Propelled by the challenge and promise of bigger, more difficult waves, this adrenaline-fueled loner and polarizing figure travels the globe to ride the most dangerous swells the oceans have to offer, from calving glaciers to hurricane swells. But what motivates McNamara to go to such extremes—to risk everything for one thrilling ride? Is riding giant waves the ultimate exercise in control or surrender?Personal and emotional, readers will know GMac as never before, seeing for the first time the personal alongside the professional in an exciting, intimate look at what drives this inventive, iconoclastic man. Surfing awesome giants isn’t just thrill seeking, he explains—it’s about vanquishing fears and defeating obstacles past and present. Surfers and non-surfers alike will embrace McNamara’s story—as they have William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days—for an intimate look at the enigmatic pursuit of riding waves, big and small.Illustrated with sixteen pages of color photos, Hound of the Sea is a record of perseverance, passion, and healing. Thoughtful, suspenseful, and spiritually profound, McNamara reveals the beautiful soul of surfing through the eyes of one of its most daring and devoted disciples.

    Mueser draws upon interviews and questionnaire data gathered from over 100 long distance hikers hoofing it through the Applachian Mountains.

    In prose that’s alternately harrowing and humorous, Thousand-Miler takes you with her through Wisconsin’s forests, prairies, wetlands, and farms, past the geologic wonders carved by long-ago glaciers, and into the neighborhood bars and gathering places of far-flung small towns. Follow along as she worries about wildlife encounters, wonders if her injured feet will ever recover, and searches for an elusive fellow hiker known as Papa Bear. Woven throughout her account are details of the history of the still-developing Ice Age Trail—one of just eleven National Scenic Trails—and helpful insight and strategies for undertaking a successful thru-hike.In addition to chronicling McManus’s hike, Thousand-Miler also includes the little-told story of the Ice Age Trail’s first-ever thru-hiker Jim Staudacher, an account of the record-breaking thru-run of ultrarunner Jason Dorgan, the experiences of a young combat veteran who embarked on her thru-hike as a way to ease back into civilian life, and other fascinating tales from the trail. Their collective experiences shed light on the motivations of thru-hikers and the different ways hikers accomplish this impressive feat, providing an entertaining and informative read for outdoors enthusiasts of all levels.

    Every day he would descend 3,500 feet into the Grimethorpe pit. But at weekends, Andy inhabited a very different world — thousands of feet above the pitheads of the colliery. Introduced to his local mountaineering club while a miner, he soon learned to cherish this newfound freedom. Living through the coalminer’s strikes of the mid-eighties — the guilt, the broken friendships, the poverty — Andy continued to indulge his passion, and in 1986, after much soul-searching, he quit the mines in order to take up mountaineering professionally. At the same time he decided to educate himself, acquiring, almost from a standing start, academic qualifications including a PhD. in sociology. This extraordinary twin odyssey is graphically recalled in this remarkable book. Andy also recounts the grim tale of one of the steepest and most difficult summits in the world — the north face of Changabang in the Himalaya. Seventeen days later, he and two of his teammates — his best friend had already perished — crawled into base camp, frostbitten and emaciated. His account of this terrifying experience provides a dramatic climax to this extraordinary story. Learning to Breathe is first and foremost a lively and humorous memoir, written with energy and insight, about two very different groups of men, each navigating equally inhospitable worlds. Finally, on a larger scale, it is an examination of our ability to draw on inner strengths and the strengths of others.

    Michelle Browning is 33, drunk and a former beauty queen who nears death after six years of homelessness. Judith Glynn is divorced with grown children and struggles to support herself in her adopted city. After their first hello, neither woman is the same as they embark on a remarkable journey for two years. This memoir is a raw yet enlightening read that graphically depicts the homeless subculture. But as Judith sets out all alone to rescue Michelle is her fixation worth the sacrifice? At stake is whether Michelle will choose possible death in a gutter over Judith's guiding light back into society. Enrolled in Kindle Book Lending that allows users to lend their book after purchasing to their friends and family for a duration of 14 days. For full details, review the Kindle Book Lending Program.

    A hilarious and fascinating look at the great middle of our nation. With his unique blend of intrepidity, tongue-in-cheek humor, and wide-eyed wonder, Ian Frazier takes us on a journey of more than 25,000 miles up and down and across the vast and myth-inspiring Great Plains. A travelogue, a work of scholarship, and a western adventure, Great Plains takes us from the site of Sitting Bull's cabin, to an abandoned house once terrorized by Bonnie and Clyde, to the scene of the murders chronicled in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. It is an expedition that reveals the heart of the American West.

    This new book, again co-published with Field & Stream, collects more of Heavey’s top pieces from the magazine, as well as the best of his writing from the Washington Post and elsewhere. In this far-ranging read, Heavey’s adventures include nearly freezing to death in Eastern Alaska, hunting ants in the urban jungles of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, and reconnecting to cherished memories of his grandfather through an inherited gun collection.With Heavey’s trademark witty candor, You're Not Lost if You Can Still See the Truck traces a life lived outdoors through the good, the bad, and the downright hilarious.

    Ilgunas set himself an ambitious mission: get out of debt as quickly as possible. Inspired by the frugality and philosophy of Henry David Thoreau, Ilgunas undertook a 3-year transcontinental journey, working in Alaska as a tour guide, garbage picker, and night cook to pay off his student loans before hitchhiking home to New York.Debt-free, Ilgunas then enrolled in a master’s program at Duke University, determined not to borrow against his future again. He used the last of his savings to buy himself a used Econoline van and outfitted it as his new dorm. The van, stationed in a campus parking lot, would be more than an adventure—it would be his very own Walden on Wheels.Freezing winters, near-discovery by campus police, and the constant challenge of living in a confined space would test Ilgunas’s limits and resolve in the two years that followed. What had begun as a simple mission would become an enlightening and life-changing social experiment.

    In a labyrinth of canyons in the American Southwest where virtually nothing else is alive-barely any vegetation, few signs of wildlife, scant traces of any human precursors in this landscape-Childs and his friend Dirk undertake a fortnight's journey.

    Join author Shawn Inmon and his twenty year old Subaru Outback on his epic solo road trip through British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska. Part personal odyssey, part travel memoir, take an expedition into one of North America's last remaining wildernesses. If you dream of packing up your four-wheeler, your snow boots and camera, and setting off to explore the wilderness, A Lap Around Alaska will give you a rare glimpse into the Land of the Midnight Sun, of moose, bear, and bald eagles, of monumental glaciers and scenery so staggering it brings tears to your eyes. If you hunger for adventure and want to discover untouched beauty and to experience the majesty of the pristine North for yourself-Shawn saved the passenger seat just for you. This book also includes two bonus memoirs of life in Alaska in the 1970s-My First Alaskan Summer and My Matanuska Summer.

    Ranulph followed his father's path into the Royal Scots Greys. After that came the SAS, from which he was dismissed for blowing up an American film set at the idyllic Cotswold village of Castle Combs, then two vicious years as a volunteer fighting communist insurgents in Oman. Then began the series of expeditions for which Fiennes is best known and which caused The Guinness Book of Records to hail him in 1984 as 'the world's greatest living explorer.' Up the White Nile in a hovercraft, parachuting onto Europe's highest glacier, forcing his way up 4,000 miles of terrifying rivers in northern Canada and Alaska, overland to the North Pole and to the ends of the earth, across the world's axis-the Transglobe Expedition-which took ten years from conception to completion. He writes here too about his attempt to reach the North Pole without dogs or motorised equipment, beating the world record by 300 miles, his determination to find the lost city of Urbar in the Arabian desert and, finally, his extraordinary journey across the Antarctic Continent via the South Pole. Living Dangerously is a remarkable testament from a remarkable man.

    Eager to reach his destination and unable to secure any other form of transport, he had to resort to singlehanded seamanship. After an ignominious scene in the harbor, where a tangled anchor led him to take an early dip, he spent ten days learning the rudiments of navigation and sailing from a book, before embarking on the 9,000 mile journey aboard the 20-foot Pagan. Ahead lay a mission that was to reveal in him elements not only of astounding courage and determination, but also of incredible foolhardiness. Within 500 miles of Panama John Caldwell had already been shipwrecked once and had his boat's engine and cockpit destroyed by an angry shark. Indefatigable, he decided to press on towards his goal.He endured the terrors and discomforts of life on the high seas and enjoyed the triumphs of fighting and winning against the elements. This is more than an exciting tale of sea-adventure. It is as compelling and unpredictable as a thriller. It is the story, witty and moving, of a man, motivated initially by love, and ultimately by his own fierce determination to survive.

    WALKING MY DOG, JANE is Rozell's tribute to his adopted state and to the travel partner who carried Rozell's heart, and her own backpack, during a summer spent outdoors walking the 800-mile length of the trans-Alaska pipeline.

    

    Armed with maps, a compass and her life in a bag on her back, she set out to walk the untamed landscapes of the Te Araroa trail in New Zealand, 3000 kilometres of raw, wild, mountainous trail winding from the top of the North Island to the frosty tip of the South Island. But when her walking partner dropped out on the second day, she was faced with a choice: abandon the journey, or face her fears and continue on alone? She chose to walk on.For five months, Laura battled not only treacherous terrain and elements, but also the demons of self-doubt and anxiety. As the kilometres fell behind her, nature did its work, stripping away her identity and guiding her towards a new way of being. At the end of Te Araroa, it was the hard-earned insights into the power of nature, emotional wellbeing and fulfilling relationships – with others as well as with herself – that were Laura’s greatest accomplishments. She emerged ‘rewilded’, and it transformed her life.From the judges of '2021 ASTW Best Travel Book'..."There can be only one and this is it. This is a book that, to me, typifies what good travel writing can be. The story is alive with humour and humility, unadorned, and unfolds in so understated a fashion that I followed along like a happy puppy. ...it illustrates an essential truth about travel - its ability to achieve change. Laura's journey resonates with us all. Well done.""I was gripped by Laura's story and couldn't put it down."