Best of
Adventure

1981

The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings #1)


Brian Sibley - 1981
    Brian Sibley's famous 1981 adaptation, starring Ian Holm and Michael Hordern.

Ronia, the Robber's Daughter


Astrid Lindgren - 1981
    Soon Ronia learns to dance and yell with the robbers, but it is alone in the forest that she feels truly at home. Then one day Ronia meets Birk, the son of Matt's arch-enemy. Soon after Ronia and Birk become friends the worst quarrel ever between the rivals bands erupts, and Ronia and Birk are right in the middle.

They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?


Patrick F. McManus - 1981
    McManus celebrates the hidden pleasures, unappreciated lore, and opportunities for disaster to be found in such outdoor recreations as camping, hunting, and fishing

Follow the River


James Alexander Thom - 1981
    For months, she lived with them, unbroken, until she escaped, and followed a thousand mile trail to freedom--an extraordinary story of a pioneer woman who risked her life to return to her people.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark


Campbell Black - 1981
    But now the very future of the world depends on his finding one special relic.With a bullwhip in his hand and a beautiful lady at his side, Jones journeys from Nepal and Cairo to the Mediterranean, dodging poisons, traps and snakes, battling rivals old and new, all in pursuit of an ancient artifact said to give invincible power to its possessor.It's a battle to a startling finish, a finish dictated by the magic, the light—and the power—of the Lost Ark.

Water Music


T. Coraghessan Boyle - 1981
    Boyle's riotous first novel, now in a new edition for its 25th anniversary Twenty five years ago, T.C. Boyle published his first novel, Water Music, a funny, bawdy, extremely entertaining novel of imaginative and stylistic fancy that announced to the world Boyle's tremendous gifts as a storyteller. Set in the late eighteenth century, Water Music follows the wild adventures of Ned Rise, thief and whoremaster, and Mungo Park, a Scottish explorer, through London's seamy gutters and Scotland's scenic highlands to their grand meeting in the heart of darkest Africa. There they join forces and wend their hilarious way to the source of the Niger.

Death in the Silent Places


Peter Hathaway Capstick - 1981
    With his characteristic color and flair he recalls the extraordinary careers of hunting men like Colonel J.H. Patterson and Colonel Jim Corbett, who stalked legendary man-eaters through the silent darkness on opposite sides of the world; men like Karamojo Bell, acknowledged as the greatest elephant hunter of all time; men like the valiant Sasha Siemel, who tracked killer jaguars though the Matto Grosso armed only with a spear. With an authenticity gained by having shared the experiences he writes of, Peter Capstick eloquently recreates the acrid taste of terror in the mouth of a man whose gun has jammed as a lion begins his charge, the exhilaration of tracking and finding a long-sought prey, the bravery and even nobility of performing under circumstances of primitive and savage stress, with death all around in the silent places of the wilderness.

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Illustrated Screenplay


Lawrence Kasdan - 1981
    

The Long Masquerade


Madeleine Brent - 1981
    She is without pretext and assumes that a bright future awaits her as the bride of the wealthy Oliver Foy. Too soon she discovers that her life is a masquerade and pretense her only salvation. No one is whom he or she appears to be.Brushing against the concealed identities and hidden motives of others, Emma quickly acquires secrets of her own. When murder compels Emma to flee her husband's Jamaican plantation, she and her faithful friend find sanctuary wandering the Caribbean. Tragedy cuts short their ocean idyll and delivers Emma from her sea roamings. Once again, she adopts another name, another home, another appearance.

The Island Keeper


Harry Mazer - 1981
    But when she finally decides to return home, her canoe has been destroyed, and she faces the ultimate challenge in surviving the Canadian winter.

The Champawat Man - Eater


Jim Corbett - 1981
    

Land of Enchantment: Memoirs of Marian Russell Along the Santa Fe Trail


Marion Sloan Russell - 1981
    Hence women travelers were few on the Santa Fe Trail, and Land of Enchantment is one of the few firsthand accounts by a woman of life on the trail. The author, Marian Russell (1845-1936), dictated her story to her daughter-in-law in the 1930s. Published in a limited edition in 1954 and highly praised by scholars, that edition has become virtually impossible to obtain.This forgotten classic paints a vivid picture of nineteenth-century New Mexico as seen by a bright young girl from the age of seven on. Mrs. Russell's memories of several well-known western figures are not only delightful reading but make this book a useful addition to the region's history.

Slade's Glacier: A Novel


Robert F. Jones - 1981
    Jack Slade and Sam Healey, flying partners during World War II, establish a bush pilot business in Alaska after the war. When their C-47 Dakota is forced down on a glacier by a wolverine in the cargo deck that breaks out of its cage, they discover a valley that offers the realization each man's dreams. To Jack Slade, itOCOs the ideal place to homestead, raise a family, and live simply as a professional hunting and fishing guide; to Healey, the pool of crude oil he locates under the glacial ice promises the wealth he always wanted. In scenes that range from AlaskaOCOs coastal fishing ports to the high, fierce wastelands of the interior, we watch each man lay the plans for their individual goals?and ultimately come into fatal conflict. Along the way, they meet a wide, colorful variety of Alaskan types, including Charlie Blue, a Tlingit Indian, shaman, and seer; Norman Ormandy, the tough saloonkeeper of Gurry Bay; and Malec Mummad-Afi, a wealthy exiled Iranian oil king and sheep hunter.

Mind-Call


Wilanne Schneider Belden - 1981
    Making her way in her sailboat with her cat and an abandoned infant she had mysteriously been drawn to, she found another call pulling her in a particular direction. The place was a hidden fortress; the caller was a madman with mental powers like Tallie's own.One by one, children followed the summons to the fortress, but they were far from being the slaves their "captor" believed them. Tallie and her new friends must learn to use their strange powers to defend themselves against the evils within the fortress and the ones approaching from outside.

Judge Dredd: Apocalypse War


John Wagner - 1981
    That man is hard-bitten future cop, Judge Dredd, cornerstone to the UK's legendary sci-fi comic, 2000 AD. In a devious plan, East-Meg One use a virus to bring anarchy to Dredd's city, then they strike — a nuclear strike which devastates Mega-City One and leaves it ripe for invasion! Now, a beleaguered Dredd and his surviving comrades must hit back by any means they can find... because if he fails, Mega-City One is doomed forever! With art by fan favorites Brian Bolland (Batman), Steve Dillon (Preacher), Carlos Ezquerra (Just a Pilgrim), Mike McMahon (Sláine) and Ron Smith (Transformers).

There's an Enemy Sub in Potter's Pond


George D. Durrant - 1981
    After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Jake learns the meaning of friendship, courage, and loyalty when public opinion threatens his friendship with a young Japanese.

Jumanji


Chris Van Allsburg - 1981
    But they were bored and restless and, looking for something interesting to do, thought they'd give Jumanji a try. Little did they know when they unfolded its ordinary-looking playing board that they were about to be plunged into the most exciting and bizare adventure of their lives.In his second book for children, Chris Van Allsburg again explores the ever-shifting line between fantasy and reality with this story about a game that comes startingly to life.His marvelous drawings beautifully convey a mix of the everyday and the extraordinary, as a quiet house is taken over by an exotic jungle.

An Eye of the Fleet


Richard Woodman - 1981
    HMS Cyclops is involved in pursuing American privateers who are a danger to British trade and Drinkwater finds himself part of a prize crew when initiative and courage in a critical situation enable him to survive a dangerous encounter. When the frigate is detached on special service to the swamps of South Carolina, grim actions are fought at sea and by a detachment of the ship's company on land, resulting in violent deaths before CYCLOPS arrives in New York in 1781 and is sent back to Spithead with the news of Lord Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown. Through his experiences both in action and in the hard life on Cyclops, Drinkwater matures and gains the ability to stand up against the tyranny of the midshipmen's mess and the sinister and evil influence of the senior midshipman, Morris. In overcoming his difficulties he is sustained by his growing love for Elizabeth and the contrast of home life with the brutality of naval service.

The Man from the Cave


Colin Fletcher - 1981
    While backpacking in an isolated part of the Nevada desert in 1968, Colin Fletcher came upon an old wooden trunk standing at the mouth of a cave. Inside the cave he found what appeared to be a man's possessions, coated with the dust of years. These personal but anonymous effects - among them fragments of a 1916 newspaper - stirred Fletcher's imagination, and a year later he went back and lived in the cave for ten days. The experience inspired in him a determination to piece together the life of the man who had preceded him. After his article describing the discovery and the beginnings of his investigation appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Fletcher heard from Grace Mazeris, an elderly woman who told him she believed that the cave dweller was a prospector named 'Chuckawalla' Bill Simmons - a man she had once lived with. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Mazeris died and Fletcher, realizing that time was running out, began in earnest to reconstruct Chuckawalla Bill's life. Using records from the National Archives and from Simmons's home town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Fletcher meticulously and persistently tracked the man's first wanderings as a youth, his service in the Philippine insurrection after the Spanish-American War, and his restless movements - often under an alias - across the western United States. The trail led Fletcher to people who had known Bill Simmons at various times in his life - family members, other men and women who had prospected, played cards, and drunk with him in the desert towns of California. Their encounters are intensely moving as memories of Bill, dormant for decades, are affectionately aroused...." Illustrated with numerous black and white photographs, map endpapers.

Mr. Yowder And The Train Robbers


Glen Rounds - 1981
    Book by Glen Rounds

Cosmic Banditos


A.C. Weisbecker - 1981
    Quark is a down-on-his luck pot-smuggler hiding out in the mountains of Colombia with his dog, High Pockets, and a small band of banditos led by the irascible Jose. Only months before, these three and their fearless associates were rolling in millions in cash and high-grade marijuana, eluding prosecution on "ridiculously false" drug and terrorism charges. But times have quickly grown lean, and to liven up their exile, Jose decides to mug a family of American tourists.Among the spoils are physics texts, which launch Mr. Quark on a side-splitting, boisterous adventure north to California, where he confronts the owner of the books with his own theories on relativity, the nature of the universe, and looking for the meaning of life in all the wrong places....

The Toothpaste Genie


Sandy Frances Duncan - 1981
    But she soon finds out the genie is an apprentice -- he turns every wish into a disaster!

Common Ground: A Naturalist's Cape Cod


Robert Finch - 1981
    The birds, fish, and animals that share the cape's fragile ecology on any given summer day with the human residents are described with the fresh eye of a first-rate nature writer.

The Other Side of Silence


Ted Allbeury - 1981
    John Powell, the youngest member of the Milord Committee that monitors Philby's every move, is assigned the task of finding out why. Is it an old man's whim, or a carefully planned KGB operation? To find out Powell must journey into the labyrinth of a man's legendary past, sifting through every rumour, every plot, every shadowy alliance, until the journey leads him into the darkest and most dangerious recesses of them all, the heart and mind and motivation of the man himself — Kim Philby.

The Song of Phaid the Gambler


Mick Farren - 1981
    International.If you know the CIA are bugging the line and charging you for their time.If you know the cat is watching you and reporting back to Control.If you know that paranoids are the only people who really know what is happening.If you hold these truths to be self-evident, then let The Song of Phaid the Gambler into your life and know that you are not alone.

Confessions of a Homing Pigeon


Nicholas Meyer - 1981
    Following in his uncle's wake, George is exposed at a tender age to the footloose existence of a 1950s, self-styled expatriate musician who lives and studies in Paris, drinks to excess, frequents the local bordellos, enjoys café society, and lives a seemingly carefree existence. When Fritz's lifestyle and George's educational deficiencies are discovered by more conventional family members, a custody suit ensues, and George is transported to the traditional family environment of his Aunt Susan's home in Chicago, where he lives and attends the Marcus Leader Workingman's Progressive School, until he runs away at age fourteen to rejoin his Uncle Fritz. George's life in Chicago is treated with far less appeal and enthusiasm than his years in Paris, and in comparison Chicago appears rather dreary. However, Confessions of a Homing Pigeon remains a beautifully poignant novel of childhood and adolescence. If the child appears a bit too precocious, he is easily forgiven because of the sheer beauty and delight of his story.

It's easy, Edna, it's downhill all the way


Edna Strand Dercum - 1981
    

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Storybook Based on the Movie


Les Martin - 1981
    An American archaeology professor becomes involved in an attempt to prevent the Nazis from locating a sacred Hebrew relic which, according to legend, has awesome, supernatural power.

Sea Kayaking: A Manual for Long-Distance Touring, Updated and Expanded


John Dowd - 1981
    Though certainly of interest and useful to the beginner, this reference is especially useful to the experienced paddler who needs specifics rather than generali

The City in the Stars


Victor Appleton - 1981
    Despite attempts to sabotage his newly-invented fusion drive spacecraft, a young scientist investigates the sinister, eminent head of the space colony who is hiding serious flaws in his own new craft.

The Dragon of Og


Rumer Godden - 1981
    For centuries the Dragon of Og has taken for food two bullocks a month from the lord's herd, but a new lord declares the custom must end, and so begins a battle of wits.