Adventure Biography

By captivating millions during his six-year, 50-country tenure as The New York Times' "Frugal Traveler", Seth Kugel has become one of our most internationally beloved travel writers. While his famously unassuming journeys around the globe have forged a signature philosophy of whimsy and practicality, they have also revealed the seemingly infinite booby traps of on-the-grid tourism. In a book with widespread cultural reverberations, Kugel takes the modern travel industry to task, determined to reignite humanity's age-old sense of adventure.

Enjoy this volume of Aged in Saltwater with 55 color photographs throughout the interior.

In American on Purpose, Craig Ferguson delivers a moving and achingly funny memoir of living the American dream as he journeys from the mean streets of Glasgow, Scotland, to the comedic promised land of Hollywood. Along the way, he stumbles through several attempts to make his mark - as a punk rock musician, a construction worker, a bouncer, and, tragically, a modern dancer.

Aged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her parents and brother on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. No one else knew where they were most of the time and no state showed any interest in what was happening to the children. Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing.

In the late 2000s, Molly Bloom, a twenty something petite brunette from Loveland Colorado, ran the highest stakes, most exclusive poker game Hollywood had ever seen - she was its mistress, its lion tamer, its agent, and its oxygen. Everyone wanted in, few were invited to play. Hundreds of millions of dollars were won and lost at her table. Molly's game became the game for those in the know - celebrities, business moguls, and millionaires.

Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map-if they get on at all-only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

You’ve heard him as host of the Fighter Pilot Podcast. More than 100k listeners have been waiting for this book. Now ride along. From the cockpit of a Navy jet circling overhead, an aircraft carrier—1,000 feet long and displacing 98,000 tons—looks no bigger than a child’s toy. No wonder the fighter pilots call it a boat. Try landing on one of these bucking broncos without boltering.

Gripping and often poetic, Alone Against the North is a classic adventure story of single-minded obsession, physical hardship, and the restless sense of wonder that every explorer has in common. What Shoalts discovered as he paddled downriver was a series of unmapped waterfalls that could easily have killed him. Just as astonishing was the media reaction when he got back to civilization. He was feted by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and congratulated by the Governor General. People were enthralled by Shoalts’s proof that the world is bigger than we think.

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.

Henry Avery of Devon pillaged a fortune from a Mughal ship off the coast of India and then vanished into thin air—and into legend. More ballads, plays, biographies and books were written about Avery’s adventures than any other pirate. His contemporaries crowned him "the pirate king" for pulling off the richest heist in pirate history and escaping with his head intact (unlike Blackbeard and his infamous Flying Gang). Avery was now the most wanted criminal on earth. To the authorities, Avery was the enemy of all mankind. To the people he was a hero.

As a park ranger with the National Park Service's law enforcement team, Andrea Lankford led search and rescue missions in some of the most beautiful (and dangerous) landscapes across America, from Yosemite to the Grand Canyon. But though she had the support of the agency, Andrea grew frustrated with the service's bureaucratic idiosyncrasies, and left the force after twelve years. Two decades later, however, she stumbles across a mystery that pulls her right back where she left off: three young men have vanished from the Pacific Crest Trail.

When his mother, Barbara, turns seventy, Jedidiah Jenkins is reminded of a sobering truth: Our parents won’t live forever. For years, he and Barbara have talked about taking a trip together, just the two of them. They disagree about politics, about God, about the project of society—disagreements that hurt. But they love thrift stores, they love eating at diners, they love true crime, and they love each other. Jedidiah wants to step into Barbara’s world and get to know her in a way that occasional visits haven’t allowed.

From the author of the Magellan biography, Over the Edge of the World, a mesmerizing new account of the great explorer. Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a trading route to China, and his unexpected landfall in the Americas, is a watershed event in world history.

When pirates attacked her town and the captain took a liking to her, she saw a way out. Zheng Yi Sao agreed to marry him only if she got an equal share of his business. When her husband died six years later, she took command of the fleet. Over the next decade, the pirate queen built a fleet of over 1,800 ships and 70,000 men. On land and sea, Zheng Yi Sao's power rivaled the emperor himself. Time and again, her ships triumphed over the emperor's ships.

Writer for the New York Times and GQ, Mark Adams is also the acclaimed author of Mr. America. In this fascinating travelogue, Adams follows in the controversial footsteps of Hiram Bingham III, who’s been both lionized and vilified for his discovery of the famed Lost City in 1911—but which reputation is justified?

Since its inception, however, America’s public land system has been embroiled in controversy - caught in the push and pull between the desire to develop the valuable resources the land holds or conserve them. Alarmed by rising tensions over the use of these lands, hunter, angler, and outdoor enthusiast Mark Kenyon set out to explore the spaces involved in this heated debate, and learn firsthand how they came to be and what their future might hold.

The positive pregnancy test rocks my world harder than any bomb or bullet. Like the hurricane bearing down on Miami, it threatens total destruction. I’m confident I can escape Miami, evade the mercenaries intent on killing me, and uncover the people who hired them. But telling the father I’m pregnant…raising a child....

Preface by National Geographic Explorer-in-residence Meave Leakey. 120 colour & b/w photos. 6.6″ x 9.5″ A Who’s Who of 120 contemporary adventurers—with names like Survivorman Les Stroud, Robert Ballard, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Sea Hunter Jim Delgado, Bertrand Piccard, the Trieste's Don Walsh, Lucy discoverer Don Johanson, seven summits pioneer Pat Morrow, National Geographic Explorer-in-residence Wade Davis and Sir Chris Bonington—recall in their own words that indelible Aha! Moment they experienced in their youths that raised the sails on their lives’ exciting courses. But what ...

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.

Join Natalie Vellacott, a former Police Sergeant, on an exciting roller-coaster ride on-board the Logos Hope missionary ship, hosting the world’s largest floating book-fair. Experience the many adventures as she sails the seas of Southeast Asia and attempts to befriend the often bemused natives. Laugh with her as she inadvertently causes catastrophic cultural calamities and then attempts to sort them out. Catch the vision as Natalie shares her Christian faith with others during her seemingly crazy journey into the unknown. This enjoyable and compelling memoir will inspire, challenge and ...