Explorer Memoirs

Admired by millions as the star of Man vs. Wild and the acclaimed NGC series Running Wild, global adventurer Bear Grylls has explored places few would dare to go. Now, he shares time-honored lessons for leading an adventurous life through stories drawn from his personal experiences, as well as encounters with a diverse group of celebrities who have participated in his wildly popular television shows.

No American president has been more enthusiastic in appreciating the wilderness and in conserving our nation’s natural treasures than Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919). And no other president wrote more about nature and his explorations of it than T. R., in scattered books, such as African Wilderness, and in his countless letters, including those collected in The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt).

In her debut memoir Never Alone: A Solo Arctic Survival Journey, Woniya shares how months of starving by herself in the Arctic wilderness brought more healing than suffering, and led to a deep sense of belonging and peace. Her story affirms the incredible strength of the human spirit and shows us that strength comes in many surprising forms. Never Alone's message is one of inspiration and learning to trust in ourselves and the land around us; embracing the wild and being wholly and beautifully human, flaws and all.

From the star of Bravo’s hit reality show Below Deck comes the “Stud of the Sea”'s first-ever memoir recounting his journey from landlocked Saginaw, Michigan to the high seas, where he has spent more than 25 years as a superyacht captain. You don’t have to be one of Below Deck’s 1.5 million weekly viewers to appreciate Captain Lee’s story, which offers a glimpse behind-the-scenes at the luxury yachting industry and one of Bravo’s biggest franchises.

In 1528, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: Delayed by a hurricane, knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, and ultimately doomed by a disastrous decision to separate the men from their ships, the mission quickly became a desperate journey of survival. Of the 300 men who had embarked on the journey, only four survived - three Spaniards and an African slave.

In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Mount Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceives his own crazy, beautiful plan: He will fly a plane from England to Everest, crash-land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit — completely alone.

As a scout, I needed all my five senses and every faculty of my mind at highest efficiency at all times. There is nothing that sharpens a man’s senses so acutely as to know that bitter and determined enemies are in pursuit of him night and day. In many lines of endeavor, errors may be repeated without fatal results, but in an Indian or savage war, or in a bitter feud, one little slip entails the “absent” mark forever against a man’s name. Solitude intensifies the perceptions. The herd with a thousand eyes trusts itself to a solitary sentinel with only two.

Already a number-one London Sunday Times best seller, Mud, Sweat, and Tears is the adrenaline-fueled autobiography of the mega-popular star of the hit survival series Man vs. Wild, adventurer Bear Grylls. A former British Special Forces commando, a man who has always sought the ultimate in dangerous challenges, Bear's true story reads like an outdoors action-and-adventure novel. But Bear's story is true - full of breathtaking escapes and remarkable exploits that would make any Jack London or H. Ryder Haggard hero proud.

J. M. Hepner spent years walking into the wreckage of America's worst disasters—hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, floods—not to save lives, but to help survivors begin rebuilding them. But behind the FEMA badge was a husband, a father, and a man unraveling one inspection at a time. In this raw, unfiltered memoir, Hepner pulls back the curtain on the human cost of disaster response. Told with searing honesty, dark humor, and heartbreaking clarity, When Will You Be Home? reveals what it's like to realize that emotional wounds often run deeper than the physical ones.

En 1968, le Sunday Times décide d'organiser la première régate en solitaire et sans escale, en doublant les trois caps : Bonne-Espérance, Leewin et Horn. Seul entre mers et ciels, il relate dans son journal de bord ses dix mois sans toucher terre, sa vie au quotidien sur le Joshua, les dauphins, les poissons volants et les étoiles. Entre ciels et mers, l'exploit sportif se transforme peu à peu en un voyage intérieur. Se pose alors cette question folle : a-t-il envie de retrouver la société des Hommes ?

“Don’t read a book! Live a book!” barked my big brother, as I lay on my bed reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. There was no way, at the time, that Bob could have known I was, at age 16, planning my escape to Denver, Colorado, leaving behind the never-ending chaos I’d lived through as long as I could remember. And live a book, I did! Many years later, while lying sick with pneumonia on a Seattle bed, I vowed to write about it all. It was a "bucket list" item that was in jeopardy of never being completed. My life’s story had to be told — if only I could do it justice.

Captain Kidd was one of the most notorious pirates to ever prowl the seas. But few know that Kidd had an accomplice, a behind-the-scenes player who enabled his plundering and helped him outpace his enemies. That accomplice was his wife, Sarah Kidd, a well-to-do woman whose extraordinary life is a lesson in reinvention and resourcefulness. Twice widowed by twenty-one and operating within the strictures of polite society in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New York, Sarah secretly aided and abetted her husband, fighting alongside him against his accusers.

From London to New York, Ewan and Charley chased their shadows through Europe, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, across the Pacific to Alaska, then down through Canada and America. But as the miles slipped beneath the tyres of their big BMWs, their troubles started. Exhaustion, injury and accidents tested their strength. Treacherous roads, unpredictable weather and turbulent politics challenged their stamina.

Over thirty years of supernatural adventures and miraculous encounters in the author's personal experience and growth from his first search for God, to learning how to live a naturally supernatural lifestyle.

I would like to take you on a journey. It’s going to be a journey across many oceans, over a lot of water but very much a journey of the human spirit. This is not a sailing story. It’s much more than that. My seven crew and I participated in the fatal 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race in which 6 men tragically died, 55 were rescued and a number of boats sank. On our boat, for 15 hours, we thought that we had found out how we were going to die. By a slim margin, we managed to survive that incredible cornerstone event in each of our lives.

A recent French biography begins, "Who doesn't know Nadar?" In France, that's a rhetorical question. Of all of the legendary figures who thrived in mid-19th-century Paris - a cohort that includes Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Gustave Courbet, and Alexandre Dumas - Nadar was perhaps the most innovative, the most restless, the most modern. The first great portrait photographer, a pioneering balloonist, the first person to take an aerial photograph, and the prime mover behind the first airmail service, Nadar was one of the original celebrity artist-entrepreneurs.

On May 15, 2010, after 210 days at sea and more than 22,000 nautical miles, 16-year-old Jessica Watson sailed her 33-foot boat triumphantly back to land. She had done it. She was the youngest person to sail solo, unassisted, and nonstop around the world. Jessica spent years preparing for this moment, years focused on achieving her dream. Yet only eight months before, she collided with a 63,000-ton freighter. It seemed to many that she’d failed before she’d even begun, but Jessica brushed herself off, held her head high, and kept going.

A masterpiece of compelling narrative history, The White Ladder describes the epic rise of mountaineering's world altitude record, a story of ever higher climbs by figures great and small of mountaineering. Daniel Light describes how climbers used revolutionary techniques to launch themselves into the most forbidding conditions. The expeditions illustrate evolutionary changes in climbing style, the advancement of high-altitude science, and the development of mountain climbing as an industry.

The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York - the revolutionary hero, back from the dead, at the dawn of the great Irish immigration to America.

Fraud is a raw, unfiltered memoir by Tom Gitchel Jr. that takes listeners deep inside the chaos of addiction, self-deception, and recovery. Chance James had a nursing license, a job, and a family who believed in him. But behind the mask, he was unraveling—addicted, ashamed, and living a lie he could no longer maintain. In a desperate attempt to escape, he faked his own abduction—and that is where the real story begins. This powerful true account follows his journey through rock bottom, detox, rehab, and the painful but redemptive process of learning to live again.