental needs.

Curious about the modern love affair with criminal personalities, investigative reporter Conor Woodman spent four years exploring the hidden depths of dynamic cities across the globe. Sharks takes us on a journey through the lawless backstreets of cities as diverse as Mumbai, Bogotá, New Orleans, Barcelona and London. In each he uncovers the people and the scams that keep the global black economy moving.