It was on a spring day in 1939 that L. T. C. Rolt first stepped aboard Cressy. This engaging book tells the story of how he and his wife adapted and fitted out the boat as a home and recreates the journey of some 400 miles that they made along the network of waterways in the Midlands. It recalls the boatmen and their craft, and celebrates the then seemingly timeless nature of the English countryside through which they passed. As Sir Compton Mackenzie wrote, "it is an elegy of classic restraint unmarred by any trace of sentiment" for a way of life and a rural landscape which have now all but disappeared.

    The weather for the past few days had not been altogether reliable; now windy, now calm - now snowing, now clear: regular spring weather, in other words... With this matter of fact sentence begins one of the most famous journeys in all exploration - Amundsen's conquest of the South Pole. The details of the tragic race with Scott are well known, but often forgotten is the sheer professionalism and courage which drove the Norwegian expedition on. Unlike the driven and tortured egos which bedeviled the British expeditions, the Norwegians worked purposefully as a team using the latest technology, and Amundsen acknowledges this openly when the Pole was finally achieved. I had determined that the act of planting it [the flag] - the historic event - should be equally divided among us all. It was not for one man to do this; it was for all who had staked their lives in the struggle, and held together through thick and thin. This was the only way in which I could show my gratitude to my comrades in this desolate spot... Five weather-beaten, frostbitten fists they were that grasped the pole, raised the waving flag in the air, and planted it as the first at

    O'Hanlon takes us into the bug-ridden rain forest between the Orinoco and the Amazon--infested with jaguars and piranhas, where men would kill over a bottle of ketchup and where the locals may be the most violent people on earth (next to hockey fans).

    A man of outstanding physical bravery and skill, yet heart-warming modesty. A man whose triumphant achievements will ave a permanent place in the records of human endeavour.

     Join George and Rachel on their hilarious journey through the wilds of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, as they climb volcanoes, fish for piranhas, trek through the Amazon rainforest, take death-defying bus rides, sample some of the continent’s strangest delicacies, and try to get to Machu Picchu. Armed only with a basic knowledge of Spanish, small backpacks, and bags of enthusiasm, they set off together on what promised to be a life-changing adventure.

    "A stunning memoir from the astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station – a candid account of his remarkable voyage, the journeys that preceded it, and his colorful formative years." Inside book cover comments.

    In some ways the model for the new wave of adventure books, Adrift is an undeniable seafaring classic, a riveting firsthand account by the only man known to have survived more than a month alone at sea, fighting for his life in an inflatable raft after his small sloop capsized only six days out. Adrift is a must-have for any adventure library.

    A legend says that the Incas had retreated deep into the jungle, where they built another magnificent city in an inaccessible quarter of the cloud-forest. And for more than four centuries explorers and adventurers, archaeologists and warrior-priests, have searched for the gold and riches of the Incas, and this lost city of Paititi, known by the local Machiguenga tribe as 'The House of the Tiger King'. decade, he could stand it no more. He put together an expedition and set out into Peru's Madre de Dios jungle, the densest cloud forest on Earth. He teams up with a Pancho, a Machiguenga warrior who asserts that in his youth he came upon a massive series of stone ruins deep in the jungle. Pancho's ambition was to leave the jungle and visit a 'live' bustling city so the two men make a pact: if Pancho takes Shah to Paititi, then he will take Pancho to the Peruvian capital. Here is the tale of Shah's remarkable adventure to find the greatest lost city of the Americas, and the treasure of the Incas. Along the way he considers others who have spent decades in pursuit of lost cities, and asks why anyone would find it necessary to mount such a quest at all.

    At the age of 34, John Pollack quit a prestigious speechwriting job on Capitol Hill to pursue an idea he had harbored since the age of six: to build a boat out of wine corks and take it on an epic journey.In Cork Boat, Pollack tells the charming and uplifting story of this unlikely adventure. Overcoming one obstacle after another, he convinces skeptical bartenders to save corks, corrals a brilliant but disorganized partner, and cajoles more than a hundred volunteers to help build the boat, many until their fingers bleed. Hired as a speechwriter for President Clinton midway through construction, Pollack soon has the White House saving corks, too. Ultimately, he and his crew set sail down the Douro River in Portugal, where the boat becomes a national sensation. Written with unusual grace and disarming humor, Cork Boat is a buoyant tale of camaraderie, determination, and the power of imagination.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    His explorations of the eastern coastline of Australia, leading to its eventual British colonization; his thorough charting of New Zealand, discovery of the Hawaiian Island, and his investigation of both the mythical 'Terra Incognita' in the southern ocean and the equally mythical Northwest Passage, as well as his contributions to cartography and to the cure and prevention of sea disease were all of immense scientific and political significance. Though lacking in formal education, Cook was a man of great intelligence and unbounded curiosity, and his journals reflect a wide-ranging interest in everything from island customs to specific problems of navigation, charting, command, and diplomacy.This reprinting of selections from Cook's journals, edited by A. Grenfell Price, celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of his explorations. It abounds in descriptions of newly discovered plant species, particulars of coastline and land features, details of navigation, and impressions of the various Pacific peoples he encountered. Cook's was a many-faceted genius, able at once to grasp the complexities of mathematics necessary for navigation and mapping and the subtle intricacies of politics and negotiation. He often recorded his keen judgments of both subordinates and native chieftains and priests in a way that displays his own great spirit and humanity. Always solicitous of the health of his crewmen, he took great pains to insure proper diet and conditions of cleanliness, and he carefully described these measures in his journal. His tragic death at the hands of Hawaiian islanders is fully rendered from eyewitness accounts, and the implications of his discoveries to the expansion of scientific knowledge are clearly presented by the editor.Although Cook's journals will prove of inestimable value to historians, anthropologists, and students of the history of science, they can be enjoyed equally as lively narratives of high adventure and discovery. Any sympathetically roving imagination will take unbounded delight in this great classic of exploration by a most "curious and restless son of Earth."

    But there is more to Chloe than viewers see on the TV, and the drama doesn’t stop when the camera stops rolling. Just two years ago, Chloe was a single mother struggling to make ends meet doing a string of jobs she hated and wondering if she would ever find happiness. Since joining the cast of The Only Way Is Essex, her life is now a whirlwind of glitzy parties and jet-set holidays, but life hasn’t always dealt Chloe a good hand. Her story is one of triumph over adversity, with plenty of laughs along the way. From her turbulent childhood where she was raised by a neighbor after her mother abandoned her, to battling with bullies and struggling with an eating disorder, to the magical moment when she met the man of her dreams.

    The joys and travails of building a home in Baja California.

     Under the guidance of James Calvert this nuclear submarine had navigated through polar ice packs, braved atrociously cold conditions, and broken through layers of thick ice to arrive at their destination; the northernmost point of the world. This mission, however, was not just about completing a seemingly impossibly feat of Arctic exploration. It also had huge implications for military strategy during the height of the Cold War. Now that submarines were able to travel under and break through the ice, it gave the U.S. military the capability of being avoid detection under the ice while being able to launch their Polaris missiles from points far closer to the Soviet Union. James Calvert’s remarkable account of his two voyages to the Arctic with the USS Skate provides vivid insight into life in a nuclear submarine and how these men were able to complete this treacherous mission. “a frank, honest and humorous account of the problems faced in penetrating this vast unknown.” Naval War College Review “he brought a keen eye for detail to his account of that first rise to the North Pole” The New York Times “[James Calvert] proves as handy with pen as with periscope. … the two penetrations of the ice pack, in August of 1958 and March of 1959, make fresh and original reading.” Kirkus Reviews Surface at the Pole: The Extraordinary Voyages of the USS Skate should be essential reading for anyone interested in naval history and how U.S. Navy made innovative strides in arctic exploration through the 1950s. James Calvert served in the United States Navy, where he commanded USS Skate, the third nuclear submarine commissioned and the second submarine to reach the North Pole, which became the first to surface at the pole. His account of this journey, Surface at the Pole: The Extraordinary Voyages of the USS Skate was published in 1960 and Calvert passed away in 2009.

    Out of the forty-five original passengers and crew, only sixteen made it off the mountain alive. For ten excruciating weeks they suffered deprivations beyond imagining, confronting nature head-on at its most furious and inhospitable. And to survive, they were forced to do what would have once been unthinkable...This is their story—one of the most astonishing true adventures of the twentieth century.

    Over sixty years later, this novel, which was an immediate bestseller when published in 1942, is still selling. The child of German American parents, Betty Smith was born and raised in the immigrant slums of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Forced to go to work at the age of fourteen, she never graduated from high school, but she achieved success as a playwright and novelist, writing four bestsellers over the course of her career. She married three times, was divorced twice, lived for many years with her lover, attended and taught graduate-level courses, raised two daughters, and supported her family during the Depression. While her writing focused on Brooklyn, she lived and worked for most of her adult life in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This is the first published biography of Betty Smith. Valerie Raleigh Yow has a PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin. She has published two previous academic books and a biography of North Carolina novelist Bernice Kelly Harris (Louisiana State University Press, 1999) and is a psychotherapist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.