Adventure Biography

Born in the late 1880s to a gritty mining magnate who made his millions in the California gold rush and a well-bred mother descended from one of New York’s distinguished families, society beauty Louise Arner Boyd was raised during a glittering era. After inheriting a staggering family fortune, she began leading a double life. She fell under the spell of the north in the late 1920s after a sailing excursion to the Arctic Ocean. Over the next three decades, she achieved international notoriety as a rugged and audacious polar explorer while maintaining her lifestyle as a society woman.

In 2015 Benji had the picket-fence cottage in the quiet suburban street, a promising career and a loving wife. Three months later it was all gone. What do you do when the world crumbles around you? Where do you go when you have nothing to lose? Benji tells his story with brutal honesty, describing some of the wildest parts of Australia with a passionate attention to detail. Jump on and hold tight for the ride of a lifetime as he takes you from his rock bottom to the highs of setting a new Guinness World Record: The fastest man across 10 Australian deserts....

In Ley Lines of Love, Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle shares wisdom gained from a lifetime of spiritual seeking and devoted practice. A dedicated practitioner of Buddhism, she shares many remarkable stories about her inner journey, including the joys of learning from enlightened teachers. She also recounts how her years of involvement with a devotional tradition from India ended in an archetypal story of disillusionment.

Hunger comes to us in many forms, writes Lia Huber - we long to be satisfied not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. Nourished invites listeners on Huber's world-roaming search to find the necessary ingredients to nurture all three.

In 2009, scholars at Yale University came across a startling manuscript: the memoir of Austin Reed, a free Black man born in the 1820s who spent most of his early life ricocheting between forced labor in prison and forced labor as an indentured servant. Lost for more than 150 years, the handwritten document is the first known prison memoir written by an African American.

In 2008, Lynn Barber's passion for birding led her to drive, fly, sail, walk, stalk, and sit in search of birds in 25 states and three provinces. Traveling more than 175,000 miles, she set a 21st century record at the time, second to only one other person in history. Over 272 days, Barber observed 723 species of birds in North America north of Mexico.

In this nail-biting man-against-nature true story, Mick Dawson, former royal marine commando, Guinness world record ocean rower, and high seas adventurer, takes on the Atlantic and ultimately the North Pacific Oceans. It would require three attempts and a backbreaking voyage of over six months to finally cross the mighty North Pacific for the first time.

Michael Macray has a story-telling gift carefully honed in the bars of Sanibel Florida, his tales are infused with his hilarious humor and highly tuned enjoyment of life and living. A dare-devil of the old kind, working Disaster Logistics, he lived through narrow escapes in Africa, bomb blasts in Yemen, and the burning Oil fields of Kuwait.

In his latest collection, I Love You More Than You Know, Ames proves once again his immense talent for turning his own adventures, neuroses, joys, heartaches, and insights into profound and hilarious tales. Alive with love and tenderness for his son, his parents, his great-aunt, and even strangers in bars late at night, in I Love You More Than You Know Ames looks beneath the surface of our world to find the beauty in the perverse, the sweetness in loneliness, and the humor in pain.

Life as a war baby in Oklahoma is the start of the Adventures of a Baby Boomer series....

Bookish and retiring, Garry Wills has been an outsider in the academy, in journalism, even in his church. Yet these qualities have, paradoxically, prompted people to share intimate insights with him - perhaps because he is not a rival, a competitor, or a threat. The result is the most personal book Wills has ever written.

After February 9, 1964, everyone wanted to be Debbie Gendler. She was one of a handful of lucky fans who were in the live audience for the Beatles' historic performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone has a story about where they were when they watched the appearance, but very few were there in-person—and even fewer would go on not just to meet the Beatles, but end up building a career around the band. But Debbie did.

Kathryn Hulme's life was radically changed and enriched by the influence of Gurdjieff. Undiscovered Country is a tribute to him and his teachings, a vivid personal memoir of her experience as his student, and of the burning spiritual intensity that dominated her life as a result of his influence.

Here is the story of the infamous 1910 race to the South Pole, as told by its fearless yet desperate leader, Robert Falcon Scott. The New York Times called Scott's Last Expedition "A splendid record of heroism not soon to be forgotten."

In Grandpa's Adventures in the US Navy: Soul Searching on the Way to Mars, Jerry Werner shares his inspiring journey from rural Wisconsin to the dream of becoming an astronaut.

Kicked out of college and hooked on drink and drugs, Pauline Hamilton drove recklessly towards a cliff near her home to end it all. At the last moment, her tire blew out, leaving her stunned in the stationary car. Pauline's life changed forever. She turned at once to the God who had rescued her and, in grateful amazement, offered her whole life to Him. This dedication would eventually take her to China, where she would serve for over thirty adventure-packed years as a missionary. Through many trials Pauline never lost sight of the God who had promised never to let her go.

Take a Shot! is the incredible true story of how three unlikely partners broke all the rules and beat all the odds to create Major League Lacrosse. This book will take you on a roller-coaster ride through the ups and downs of starting a business - and not just any business, but a professional sports league built around America’s oldest and most tradition-bound game. Today, Major League Lacrosse is entering its 12th season, and the sport has exploded into the fastest-growing game in the U.S. But it wasn’t always that way... not even close.

Roger Deakin set out in 1996 to swim through the British Isles. The result a uniquely personal view of an island race and a people with a deep affinity for water. From the sea, from rock pools, from rivers and streams, tarns, lakes, lochs, ponds, lidos, swimming pools and spas, from fens, dykes, moats, aqueducts, waterfalls, flooded quarries, even canals, Deakin gains a fascinating perspective on modern Britain.

In this wise, warm-hearted, witty, and LOL hilariously funny true account, New York Times bestselling author Andrew Kaplan tells what it’s like when he, his wife, and two-year-old son decided to chuck it all and live the fantasy in a villa by the sea in that extraordinary corner of the world–part international café society, part billionaires’ playground, part provincial France–that is the French Riviera.

This book is Peter Rosengard's extraordinary account of his life so far and the endless adventures in which he made, lost, and remade a fortune; founded London's famous Comedy Store; discovered and managed some of the greats in stand-up comedy; turned an unknown boy band into a chart-topping sensation; and, from a cold call in a public phone box, sold the world's biggest ever life insurance policy for $100m.