Descending carefully, he and his team picked their way across deep crevasses and through the deadly Khumbu Icefall; when the mountain was finally behind him, Erik knew he was going to live. His expedition leader slapped him on the back and said something that would affect the course of Erik’s life: “Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you ever do.”No Barriers is Erik’s response to that challenge. It is the moving story of his journey since descending Mount Everest: from leading expeditions around the world with blind Tibetan teenagers to helping injured soldiers climb their way home from war, from adopting a son from Nepal to facing the most terrifying reach of his life: to solo kayak the thunderous whitewater of the Grand Canyon.Along the course of Erik’s journey, he meets other trailblazers―adventurers, scientists, artists, and activists―who, despite trauma, hardship, and loss, have broken through barriers of their own. These pioneers show Erik surprising ways forward that surpass logic and defy traditional thinking.Like the rapids of the Grand Canyon, created by inexorable forces far beneath the surface, No Barriers is a dive into the heart and mind at the core of the turbulent human experience. It is an exploration of the light that burns in all of us, the obstacles that threaten to extinguish that light, and the treacherous ascent towards growth and rebirth.

    From her small-town home in Ontario, it seemed as if Marco Polo, Magellan and their like had long ago mapped the whole earth. So she vowed to become a scientist and go to Mars. To pass the time before she could launch into outer space, Kate set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule, then settled down to study at Oxford and MIT. Eventually the truth dawned on her: an explorer, in any day and age, is by definition the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. And Harris had soared most fully out of bounds right here on Earth, travelling a bygone trading route on her bicycle. So she quit the laboratory and hit the Silk Road again with Mel, this time determined to bike it from the beginning to end. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer before her, Kate Harris offers a travel narrative at once exuberant and meditative, wry and rapturous. Weaving adventure and deep reflection with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of a world that, like the self and like the stars, can never be fully mapped.

    In her chatty and breezy style, typical of any online conversation, Bethany Hamilton shares information on a wide variety of topics about her life and faith.

    There, she single-handedly cleared the land and — despite a total lack of experience in construction — built her own house.More than simply a lyrical celebration of the natural world, Cabin at Singing River is a story of courage, perseverance and imagination. From the moment Chris sets her inexperienced foot into an unsteady canoe until the triumphant day she stands back to survey the log house she has built, we are irresistibly drawn into her remarkable journey toward independence.

    This is Not for You is a memoir which vividly describes the memories of growing up in a dysfunctional environment and how these circumstances developed a spirit within the narrator. This is a story of resiliency and drive to overcome the extreme adversities that addiction and poverty can create in the life of a young child.

    Their globe-spanning travels and side-splitting adventures are recounted in Blown Away, a sort of Swiss Family Robinson by way of the Marx Brothers.

    His goal: play a round of golf in each of the lower forty-eight states. From a gritty municipal course in Flint, Michigan, to rubbing elbows with Phil Mickelson at Quail Hollow, Dylan would spend a remarkable year exploring the astonishing variety of the nation’s golf courses—and its people. Over one year, thirty-five thousand miles, and countless nights alone in his dusty Subaru, Dylan showered at truck stops, slept with an ax under his seat, and lost his virginity, traveling “wherever the road took him, with golf as a vehicle for understanding America” (The New York Times). The result is a book that “would be considered fine work by any writer, let alone one so young” (Maine Edge).

    He sees the angler's environment all around him--in New York's Grand Central Station, in the cement-lined pond of a city park, in a shimmering bonefish flat in the Florida Keys, in the trout streams of the Rocky Mountains. He marvels at the fishing in the turbid Ohio River by downtown Cincinnati, where a good bait for catfish is half a White Castle french fry. The incidentals of the angling experience, the who and the where of it, interest him as much as what he catches and how. The essays contain sharply focused observations of the American outdoors, a place filled with human alterations and detritus that somehow remain defiantly unruined. Frazier's simple love of the sport lifts him to a straight-ahead angling description that's among the best contemporary writing on the subject. The Fish's Eye brings together twenty years of heartfelt, funny, and vivid essays on a timeless pursuit where so many mysteries, both human and natural, coincide.

    She fought off the director and finished the race. From the childhood events that inspired her to winning the New York City Marathon in 1974, this liberally illustrated book details the struggles and achievements of a pioneering women in sports.

    She soon discovers she has a talent for long-distance running and trains for her first marathon. . She loves it – and soon sets her sights on the 2005 Melbourne Marathon. When she finishes in under three hours and in third place, Vanessa is offered commercial sponsorships and attracts the attentions of elite coaches. Instead of enjoying her win however, she is driven to improve her performance. She pushes her body harder and further, determined to become the best runner she can be. Despite her increasing success and her own training as a physiotherapist she soon finds herself trapped in a spiral of extreme dieting and exercise in order to improve her performances and maintain her ‘fit and healthy’ look.Ignoring the growing concern of her family and friends, Vanessa denies there is anything unhealthy about her fitness training, until the day she finds her body has started rebelling against her …A compelling story about the dangers of overexercising and chasing perfection in a society that rewards and applauds the fastest and the fittest.

    David Lamb's journey--on a sleek 21-speed touring bicycle--carried him 3,145 miles, from his home near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., all the way to the pier in Santa Monica, California.  The result is a highly personal account of coming to grips with middle age in the tradition of Howell Raines Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis.Lamb did no training for his cross-country feat, failed to curb his addiction to either cigarettes or junk food, and along the way encountered an America all but invisible to those unfortunate travelers held hostage by the interstate.  The journey took him three months, and Over the Hills is the magnificent result: a literary travelogue, funny and celebratory, a story about people met and physical challenges overcome.

    Following his most recent unsupported attempt to reach the North Pole which nearly cost him his life, he looks back on three decades of adventures in all corners of the globe and what he has learned from them.Reflecting on such diverse themes as the importance of choosing the right team, monitoring the opposition and dealing with the media, Sir Ranulph presents a breathtaking collection of photographs from his personal archive and discusses the - sometimes painful - lessons he has taken away from each expedition. From the famous and successful Transglobe voyage in the early 1980s to his life-threatening attempt on the North Pole in 2000, this is a riveting and enlightening insight into the life of an extraordinary man.

    They all grew up dreaming of skating in the big league as stars. Then one day, a coach tells them the only way to make it is to drop the gloves. And every guy says the same thing: I'll do whatever it takes to play in the NHL.Not Stu Grimson, though. When he was offered a contract to patrol the ice for the Calgary Flames, he said no thanks, and went to university instead. And that's the way Grimson has approached his career and his life: on his own terms. He stared down the toughest players on the planet for seventeen years, while working on his first university degree. He retired on his own terms, and went on to practice law, including a stint as in-house counsel for the NHLPA.This has put him in a unique position when it comes to commenting on the game. He's seen it from the trenches, and he's seen it from the courtroom. This puts him in the eye of the storm surrounding fighting and concussions. And he handles that the way he does everything: on his own terms. When Don Cherry called him out on televison, it was the seemingly indominable Cherry who backed down. Hockey fans will be fascinated by his data-driven defence of fighting.But in the end, this is not a book about fighting and locker-room stories. It's the story of a young man who ultimately took on the toughest role in pro sports and came out the other side. Where many others have not.

    From canoe camping next to unnamed lakes, to kayaking in Alaska’s pristine waters, she describes her many encounters with the bears, moose and other animals that make this wilderness their home. With her partner David she helped to build a cabin on a remote piece of property, off the grid and accessible only by boat. Illustrated with the photos she took along the way, her story is sometimes comic, and sometimes tragic, but throughout its pages she speaks with the voice of one who loves nature and the wilderness.

    Climbers regard it as the ultimate achievement in mountaineering, with good reason. Four times as deadly as Everest, K2 has claimed the lives of seventy-seven climbers since 1954. In August 2008 eleven climbers died in a single thirty-six-hour period on K2–the worst single-event tragedy in the mountain's history and the second-worst in the long chronicle of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges. Yet summiting K2 remains a cherished goal for climbers from all over the globe. Before he faced the challenge of K2 himself, Ed Viesturs, one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineers, thought of it as "the holy grail of mountaineering."In K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain, Viesturs explores the remarkable history of the mountain and of those who have attempted to conquer it. At the same time he probes K2's most memorable sagas in an attempt to illustrate the lessons learned by confronting the fundamental questions raised by mountaineering–questions of risk, ambition, loyalty to one's teammates, self-sacrifice, and the price of glory. Viesturs knows the mountain firsthand. He and renowned alpinist Scott Fischer climbed it in 1992 and were nearly killed in an avalanche that sent them sliding to almost certain death. Fortunately, Ed managed to get into a self-arrest position with his ice ax and stop both his fall and Scott' s.Focusing on seven of the mountain's most dramatic campaigns, from his own troubled ascent to the 2008 tragedy, Viesturs and Roberts crafts an edge-of-your-seat narrative that climbers and armchair travelers alike will find unforgettably compelling. With photographs from Viesturs's personal collection and from historical sources, this is the definitive account of the world's ultimate mountain, and of the lessons that can be gleaned from struggling toward its elusive summit.