Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day....

From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him.

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood....

Into Thin Air is the definitive, personal account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest...

Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. Fremont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of....

The River of Doubt brings alive extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived....

I was born and broken in Birkenhead, abused from infancy by a network of every kind of pervert from ‘thinks it’s love’ to ‘show it hurts’. I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed, ignored and orphaned....

In Campfire Stories: Narrow Escapes & More Close Calls, storytellers take us from Florida to the Northern Rockies to the Arctic Ocean with wild and true stories, a reminder that the natural world is rugged and unpredictable....

Gather around for campfire stories with the MeatEater crew as they share 16 harrowing true tales of survival, grit, and misfortune in the great outdoors - an immersive audio experience from the host of the long-running Netflix series and top-ranked wilderness podcast....

Three friends, women in their fifties, set out to hike "the most beautiful long-distance trail in the world," the John Muir Trail....

In this thrilling memoir of a life spent exploring the most incredible places on Earth—from the Great African Seaforest to the crocodile lairs of the Okavango Delta—Craig Foster reveals how we can attend to the earthly beauty around us and deepen our love for all living things....

In 1839 rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world's most intrepid travelers....

For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe....

The explosive true saga of the legendary adventurer Jedediah Smith and the Mountain Men who explored the American frontier, written by New York Times bestselling authors of Blood and Treasure....

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"....

In the tradition of Educated and The Glass Castle, this shattering and poetic memoir from a brave new voice tells the story of the author’s experience in an apocalyptic cult, and how understanding the natural world was her key to escape—and survival....

One of the highest-ranking defectors from Scientology exposes the secret inner workings of the powerful organization in this remarkable memoir....

After years of physical and mental abuse, Jade thought her kindly foster mother would be the answer to her prayers. She was wrong...this is her staggering true story....

In 1528, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong. Of the 300 men who had embarked on the journey, only four survived....

As thrilling as any novel, as taut and exciting as any adventure story, Peter Hathaway Capstick’s Death in the Long Grass takes us deep into the heart of darkness to view Africa through the eyes of one of the most renowned professional hunters.

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....

438 Days is the miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history....

In The Ice at the End of the World, Jon Gertner explains how Greenland has evolved from one of earth’s last frontiers to its largest scientific laboratory....

The same vulnerable but invincible spirit that captured our hearts in the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Angela's Ashes comes of age in 'Tis....

From one of Outside magazine’s “Literary All-Stars” comes the thrilling true tale of the fastest boat ride ever, down the entire length of the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon, during the legendary flood of 1983.

In this thrilling memoir of a life spent exploring the most incredible places on Earth—from the Great African Seaforest to the crocodile lairs of the Okavango Delta—Craig Foster reveals how we can attend to the earthly beauty around us and deepen our love for all living things, whether we make our homes in the country, the city, or anywhere in between.

This memoir presents one human story, crafted into art by the power of words. Elisha's carefully planned life collapses with the breakup of a relationship she had built her life around, sending her on a journey into the depths of the global sexy Tantra scene. Wild Thing in Captivity is Eat, Pray, Love for Tantra. It's a coming-of-middle-age tale for Generation X.

On June 4,1924 George Mallory donned an oxygen set and set off for the summit of Everest with his young partner Andrew Irvine. Next day they were glimpsed through clouds heading upwards, but after that they were never seen again. Whether they died on the way up or on the way down no one knows. In the years following his disappearance, Mallory was elevated into an all-British hero. Dubbed by his friends the 'Galahad' of Everest, he was lionized in the press as the greatest mountaineer of his generation who had died while taking on the ultimate challenge

In the winter of 1959, a group of nine young and experienced hikers embarked on a journey into the Ural Mountains of Russia. Although they had previously undertaken cold-weather trips, this particular expedition would tragically be their last. During their trek, the hikers encountered something unexpected in the supposedly desolate region, resulting in the demise of the entire group. The exact events of that fateful night remain unknown, but the incident has since become one of the world's most perplexing mysteries.

Raging ambition. Towering egos. Competition under a veneer of courtesy. Heroic effort combined with plagiarism, theft, exaggeration, and fraud. This was the state of bird study in eastern North America during the early 1800s, as a handful of intrepid men raced to find the last few birds that were still unknown to science. The most famous name in the bird world was John James Audubon, who painted spectacular portraits of birds. But although his images were beautiful, creating art was not his main goal. Instead, he aimed to illustrate (and write about) as many different species as possible.

Immerse yourself in the captivating life of Horst Dietrich Rüttinger through the pages of "Elephants Have the Right of Way: A UNICEF Memoir." This heartfelt account takes you on a down-to-earth adventure, as Horst shares his extraordinary experiences working with UNICEF and the cherished moments he spent with his family. Prepare to be inspired by the remarkable stories of a man who embodied compassion, resilience, and the unwavering belief in making a positive impact on the world. Join Horst on this intimate journey and discover the power of a life well-lived.

Embark on a captivating adventure with "It Is What It Is", a remarkable book that delves into the profound thoughts and experiences of a man who didn't ignore the whisper...errr uhh...scream, to write. Authored and Narrated by the same, this introspective expression takes listeners on a transformative voyage through the intricate threads of life, exploring the realms of God, family, friends, and self.

This award-winning work of narrative nonfiction is a raw and haunting account of one girl’s journey through madness, loss, and a broken child welfare system in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Seven-year-old Leslie has a serious problem. Someone is trying to kill her. Her mother Roberta suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and she writes rambling manifestos and forces her children to live on the run to evade capture by the Russian spies she believes are after them. With every psychotic break, Leslie and her younger brother face terrifying circumstances despite the fact that Roberta’s only wish...

Gypsy Jane Finley wandered on the road full-time solo RVing for five years in a tiny pickup camper starting in the year 2000 at the age of sixty-three. Thereafter for the rest of her life from 2005 to 2017 she stayed true to her dream living in a mobile home in Quartzsite, Arizona – the very heart of Nomandlandia – for the winter half of each year and doing on-the-road RVing the other half. Gypsy Jane was a minimalist solo RVer in terms of things but a maximalist in terms of living life to the fullest. This book is the story about both Gypsy Jane Finley’s wandering life on the road ...

"Wild Bill From Boston" is a gripping novella that transports readers to 1944, into the heart of World War II's aerial battles. It follows Sergeant William "Wild Bill" O’Roarke, a left waist gunner on the B-17 bomber, The Spirit of Valley Forge. Stationed at Rougham Airfield in England, Bill and his crew navigate the perilous skies over Nazi-occupied Europe, forging unbreakable bonds amidst the chaos of war. This tale is a vivid portrayal of the courage, camaraderie, and emotional turmoil experienced by these young men. As Bill grapples with the realities of combat, personal loss, and ...

With his characteristic color and flair, Capstick recalls the extraordinary careers of men like Colonel J.H. Patterson and Colonel Jim Corbett, who stalked legendary man-eaters through the silent darkness on opposite sides of the world; men like Karamojo Bell, acknowledged as the greatest elephant hunter of all time; men like the valiant Sasha Siemel, who tracked killer jaguars though the Matto Grosso armed only with a spear.

As paramedic Kathy Harms navigates the devastation in the aftermath of the catastrophic 2005 Kashmir Earthquake as a first-time medical aid worker, she is confronted by the scale of suffering she observes in the region, and her own lack of experience in the area of humanitarian work.

From the court of Imperial Russia to Foxley Manor in Herefordshire, the story begins with the First World War. Part One takes the listener through the Russian Revolution to the formation of the Second Polish Republic and the Polish-Bolshevik war. Part Two begins at the outset to World War Two with the German invasion on September 1st, 1939, and the subsequent invasion by the Soviet Union on the 17th of the same month. The listener is taken through the early months of soviet occupation and then on to the first wave of Polish deportations to Siberia.

Sparkling with suspense and vulnerability, Tap Dancing on Everest is a true survival story about the risks we take to become our most authentic selves. In this inspiring coming-of-age travel memoir that includes solo hiking through Nepal, Zieman weaves her childhood as the daughter of Jewish immigrants raised in 1970's New York City, her father a Holocaust survivor, with adventure, medicine, and empowerment. She captures the curiosity and awe of a young woman as she faces down messages to stay small and safe and ventures into the unknown.

She was 17 years old on a Christmas Eve flight 40 years ago to join her father for Christmas when the unimaginable happened. The Lockheed L-188A Electra, on the way from Lima to Pucallpa, flew directly into a thunderstorm. A strike of lightning left the plane incinerated and Juliane Diller (Koepcke) still strapped to her plane seat falling through the night air two miles above the Earth. Her survival is unexplainable and considered a modern-day miracle. Her mother was among the 91 dead and Juliane the sole survivor.