Geographical discovery and exploration Books

Book SynopsisFinding Jim describes Susan Oakey-Baker''s struggle to confront the realities of life after the death of her husband, renowned mountain guide Jim Haberl, the first Canadian to summit the most difficult mountain in the world: K2. For fifteen years they had spent time adventuring together around the world: skiing the Himalaya, rafting in Nepal and mountaineering in North America. In time, they got married, solidified a home for themselves in Whistler, British Columbia, and planned on starting a family. But the future Susan had imagined was not meant to be, and when Jim was killed in an avalanche in the University Range of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska, she was faced with a loss greater than anything she ever could have expected. After Jim''s death, Susan spent time retracing the adventures they took together, in a desperate and obsessive attempt to gather and hold on to as many memories of him as she could. She travelled to the place in Alaska where he lost his life; searched the Queen Charlotte Islands where they had first met; trekked to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro where they had journeyed the year before his death; and scoured the hills around their Whistler home for traces of the man she had expected to spend the rest of her life with. In the spirit of books like Joan Didion''sThe Year of Magical Thinking and Maria Coffey''s Fragile Edge, Susan Oakey-Baker writes eloquently of her efforts to relive and reanalyze her husband''s death, to defy the pain that such a loss causes and embrace the healing power of mountains, adventure and wilderness as she reimagines her new life.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis is a book about the amazing journey of people discovering the Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya, looking for traces of a small historical event against the backdrop of the ending of the Soviet Union. At the start of the age of exploration, the North Pole was believed to be hiding a continent, a land mass warmed by the midnight sun still inspiring today''s Lost World fantasies. In the summer of 1596, two ships departed from Amsterdam to sail by its shores. The nine-month struggle for survival of the shipwrecked crew during the long polar night remains iconic in the history of the Arctic. Four hundred years later, Russians and Dutch together searched Novaya Zemlya for the grave and shipwreck of leader and explorer Willem Barents. This is a book about the Arctic and what it was like up there. This is a book about the nineties. Over one decade we watched modern Russia take shape. This book has everything that makes the Arctic exciting, and the historical sensation on every page.

Read more less

Book SynopsisVoyages of Delusion in the Age of Reason: Williams’s book charts the 18th-century’s perilous and often fatal attempts to discover a passage through the Arctic to the Pacific. An astounding work of the history of arctic exploration.Trade Review‘Remarkable… never was there a tale which joined such horror and pity, disaster and triumph, such fortitude in adversity. Glyn Williams’ narrative brings out all the drama of the story.’ NAM Rodger, TLS

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe history of the African Association, the world’s first geographical society, dedicated to the exploration of the interior of a continent known only through legend and vague report.Trade Review‘Enthralling. One of the most fascinating accounts of exploration that I’ve read in a long time.’ Jim Blackburn, Wanderlust ‘In “The Gates of Africa”, Anthony Sattin has excelled himself’.’ Conde Nast Traveller ‘Absorbing, highly readable and in places ironically humorous, a well-rounded and definitive study.’ Martin Booth, Sunday Times ‘An extraordinary panorama of adventure, scholarship, intellectual enterprise and ideological conviction, enlivened by frequent splashes of eccentricity and beautifully written throughout.’ Jan Morris

Read more less

Book SynopsisWith his trademark charm and sharp wit, Newby leaves no stone unturned in his quest for wonderfully detailed and quirky knowledge to share with his reader. Insightful, hilarious and sheer fun, this is an adventure not to be missed, by Britain's best-loved travel guide, and father of the genre.Trade Review‘One of the most stimulating and rewarding travel books to be seen for a long time' Spectator 'A splendid book . . . With its generosity, quirkiness, encyclopaedic love of facts, wisdom, humour, sense of history and change, this is a lot more than even the very best of travel books. Its author is a Ulysses, the book an Odyssey' Guardian 'Newby, the most companionable of literary vagabonds . . . Surely his best work since “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush”' Scotsman 'Whatever Newby writes, I read with uncritical pleasure. The Newby travels are classics of their kind' Financial Times 'A new book by Eric Newby is something of an event…It is a feast that combines and juxtaposes many different textures and flavours . . . A superb reporter, Mr Newby paints marvelously detailed portraits. . . An unrivalled eye for the ridiculous and, although this is essentially a serious book, it is frequently very, very funny. . . He is an extremely elegant writer, beautifully paced and rhythmic . . . For Newby admirers, this particular event is a memorable one, and it should also recruit a lot of new admirers to his ranks' Daily Telegraph 'Any book by Eric Newby is a must for me. But “On the Shores of the Mediterranean” is a particular favourite…The man's books are a marvelous tonic on dark and dismal British days' Barbara Dickson, Mail on Sunday

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe story of the only person to attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon, and the golden age of Polar Exploration.Trade Review‘Wilkinson’s writing is so flawless and engaging that I’d read him on a packed subway at rush hour.’ Sebastian Junger ‘The Ice Balloon tells a remarkable story, while also allowing those of other explorers and their ill-fated expeditions to float gracefully through its pages’ Carl Wilkinson, Financial Times ‘It does take a writer of Wilkinson’s diligence of research, elegance of style and perfect pitch as a storyteller to give a doomed, forgotten hero a fine memorial to his heroic adventure in the golden, amateur age of polar exploration’ Iain Finlayson, The Times ‘Wilkinson writes with insight and flair, artfully interleaving Andrée’s story with a brief history of Arctic exploration … his prose style suits the spare polar landscape, making his occasional poetic touches even more effective … He understands that the value of polar stories lies in our endless love of discovery and the drama of being human.’ Sara Wheeler, New York Times ‘An elegant history of Arctic exploration’ TLS ‘Some engaging material here’ Sunday Telegraph, Melanie McGrath ‘If Wilkinson does not add much that is new to the story, he re-tells it with panache and compassion’ Joanna Kavenna, Spectator

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1991, Doug Tompkins abandoned his comfortable life in San Francisco and flew 6,500 miles south to a shack in Patagonia. Instead of the Golden Gate Bridge, Tompkins stared out the window at Volcano Michinmahuida, blanketed in snow and prowled by mountain lions. Shielded by waterfalls and wilderness, the founder of such groundbreaking companies as Esprit and The North Face suddenly regretted the corporate capitalism from which he had profited from years. As a CEO he had caused much pollution and, “made things nobody needed.” Now, he declared, it was time to reverse the damage to the planet, and maybe even himself. In A Wild Idea, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Jonathan Franklin tells the incredible true story of Douglas Tompkins, who became one of the primary founders of our modern conservation and land protection movement. Piloting his small plane, Tompkins explored the uninhabited lands of Patagonia and gaped at the singular beauty: active volcanoes, forests never logged, rivers never dammed—all so undisturbed, so exquisitely designed. Could he protect this wild beauty? For the ensuing quarter century, that dream— that obsession—became his life. Only in death did it become his legacy.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAs war clouds darkened over Europe in 1914, a party led by Shackleton set out to make the first crossing of the entire Antarctic continent via the Pole. But their initial optimism was short-lived as ice floes closed around their ship, gradually crushing it and marooning 28 men on the polar ice. Alone in the world's most unforgiving environment, Shackleton and his team began a brutal quest for survival. And as the story of their journey across treacherous seas and a wilderness of glaciers and snow fields unfolds, the scale of their courage and heroism becomes movingly clear.Table of ContentsSouth: The Endurance ExpeditionIntroduction by Fergus FlemingPrefaceI. Into the Weddell SeaII. New LandIII. Winter MonthsIV. Loss of the EnduranceV. Ocean CampVI. The March BetweenVII. Patience CampVIII. Escape from the IceIX. The Boat JourneyX. Across South GeorgiaXI. The RescueXII. Elephant IslandXIII. The Ross Sea PartyXIV. Wintering in McMurdo SoundXV. Laying the DepotsXVI. The Aurora's DriftXVII. The Last ReliefXVIII. The Final PhaseAPPENDIX IScientific WorkSea-Ice NomenclatureMeteorologyPhysicsSouth Atlantic Whales and WhalingAPPENDIX IIThe Expedition Huts at McMurdo SoundIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisEnding in Ice is about Wegener's explorations of Greenland, blending the science of ice ages and Wegener's continental drift measurements with the story of Wegener's fatal final expedition trying to rescue starving workers at the central Greenland ice station of Esmitte in 1930.Trade Review'This is a revealing and expertly written book that deserves a wide audience...' Polar Publishing, 2007Table of Contents1. Scientist and Explorer ; 2. Wegener's Shocking Idea ; 3. The World Reacts to Wegener's Idea ; 4. Preparing for Greenland ; 5. Arriving in Greenland ; 6. Establishing Eismitte ; 7. The Fourth Trip to Eismitte, September, 1930 ; 8. Winter at East Station and West Station, 1930-1931 ; 9. Winter at Eismitte ; 10. The Search for Wegener and Villumsen ; 11. Searching for Reasons ; 12. Remembering Wegener ; 13. Progress After 1960 ; Endnotes ; Select Bibliography ; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisAt the start of the 18th century there were no maps, anywhere in the world. No one knew, with any certainty, the shape of the earth or what lay beneath its surface. Was it hollow or solid? Were the Andes the highest mountains on the Earth or was it the peak of Tenerife? Was the Earth a perfect sphere or slightly squashed as Sir Isaac Newton prophesized? In Weighing the World, master-surveyor and bestselling author Edwin Danson presents the stories of the scientists and scholars who cut their way through jungles, crossed the artic tundra, and braved the world''s highest mountains to discover the truth about our Earth. Danson also recounts the extraordinary experiment, conducted on a desolate Scottish peak by Astromer Royal Neville Maskelyne, to understand the so-called attraction of mountains, the curious capability mountians have to bend gravity, without which it would be impossible to accurately map Earth''s surface. A spell-binding scientific adventure story, Weighing the World will Trade ReviewThis is history writ large, with a long list of characters, and a background of wars, where good maps could be the key to victory. * The New Scientist *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. I Cannot Be Wrong ; 2. The Titan King ; 3. A Calm And Gentle Character ; 4. The Galileo Of France ; 5. Extreme Science ; 6. Robberies And Depredations ; 7. A Magnificent Military Sketch ; 8. Persons Well Versed ; 9. Very Expert In His Business ; 10. A Passage With My Horse ; 11. Frankenstein And Other Experiments ; 12. A Remarkable Hill ; 13. Important Observations ; 14. So Great A Noise ; 15. The Attraction of Mountains ; 16. The Best Of The Position ; 17. Distinguished Merit ; 18. Late A Whole Year ; 19. Geodetic Experiments ; 20. I Know It Will Answer ; 21. Offering Violence To Nature ; 22. A Meritorious Foreigner ; 23. Men Worthy Of Confidence ; 24. Irregularities We Have Discovered ; Explanations and Definitions

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis attempt to juxtapose the histories of Britain, western science and imperialism argues that expansion led to increasing knowledge. Science was fed by information culled from around the globe, aiding imperialism by guiding the exploitation of exotic climes and making conquest seem beneficial.

Read more less

Trade Review"Thanks to the superlative efforts of Kathleen Deagan and José Maria Cruxent, the archaeology of La Isabela—one of America’s most important sites—is now accessible to the world. Columbus’s Outpost among the Taínos is destined to become a classic in the field of historical archaeology."—David Hurst Thomas, American Museum of Natural History “La Isabela, founded by Columbus during his second voyage, was the first Spanish settlement in the New World. Kathleen Deagan and J.M. Cruxent are uniquely qualified to discuss this important event. Their book is based on sound scholarship and its style is clear and readable.”—Irving Rouse, author of The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe definitive biography of Everett Ruess, the artist, writer, and eloquent celebrator of the wilderness whose bold solo explorations of the American West and mysterious disappearance in the Utah desert at age twenty have earned him a large and devoted cult following.“Easily one of [Roberts’s] best . . . thoughtful and passionate . . . a compelling portrait of the Ruess myth.”—OutsideWandering alone with burros and pack horses through California and the Southwest for five years in the early 1930s, on voyages lasting as long as ten months, Ruess became friends with photographers Edward Weston and Dorothea Lange, swapped prints with Ansel Adams, took part in a Hopi ceremony, learned to speak Navajo, and was among the first outsiders to venture deeply into what was then (and to some extent still is) largely a little-known wilderness. When he vanished without a trace in November 1934, Ruess left behind thousands of pages of journ

Read more less

Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A white-knuckle tale of polar exploration and heroism in the Gilded Age from the New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Thunder and Ghost Soldiers. • “A splendid book in every way…a marvelous nonfiction thriller.” —The Wall Street Journal On July 8, 1879, Captain George Washington De Long and his team of thirty-two men set sail from San Francisco on the USS Jeanette. Heading deep into uncharted Arctic waters, they carried the aspirations of a young country burning to be the first nation to reach the North Pole. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the Jeannette's hull was breached by an impassable stretch of pack ice, forcing the crew to abandon ship amid torrents of rushing of water. Hours later, the ship had sunk below the surface, marooning the men a thousand miles north of Siberia, where they faced a terrifying march with m

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrom a New York Times best-selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist, a sweeping epic of how the Vikings and their descendants have shaped history and AmericaScandinavia has always been a world apart. For millennia Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and Swedes lived a remote and rugged existence among the fjords and peaks of the land of the midnight sun. But when they finally left their homeland in search of opportunity, these wanderers—including the most famous, the Vikings—would reshape Europe and beyond. Their ingenuity, daring, resiliency, and loyalty to family and community would propel them to the gates of Rome, the steppes of Russia, the courts of Constantinople, and the castles of England and Ireland. But nowhere would they leave a deeper mark than across the Atlantic, where the Vikings’ legacy would become the American Dream.In The Viking Heart, Arthur Herman melds a compelling historical narrative with cutting-edge archaeological and DNA research to trace the epic story of this remarkable and diverse people. He shows how the Scandinavian experience has universal meaning, and how we can still be inspired by their indomitable spirit.

Read more less

Book SynopsisNATIONAL BEST SELLER • A riveting account of Shackleton's famed Antarctic expedition, recounting one of the last great adventures in the Heroic Age of exploration—perhaps the greatest of them all—the shipwreck that stranded the crew for twenty months. Including never-before published photographs.In August 1914, days before the outbreak of the First World War, the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven set sail in their ship, Endurance, for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they had come within eighty-five miles of their destination when Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded on the floes. Their ordeal would last for twenty months, and they would make two near-fatal attemp

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1893, Fridjtof Nansen set sail in the Fram, a ship specially designed and built to be frozen into the polar ice cap, withstand its crushing pressures, and travel with the sea’s drift closer to the North Pole than anyone had ever gone before. Experts said such a ship couldn't be built and that the voyage was tantamount to suicide.  This brilliant first-person account, originally published in 1897, marks the beginning of the modern age of exploration. Nansen vividly describes the dangerous voyage and his 15-month-long dash to the North Pole by sledge. Farthest North is an unforgettable tale and a must-read for any armchair explorer.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1860, fifteen years after Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition disappeared in the Arctic, a Cincinnati businessman named Charles Francis Hall set out to locate and rescue the expedition's survivors. He was an amateur explorer, without any scientific training or experience, but he was driven by a sense of personal destiny and of religious and patriotic mission. Despite the odds against him, he made three forays into the far North, the final--and fatal--one taking him farther north than any westerner had ever gone before. But Hall was suddenly taken ill on that voyage and died under mysterious circumstances.Ninety-seven years later, Chauncey Loomis headed an expedition to Hall's grave in northwestern Greenland. He exhumed Hall's frozen body and performed an autopsy. His findings suggest that the investigators of Hall's death nervously sidestepped the damning evidence. Loomis has written a masterful biography-cum-mystery that brilliantly evokes the lure of the Arctic and th

Read more less

Book SynopsisWith a new introduction on Werner Herzog’s film entitled The Grizzly ManTimothy Treadwell, self-styled “bear whisperer” dared to live among the grizzlies, seeking to overturn the perception of them as dangerously aggressive animals. When he and his girlfriend were mauled, it created a media sensation.In The Grizzly Maze, Nick Jans, a seasoned outdoor writer with a quarter century of experience writing about Alaska and bears, traces Treadwell’s rise from unknown waiter in California to celebrity, providing a moving portrait of the man whose controversial ideas and behavior earned him the scorn of hunters, the adoration of animal lovers and the skepticism of naturalists. “Intensely imagistic, artfully controlled prose . . . behind the building tension of Treadwell’s path to oblivion, a stunning landscape looms.”—Newsday

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1610, the English mariner Henry Hudson set off on a journey to find the Northwest Passage, the water route that Europeans hoped would speed the time of travel to East Asia. But Hudson's search for the Northwest Passage did not go well. This book tells the full story of Hudson and the other 23 men who set sail from London in April 1610.Trade ReviewBooklist "Mancall's account of the doomed voyage is exciting, tense, and tragic... This is an excellent re-examination of [Hudson] and his final, sad effort." Minneapolis Star Tribune "[Mancall's] facility with primary sources is astounding. The story of Hudson's last voyage becomes, in his experienced hands, a lucid, fascinating lens into early Atlantic explorations. The book bristles with action, details about ship life, insight into British laws (the mutineers were found not guilty), and jaw-dropping accounts of encounters with Americans." Seattle Times "This is a story that stretches the imagination and leaves the reader with a shiver." Las Cruces Sun-News "Mancall [is] a master storyteller and historian... Any reader of Dr. Mancall's account will be caught in an exciting adventure and overwhelming tragedy." Washington Times "Mr. Mancall writes with authority in tone and scholarship." New York Post "Rather than speculate, Mancall delivers the story of how Hudson's crusade put him on a collision course with his men... But the story is perhaps most compelling in its descriptions of the Northern territory itself." Washington Post "[Fatal Journey] recounts the puzzling episode of a captain overthrown by an enraged faction of his own crew... [A] short and dependable guide to what befell a great but flawed explorer." Newark Star-Ledger "For fans of Mutiny on the Bounty and The Caine Mutiny, Fatal Journey will only add to the store and lore of desperate actions on the high seas... [Mancall] combines forensic history with pulsing narrative to achieve a highly credible account of how the mission unraveled." Boston Globe "Bracingly told." Boston Globe "Fatal Journey is a rich, exhilarating narrative of exploration, desperation, and ice-bound tragedy." History Magazine "Mancall places Hudson and the mutiny in the context of their age, a time when economic and cultural forces lured explorers and sailors into the dangers of a new world in search of profit and fame." Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research "Mancall, in this fascinating account based on a great deal of research, provides a reasonable explanation of Hudson's likely fate, after probably surviving for a polar winter or two... I recommended this excellent book to both armchair explorers and serious students of the history of the Arctic."

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less