Explorer Memoirs

Discover the remarkable life of Daniel Boone... Daniel Boone is one of those figures in American history whose life often intertwines with myths and legends. While numerous tall tales surround this American adventurer, many of his greatest feats are actually true. They are not merely artifacts of folklore—they genuinely happened. Daniel Boone really did blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap into the western frontier. He really did become initiated as a member of the Shawnee (who gave him the name “Big Turtle”), and he really did serve under Revolutionary War General George Rogers Clark.

Aspen’s and Justin’s paths serendipitously aligned on the Pacific Crest Trail when both were walking from Mexico to Canada, separately and alone - both using thru-hiking in hopes of escaping their pasts. Both sought to redefine themselves beneath the stars. By the time they made it to the snowy Cascade Range of British Columbia - the trail’s end - Aspen and Justin were in love.

Home from Distant Seas completes the trilogy of books by James Baldwin recounting his 25 years of live-aboard cruising adventures. The author creates a tribute to the sea and to those who venture upon her in small voyaging sailboats as he describes his personal journey of survival and discovery at sea as well as the sailors and local people he met along the way. Continuing here with the memoir of his second adventurous circumnavigation begun in his earlier books Bound for Distant Seas and The Next Distant Sea.

During the 1920s, T. E. Lawrence gained global attention, both for his involvement in the Middle Eastern anti-imperialist movement, and for his vivid and sensational writings about his experiences. Despite the passage of many years and the emergence of a whole new set of problems in the Middle East, and fuelled by the success of the hit movie Lawrence of Arabia, the T. E. Lawrence mystique continues to fascinate. Controversial and provocative, this revised and updated edition of Lawrence James's acclaimed biography penetrates and overturns the mythology that surrounds T. E. Lawrence. James traces the sometimes spurious Lawrence legend back to its truthful roots, yet remains dispassionate and generous in spirit throughout. The Golden Warrior presents readers with a fascinating study of one of the twentieth century's most remarkable figures.

In 1922, a 16-year-old Canadian girl, fed up with life in a French convent school, answered an ad for a travelling secretary. Tall, blonde, and swaggering with confidence, she might have passed for twenty. She also knew what she wanted: to become the first female to drive around the world. Her name was Aloha Wanderwell. By the age of 25, she had become a pilot, a film star, an ambassador for world peace, and the centerpiece of one of the biggest unsolved murder mysteries in California history. Her story defied belief, but it was true. Every bit of it. Except for her name.

It was November 1806. The explorers had gone without food for one day, then two. Their leader, not yet thirty, drove on, determined to ascend the great mountain. Waist deep in snow, he reluctantly turned back. But Zebulon Pike had not been defeated. His name remained on the unclimbed peak-and new adventures lay ahead of him and his republic. In Citizen Explorer, historian Jared Orsi provides the first modern biography of this soldier and explorer, who rivaled contemporaries Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

La hija del guerrillero y la loca es la poderosa memoria de una niña exiliada en la Ciudad de México a causa de la guerra en su país natal.

The extraordinary true story of a young Jewish art student who not just survived but resisted and saved hundred of lives—all while retaining his infectious zeal for life.

Letizia ha vent'anni quando subisce violenza da un professore della sua università. Una violenza che la priva di tutto: fiducia, spensieratezza, felicità. Da quel momento il dolore diventa parte di lei, e con il tempo compaiono anche attacchi di panico e disturbi alimentari a ricordarle quanto fragile sia diventata. Ma a volte basta una frase per cambiare tutto: "Non è un dono ciò che ti è successo, non è niente di bello. Ma è successo, e ora sta a te decidere come sfruttarlo per uscirne". Poche parole, semplici e luminose, che le riaccendono qualcosa dentro.

At forty-five, Becky Jensen was raising two sons, engaged to be married, living the dream in Colorado. She was also suicidal and had no idea why. What did she have to be depressed about? The question haunted Jensen, leading her to take a bold step: to hike the five-hundred-mile Colorado Trail in search of answers. Leaving responsibility behind, Jensen shouldered a backpack loaded with camping gear, her father’s ashes, and the heavy expectations of womanhood—trudging off alone into no man’s land.

With reference to her all-extreme experiences, and backed with psychological research, Breathe encompasses tales of bravery, risk and pressure on an epic scale and expertly turns them into valuable lessons that can be applied to more everyday challenges. In doing so, Hughes shows how we can unlock our potential, regulate emotion, overcome fear, cope with psychological pressure and understand the importance of silence and headspace in our mental wellbeing.

For centuries, the city of Alexandria Beneath the Mountains was a meeting point of East and West. Then it vanished. In 1833, it was discovered in Afghanistan by the unlikeliest person imaginable: Charles Masson, deserter, pilgrim, doctor, archaeologist, spy, one of the most respected scholars in Asia, and the greatest of nineteenth-century travelers.

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, Egan's book tells the remarkable untold story behind Edward Curtis's iconic photographs, following him throughout Indian country from desert to rainforest as he struggled to document the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. Even with the backing of Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, it took tremendous perseverance. The undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate.

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.

In October 1968 Donn Eisele flew with fellow astronauts Walt Cunningham and Wally Schirra into Earth orbit in Apollo 7. The first manned mission in the Apollo program and the first manned flight after a fire during a launch pad test killed three astronauts in early 1967, Apollo 7 helped restart NASA's manned-spaceflight program.

Jim and Elaine Larison spent years studying, exploring, and living in wild places, making more than 30 environmental films, most for the National Geographic Society. These films won more than 40 international awards from leading environmental and broadcast organizations. This memoir tells the story behind the adventure and describes the rather substantial personal costs of this career.

George Murray Levick was the physician on Robert Falcon Scott's tragic Antarctic expedition of 1910. Marooned for an Antarctic winter, Levick passed the time by becoming the first man to study penguins up close. His findings were so shocking to Victorian morals that they were quickly suppressed and seemingly lost to history.

Hangdog Days vividly chronicles the era when rock climbing exploded in popularity, attracting a new generation of talented climbers eager to reach new heights via harder routes and faster ascents. This contentious, often entertaining period gave rise to sport climbing, climbing gyms, and competitive climbing-indelibly transforming the sport. Jeff Smoot was one of those brash young climbers, and here he traces the development of traditional climbing "rules," enforced first through peer pressure, then later through intimidation and sabotage.

Peter Pond, a fur trader, explorer, and amateur mapmaker, spent his life ranging much farther than Milford, Connecticut, where he was born and died (1740-1807). He traded around the Great Lakes, on the Mississippi and the Minnesota Rivers, in the Canadian Northwest, and was a partner in Montreal’s North West Company. Knowing 18th-century North America on a scale that few others did, Pond drew some of the earliest maps of western Canada. David Chapin presents Pond’s life as part of a generation of traders who came of age between the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution.

In ihren drei fesselnden Afrikareisegeschichten schildert Patricia Dietrich ihren waghalsigen Versuch, den Kilimandscharo zu bezwingen, die geheimnisvollen Berggorillas in Ruanda aufzusuchen und sich allein durch die Weiten Tansanias zu wagen. Die Autorin erzählt von genau diesen aufregenden eigenen Abenteuern in Tansania, Uganda und Ruanda. Die Abenteurerin entführt Sie in eine Welt lebensbedrohlicher Erlebnisse, die sie so spannend schildert, dass man sich mitten in einem packenden Krimi wähnt.