Showing titles in Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

Lessons about embracing the miracles of life, based on a story of how Brody Young survived being shot nine times and severely wounded by a man while on patrol as a park ranger in a remote canyon in Utah one night. After many months, he recovered from his wounds and returned to work, forever changed by his near-death experience. How Young reacted in the face of life-threatening danger takes on heightened meaning when we learn how he decided to respond to the miracles that followed.

Sound interesting? Listen to De Smet's Letters and Sketches, 1841-1842 and learn about the Catholic priest and missionary.

Noraly Schoenmaker was a thirty-something geologist living in the Netherlands when she learned that her live-in partner had been having a long-term affair. Suddenly without a place to stay, she decided to quit her job and jet off to India in search of a new beginning. Her plans were dashed when she fell quickly and helplessly in love: with a motorcycle. Behind the handlebars, she felt alive and free—nimble enough to trace the narrowest paths, powerful enough to travel the longest of roads. In spirit of The Motorcycle Diaries and Wild, this is an inspiring story of self-discovery and renewal.

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. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world. Lansing describes how the men survived a 1,000-mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean on the globe and an overland trek through forbidding glaciers and mountains.

Steven Rinella (The MeatEater Podcast) brings to life the legendary wilderness exploits of men such as Jim Bridger, Jedidiah Smith, and Hugh Glass, who headed out to the Rocky Mountains to trap beavers in the decades following the Louisiana Purchase. Living off the land and dodging grizzly bears, these colorful characters carved out an existence defined by their relationships with Native people, their capacity to endure the most trying conditions, and their intimate knowledge of the western landscape.

Did you know that the remora fish will try to swim up a whale shark's butt when they poop? The crew of Twig didn't. It turns out there was an awful lot the family of five didn’t know when they decided to move aboard and set off for adventure on the high seas. After decades of dreaming, and planning, the explorers finally sailed off into the sunset. Yes, they found the palm trees and coconuts they had longed for, but they also glimpsed the other side of paradise. They ran from waterspouts, dodged hurricanes, got (sort of) robbed by pirates, and played chicken with naval warships. They ...

For 46 years, Carol Minto has quietly gone about her life, carrying with her the most extraordinary and heartbreaking secrets. In The Asylum, Carol tells the full story of how she overcame unimaginable suffering, to find the happiness and solace she has today as a mother and grandmother.

Why we think it’s a great listen: Seabiscuit was a runaway success, and Hillenbrand’s done it again with another true-life account about beating unbelievable odds. 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. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared....

On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration.

1976. The ass end of the hippie era. Adrift in college, Mark Orwoll drops out in favor of the hitchhiker's road through Europe, the U. K., and Morocco. Along the way, he hangs out with Beat Generation poets, gets dosed on acid at an illegal rock festival, loses everything he owns to thieves, and decidedly does NOT learn how to ride a camel. He would also find his calling in life—at 4 p.m. on July 17, 1976, over a beer on the terrace of the Café Select in Montparnasse. Harps, trumpets, and cathedralesque sunbeams may have been involved.

Prepare yourself for a wild rollercoaster ride through the twists and turns of my life growing up with my narcissistic mother. In this memoir, I delve into the intricacies of my childhood, revealing the hidden truths behind closed doors and the daily challenges that made it feel like I was trapped in an ongoing emotional saga. From the early days of feeling like I was walking on eggshells to navigating the exhausting game of seeking my mother’s approval, this memoir is a no-holds-barred account of surviving a childhood filled with emotional ups and downs. Get ready for tales of ...

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. Here, in a biography that finally gives this outsize character his due, Jerry Enzler takes this frontiersman's full measure for the first time—and tells a story that would do Jim Bridger proud.

What happens when you lose your freedom and the people who eventually get it back for you are no longer alive to thank? Set during the horrors of World War II, Remember Us by Robert Edsel—#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Monuments Men—opens in Limburg, a small, rural province at the southern tip of the Netherlands. In the pre-dawn hours of May 10, 1940, Hitler’s forces rolled through the city, shattering more than 100 years of peace in the Netherlands. The country fell one week later. The Dutch lived under German occupation for four-and-a-half years, until September 1944.

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. But I was also born with a fire inside me. I call it my Phoenix Fire. I am no victim—that word only describes what happened to me. Nor am I a survivor because that implies I am over it. I am a Phoenix—a work in progress. This is my story....

In Campfire Stories: Close Calls, Steven Rinella invites seasoned hunters, anglers, adventurers, and outdoor professionals to share their tales of perilous adventures in the natural world, from run-ins with black bears and grizzlies to bad falls and severe hypothermia.

In the Shadow of Enlightenment is the gripping story of Carroll’s childhood inside the Osho Rajneesh cult—one of the most controversial spiritual movements of the 20th century. While in the commune, Sarito was submerged in a world where devotion and freedom clashed with manipulation, sexual misconduct, and neglect. This was the life she knew until the movement collapsed amid scandal and criminal charges in 1985, when sixteen-year-old Sarito was thrust into a society she knew little about.

Book III of the "Memoirs From The Road To Everywhere" trilogy. A poignant account, the last of three volumes, from the authors youth to adulthood as he fulfill's a childhood dream to see the world on someone else's dime. Not a tell all or an expose of life in the entertainment industry. No sordid details here. Just a young mans adventures as he sets out to literally see the world and finds a way to do it while working at the top levels of the entertainment Industry

After two heartbreaking miscarriages, Janna Wagner receives the shocking news that she will be mom to multiples. In Quadruplets, Janna takes you on an entertaining and inspiring journey from when she first met her husband to when her boys graduate high school. Your first thought might be, “Oh my gosh, I could never handle four babies at once! How did she do it?” In this book you will learn how Janna met every challenge (and there were many) with grace, ingenuity and endless creativity.

The 1956 collision of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm triggered a night of sheer terror for the Andrea Doria’s 1,134 passengers and set in motion one of history’s most dramatic rescues at sea. From the moment the Andrea Doria settled on the sea floor in 240 feet of water, skilled amateur divers have risked their lives to simply touch her broken hull. In 1981, wealthy adventurer Peter Gimbel enlisted the aid of commercial salvage divers to torch open the Andrea Doria’s Foyer Deck doors in search of treasure and answers. The unprecedented access to deep within the sunken ship’s ...

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. Now, she’s finally free to start living her life on her terms—and to tell her own story as only she can.