Explorer Memoirs

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself strapped to a giant rocket that's about to go from zero to 17,500 miles per hour? Or to look back on Earth from outer space and see the surprisingly precise line between day and night? Or to stand in front of the Hubble Space Telescope, wondering if the emergency repair you're about to make will inadvertently ruin humankind's chance to unlock the universe's secrets? Mike Massimino has been there, and in Spaceman he puts you inside the suit.

We all know that at some point in life, we will experience pain, uncertainty and loss. Widowhood, redundancy, a life-changing diagnosis, pregnancy loss, or a global pandemic. So how can we weather the storms, and cope with whatever comes next? No one can answer this better than Lucy Easthope, an emergency planner whose job is to support survivors of major disasters. She has been there after countless earthquakes, fires and floods. Time and again she has watched how people rebuild: the work, the pitfalls and the fragile joy.

Holly FitzGerald and her husband, Fitz - married less than two years - set out on a yearlong honeymoon adventure of a lifetime, backpacking around the world. Five months into the trip their plane crash lands in Peru at a penal colony walled in by jungle, and their blissfully romantic journey turns into a terrifying nonstop labyrinth of escape and survival.

Stuck in a corporate job rut and faced with an unraveling marriage at the age of thirty-six, Roz Savage sat down one night and wrote two versions of her own obituary - the one that she wanted and the one she was heading for. They were very different. She realized that if she carried on as she was, she wasn't going to end up with the life she wanted. So she turned her back on an eleven-year career as a management consultant to reinvent herself as a woman of adventure.

Nicolas Vanier lâche son attelage. Devant lui, un défi immense : la Yukon Quest, la course de traîneaux à chiens la plus difficile au monde. 1600 kilomètres entre le Canada et l'Alaska, le long de la route de la ruée vers l'or. Des températures glaciales qui dépassent les - 50 degrés. Des vents qui vous renversent au premier relâchement. Un parcours accidenté exténuant.

After months of following one-size-fits-all advice for a 57-year-old widow, Linda Crill is still miserable, until she makes a rebellious spur-of-the-moment decision: she trades her corporate suits for motorcycle leathers and commits herself to a 2,500-mile road trip down America’s Pacific Northwest coast on a Harley. The problem: she doesn’t know how to ride and has only 30 days to learn. Four short weeks later, Linda joins two men and a woman for a white-knuckled, exhilarating road trip along the west coast from Vancouver, Canada, to the wine country of Mendocino, California....

Au début des années soixante, Thompson, alors journaliste à San Francisco, est fasciné par les Hell's Angels. Son article sur ces seigneurs de la route fait sensation, il se lance dans la version longue : un an passé à rouler et à écrire à leurs côtés. Mais l'équipée se termine sauvagement : parce qu'il refuse de partager ses royalties, les Angels abandonnent l'homme de lettres sur une route, à moitié mort et le crâne défoncé à coups de pierres.

A man walked into the woods, destined to spend eight months living in the wild. Exhausted and emotionally ruined living the fast-paced life of a successful young professional, it was all too easy to give up. The challenges came on the adventure of a lifetime. Months in the woods that would provide adversity, healing, and tranquility.

In 2009, after a divorce that left her heartbroken and directionless, Kristin decided to accept an offer to live at a friend's cabin outside of Denali National Park in Alaska for a few months. In exchange for housing, she would take care of her friend's eight sled dogs. That winter, she learned that she was tougher than she ever knew. She learned how to survive in one of the most remote places on Earth and she learned she was strong enough to be alone. She fell in love twice: first with running sled dogs, and then with Andy, a man who had moved to Alaska to heal a broken heart.

In late September 2015, Hurricane Joaquin swept past the Bahamas and swallowed a pair of cargo vessels in its destructive path: El Faro, a 790-foot American behemoth with a crew of 33, and the Minouche, a 230-foot freighter with a dozen sailors aboard. From the parallel stories of these ships and their final journeys, Tristram Korten weaves a remarkable tale of two veteran sea captains from very different worlds, the harrowing ordeals of their desperate crews, and the Coast Guard’s extraordinary battle against a storm that defied prediction.

The Last Great Mountain tells the story of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga the third highest but reputedly the hardest mountain in the world. It was an astonishing achievement for a British team led by Everest veteran Charles Evans. Drawing on interviews, diaries and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey begins his story in 1905 with the disastrous first attempt on the mountain by a team led by Aleister Crowley, explores the three dramatic German expeditions of the the late 1920s and brings it all to a climax 50 years later with the first ascent by Joe Brown and George Band.

Conquering Kilimanjaro embodies making a life-changing decision of saying yes to accomplish an insurmountable feat to most. After spending years desiring to climb, Jodi made her way across the Atlantic to ascend the majestic roof of Africa.

In Driving Lessons, Christopher B. Strain sets out on a quintessential American road trip, exploring not just the roads and byways of the country but the road trip's place in American culture. Strain dives into the well of American travel writing, illuminating fascinating aspects of the road trip, such as how race, class, and gender shape the experiences of road trippers.

Sue Tidwell lived in awe of Africa’s extraordinary wildlife. After years spent appreciating the animals in her imagination, the tenderhearted American hated the idea of joining her husband on a big game hunting safari. And getting attacked by blood-sucking tsetse flies the moment she stepped off the plane gave no hint of the mind-blowing change of perspective in her future. With her initial animosity turning into curiosity as they breathlessly tracked dangerous beasts, Sue formed a surprising bond with their young female government-assigned game scout.

Marie Colvin, described as "the greatest war correspondent of her generation", was killed in a rocket attack in February 2012 while reporting on the desperate suffering of civilians inside Syria's besieged Homs. Paul Conroy, who had forged a close bond with Colvin as they put their lives on the line time and time again to report from some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones, was with her.

Back again with even more "mostly true" tales from the trail, Lawton Grinter's new book I Hike Again is sure to find a place in every adventurer's library! I Hike Again imparts hard-earned wisdom from trails both in the United States (Arizona Trail, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, Wind River High Route) and abroad (Spain's GR11 and New Zealand's Te Araroa).

Helen Olson and her husband, Elmer, retired in their late forties to sail the Pacific Ocean and Oceania from 1979-1989 on a fifty-foot yacht they built themselves. "Sailing Elysium" is a personal account of that ten-year adventure, as they immersed themselves in the cultures and traditions of the local people, venturing to twenty-seven major stay-overs in twenty-one countries.

How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.

The William E. Boeing Story: A Gift of Flight is the first ever full-length biography of William E. Boeing, the father of commercial aviation. Boeing's story is an exciting one, complete with bootleggers, kidnappers, and disastrous run-ins with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and future Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.

The Girl Explorers is the inspirational and untold story of the founding of the Society of Women Geographers - an organization of adventurous female world explorers - and how key members served as early advocates for human rights and paved the way for today's women scientists by scaling mountains, exploring the high seas, flying across the Atlantic, and recording the world through film, sculpture, and literature.