Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

Ultrarunner Andy Glaze has spent years moving through landscapes that test the limits of the human body—hundred-mile races, multi-day marathons, mountains and deserts that demanded everything.

THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025 ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE “This is nonfiction that reads like fiction – the best kind. Elmhirst’s...

When the wild strips everything away, what’s left is who you are. In the raw, untamed wilds of Alaska—where the wind howls, predators hunt, and the sun disappears for months—only a rare few figure out how to survive. Sue Aikens, the breakout star of National Geographic’s long-running TV...

Canada’s greatest modern-day explorer sets out into the arctic wilderness to solve a mystery more than 100 years old. In November 1910, explorer Hubert Darrell vanished in the uncharted wilds of the Northwest Territories. A prospector who had been swept up in the Klondike Gold Rush, Darrell...

In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A “thrilling and superbly crafted” (The Wall Street Journal) 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. One of...

A majestic tale of discovery thatchanged many long-held views about the world In 1519 Magellan and his fleet of five ships set sail from Seville, Spain, to discover a water route to the fabled Spice Islands in Indonesia, where the most sought-after commodities -- cloves, pepper, and nutmeg --...

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Most people assume that the world has been explored and true adventure is dead: This book is one man’s rebuttal. Explorer and conservationist Paul Rosolie shares his incredible life in the Amazon rainforest—and what we can learn from the people fighting to...

When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were...

“This beautifully braided story...reveals the best and worst of humanity. A magnificent work of narrative nonfiction, true to the past and essential for the present.”—Mitchell Zuckoff, New York Times bestselling author of Lost in Shangri-La and 13 Hours An epic true story of the triumph of...

* Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award in Outdoor Literature * Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Air Mail, Smithsonian Magazine, and Financial Times “A triumph. Fedarko doesn’t describe awe; he induces...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson...

From the creators of the New York Times bestselling audio series Campfire Stories and MeatEater's American History comes a new audiobook original that immerses listeners into the brutal and unforgiving world of the professional buffalo hunters who drove America's most iconic wildlife species to...

A victim of her mother’s Munchausen by proxy and child abuse survivor, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard’s unique and controversial case made headlines across the world.

From the award-winning author of American Sirens and A Thousand Naked Strangers comes a real-life thriller about the most daring rescue in air-medical history. JULY 2014. Two American medical volunteers who joined the fight against the deadliest Ebola outbreak in world history have gotten...

A hilarious travel memoir about a man who moved with his wife, three kids, and two pets onto a forty-six-foot sailboat for a year. He expected it to be a yearlong version of Margaritaville, but what he got was shipwrecks, bad directions, hygiene calamities, and pirate attacks (sort of). Perfect...

From the creators of the New York Times bestselling series Campfire Stories: Close Calls comes a new original audiobook that brings to life the bold, hair-raising, and often tragic adventures of a generation of eighteenth-century frontiersmen: the Long Hunters. Steven Rinella (The MeatEater...

LT Dick Thompson, codename Dynamite, describes in detail that takes your breath away, brutal firefights and hand-to-hand combat against overwhelming odds. Follow Dynamite as he transitions from a Airborne Ranger Special Forces warrior into one of the most elite, tier-one special operators.

Unravel one of history's greatest mysteries in this spellbinding narrative exploring three leading theories of Amelia Earhart’s tragic disappearance.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, Angela’s Ashes is Frank McCourt’s masterful memoir of his childhood in Ireland—now with a new introduction by Patrick Radden Keefe. “When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a...

A transformational journey through Italy, India, and Bali searching for pleasure and devotion—the massive bestseller from the author of The Signature of All Things This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made...

Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality—not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own. A New York...

A renowned climber and National Geographic photographer shares his incredible adventures—and the early trauma that drove him to seek such heights. “An extraordinary memoir of mental illness that reads like a thriller.”—Amy Ellis Nutt, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of...

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat and Facing the Mountain comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier “An ideal pairing of talent and material.… Engrossing.… A deft and ambitious storyteller.” — Mary Roach, New York Times...

Ultrarunner Andy Glaze has spent years moving through landscapes that test the limits of the human body—hundred-mile races, multi-day marathons, mountains and deserts that demanded everything. But the toughest endurance challenge Andy faced wasn’t found in any of those miles, it was in rebuilding a life shattered by addiction, institutional abuse, and a childhood full of chaos. This is the unfiltered story of how a kid fell hard but got back up even harder.

When the wild strips everything away, what’s left is who you are. In the raw, untamed wilds of Alaska—where the wind howls, predators hunt, and the sun disappears for months—only a rare few figure out how to survive. Sue Aikens, the breakout star of National Geographic’s long-running TV...

From the award-winning author of American Sirens and A Thousand Naked Strangers comes a real-life thriller about the most daring rescue in air-medical history. JULY 2014. Two American medical volunteers who joined the fight against the deadliest Ebola outbreak in world history have gotten...

As tantilizing new evidence mounts, Hartigan and her fellow investigators descend deeper into a world of conspiracy and obsession. Through its irresistible characters and prodigious research, Lost reveals not just why we remember Amelia Earhart as a trailblazer and adventurer, but why unsolved mysteries keep us forever searching for answers.

In Sacred Becoming, Maria Kang - mother, movement leader, and cancer survivor - invites listeners into a raw, radiant journey of remembering. Through illness, heartbreak, and spiritual initiation, she peels back the layers of cultural expectation, familial pain, and self-betrayal to reveal the one truth that changed everything: healing is an inside job. With poetic storytelling, lived wisdom, and unapologetic honesty, Maria shares the soul work that carried her from a Stage IV cancer diagnosis to a life of embodied purpose. This is not just a memoir... it’s a manual for awakening.

Why do two continents bear Amerigo Vespucci's name instead of Columbus's, despite Columbus reaching the New World first? Stefan Zweig solved this historical mystery in his 1942 final work through archival detective work. The answer: A German cartographer named Martin Waldseemüller, working in 1507, read an account claiming Vespucci reached the mainland before Columbus. Based on this likely forged document, Waldseemüller labeled the continents "America." The name spread across Europe in thousands of copies before the error was recognized—by then, too late to correct.

After thirty years cultivating fruits and vegetables, raising children, and teaching literature, Deborah Lee Luskin stepped out of her garden and into the forest. At sixty, it was time to age fiercely, overcome her suburban fear of getting lost in the woods and her urban reliance on street signs to know where she was. She wanted to forge her own path through the forest by following the deer. A dedicated locavore, Luskin didn’t want just to read the landscape, she also wanted to eat it.

As a 13-year-old, Rafiq Williams travelled the desolate, sometimes violent, always drug-laced streets of Philadelphia’s inner city. Those streets could easily swallow up the most stable, strong adult. As a child, he learned to navigate those streets on his own---and he buried so many secrets that could destroy him. Could he silence the overwhelming traumas he experienced? Could he ignore the panic, the anxiety, the fear? Laser-focused, Rafiq chose survival---at any cost. That dark side he knew, and the only person he could rely on was himself. Until he was accused of murder.

An Unlikely Prisoner recounts the experience of a physician imprisoned for 214 days on charges of alleged medical fraud. The alleged crime stemmed from genuine patient interactions spanning five years. After a court trial in late 2023, an initially deadlocked jury, on a second attempt, found the defendant guilty and sentenced him to sixteen months. With the appeal process still ongoing and likely to last longer than the sentence, he was ordered to start serving his time. An Unlikely Prisoner is the first part of a daily journal about the author’s time as an inmate in a prison camp, at a ...

A hiker goes down in the rugged Cumberland Plateau. A sudden strike occurs in the remote Australian outback. A fatal encounter takes place in rural India. When the world’s most lethal predators strike, the human body becomes a battleground. This gripping collection of real-life clinical emergencies takes you to the bleeding edge of toxicology and human endurance. Featuring incredibly detailed case studies—from the devastating physiological effects of a Russell’s viper bite to the desperate scramble for African polyvalent antivenom in an American hospital—this book pulls back the ...

When the sky opens and the ground vanishes, there is no time to negotiate. Nature’s most violent phenomenon strikes with the speed of a bullet and the weight of a mountain, transforming familiar landscapes into lethal corridors of debris and water. This is a visceral exploration of the terrifying physics that govern sudden rising water and the structural failures that follow. Witness the harrowing reality of these events through a minute-by-minute examination of how high-velocity currents interact with narrow canyons, failing dams, and human infrastructure. This narrative dives deep into ...

All Country: Riding The Rails is an introspective travel memoir that follows the journey of Phantom, a nomadic graffiti artist who leaves behind the decaying industrial heart of Detroit to ride America's freight trains westward. Through the rhythmic clatter of steel wheels and the ever-shifting panorama of the nation's landscapes—from Rust Belt scars and Midwest prairies to snow-capped Rockies, vast Southwestern deserts, and the Pacific coast—Phantom transforms moving boxcars into rolling canvases.With spray cans in hand, he creates vibrant, ephemeral pieces: swirling wildstyle letters,...

Are you dreaming of a life free from utility bills, grid‑dependence, and the endless noise of modern society? Living Off‑Grid: No Glamour, Just Grit gives you a hard‑won, no‑fluff roadmap to decide whether the off‑grid lifestyle is truly right for you. Drawing from three rugged years of solo survival in the scorching Arizona desert, author Susan Ann Adams breaks down the off‑grid journey into five essential questions you must answer before you “pull the plug.” Each chapter blends raw, real‑world anecdotes with practical, step‑by‑step guidance—so you can avoid costly ...

In 1978 Deanna met her hermit husband in Northern BC while she was working as a forestry lookout attendant. For the next thirteen years she led the life of a pioneering mother in the wilderness. Over a hundred miles from the nearest paved road and cut off from most contact with the outside world, Deanna and her husband Jay built a life and raised their children in the stunning beauty and staggering isolation of the Ningunsaw Valley.

SAUDADE a Novel by W J O'Reilly Every morning before dawn, Wyatt O'Reilly walks the abandoned gun batteries of Fort Hancock on the Jersey Shore, Nordic poles striking the frozen ground, while Erik Satie's Vexations plays in his ears—a piano piece written to be repeated 840 times without resolution. He is seventy-six years old. He has been a cab driver in New York City, founder of three schools, a husband twice over, a father to sons he failed in ways he is still learning to name. His grandchildren live ten feet away, on the other side of a fence he cannot cross. His Buddhist practice—...

#stronger: Redemption Path Through Pain to Purpose is a raw, unfiltered story of failure, faith, and transformation. This audiobook isn’t about motivation from the mountaintop—it’s about rebuilding from the wreckage. Through personal experiences marked by addiction, incarceration, broken relationships, and deep internal battles, Tony Cardello shares how pain can either destroy you or forge you into something stronger.

What defines a life well lived? In The Three Magic Rings, three powerful true stories reveal the extraordinary beauty hidden within life’s most meaningful moments — survival, love, and achievement. Linked by the timeless symbol of three intertwined rings, this moving collection invites readers into deeply personal journeys: ✨ A miraculous survival from a Nazi concentration camp and the triumph of new life ✨ The enduring strength of marriage and lifelong partnership ✨ The fulfillment of a dream pursued with courage and perseverance Blending heartfelt storytelling with vivid ...

Brendan Cullen manages Kars Station, a 10,000-head sheep property 65 kilometres outside Broken Hill, New South Wales. In 2022, despite his nearest beach being more than 600 kilometres away, he swam the English Channel. Taking up swimming was part of Brendan's recovery from severe depression, an illness that had seen him cope in highly unhealthy ways–drinking, overwork, being emotionally absent–for years. But then he found the strength to walk through the doors of Broken Hill Hospital and ask for help.

From the crystalline headwaters of the Rocky Mountains to its shocking demise in a foamy, polluted pit in the Sonoran Desert, the Colorado River's story is one of both epic beauty and profound loss. In this deeply personal and visually stunning narrative, acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Pete McBride sets out to document the lifeblood of the American West. What begins as an assignment close to his childhood home transforms into a twenty-year odyssey that will change him forever.

Seven years on the road, living out of his van, The Taj Mahal Disco Fun Palace, John McManamy woke up with the sensation of an elephant crushing his chest. He just happened to be parked in the desert next to a rig with “Buddhist” on the signage. Never waste a good heart attack. A new road adventure is about to begin …“If you think you know what's going on, you have no idea what's going on.” We're in a strange new world now, where Buddha meets Oppenheimer meets brain science meets a force to be reckoned with Flower the Skunk.

ICE COLD is a true story of control, survival, the cost of silence, and a mother who refused to disappear. Written with restraint and clarity, this book documents what happens when a mother is erased by narrative, a child becomes leverage, and truth is delayed—but not denied.

In the 1990s, Africa experienced sporadic political instability, with Sierra Leone being one of the most affected nations. Among the millions whose lives were upended was Marwan, a Sierra Leonean of Lebanese heritage who had previously enjoyed a life of privilege. However, his life was irrevocably changed by a violent coup in 1992, forcing him into a relentless battle for survival.

In the 1990s, American interest in Cuban cigars had reached historic levels—and Scott Anthony was in the middle of it. The head of an underground Cuban cigar empire, Scott was born into a world of scarce resources and few role models, where joining a street gang was easy and staying out of prison was hard.

Why would a 57-year-old with a genetic heart condition attempt the fastest journey on foot from Cape Town to Cairo? In Running Africa, Keith Boyd tells the story of his epic run, complete with injuries, illness, being taken hostage, getting caught up in a rebel firefight, and having members of his team imprisoned.

Kidnapping : Péripéties et Révélations d'une Victime raconte l'histoire d'un journaliste enlevé à son domicile, à Port-au-Prince, Haïti, par un puissant gang. Libéré au bout de quelques jours de séquestration, l'otage partage cette amère expérience et révèle les facettes souterraines du fonctionnement de l'une des plus grandes cellules de kidnapping de la capitale haïtienne.