She did it, too, with the simple apparatus of cross-country, without the aids used by her prededecessors – two Norwegian men – each of whom employed either parasails or kites.Aston’s journey across the ice at the bottom of the world asked of her the extremes in terms of mental and physical bravery, as she faced the risks of unseen cracks buried in the snow so large they might engulf her and hypothermia due to brutalizing weather. She had to deal, too, with her emotional vulnerability in face of the constant bombardment of hallucinations brought on by the vast sea of whiteness, the lack of stimulation to her senses as she faced what is tantamount to a form of solitary confinement.Like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Felicity Aston’s Alone in Antarctica becomes an inspirational saga of one woman’s battle through fear and loneliness as she honestly confronts both the physical challenges of her adventure, as well as her own human vulnerabilities.

    A fixture behind home plate throughout the Yankees biggest successes, Jorge became the Yankees' star catcher almost immediately upon his arrival, and in the years that followed, his accomplishments, work ethic, and leadership established him as one of the greatest Yankees ever to put on the uniform.Now, in this long-awaited memoir, Jorge Posada details his journey to home plate, sharing a remarkable, generational account of his journey from the ball fields of Puerto Rico to the House that Ruth built. Offering a view from behind the mask unlike any other, Jorge discusses the key moments and plays that shaped teams and forged a legacy that came to define Yankee baseball for a generation. With pitch-by-pitch recall, Jorge looks back across the years, explaining how--as part of the Core Four alongside Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera--he helped to reestablish the Yankees as a dynasty and win five World Series.Going beyond his all-star career, Jorge also shares his life in full for the first time, examining how his remarkable journey to the big leagues began in the most unexpected of ways. Digging into his cultural roots in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, Jorge illuminates three generations of cherished father-son relationships that have made him the man he is today. At the center is the deep bond he shares with his father and namesake, Jorge Sr, who escaped Cuba and would eventually mold his son to be a ball player, honing his talent and instilling in him the drive necessary to fulfill his childhood dream of playing in the Bronx.Complete with sixteen pages of color photographs, this touching and earnest memoir is a testament to hard work and a celebration of the generational gift of baseball between fathers and sons.

    ABOUT THE BOOK A gem of a book; endearing, engaging and inspiring. -Catharine Hamm, Los Angeles Times Travel Editor Tired of his disconnected life and uninspiring job, Leon Logothetis leaves it all behind-job, money, home, even his cell phone-and hits the road with nothing but the clothes on his back and five dollars in his pocket, relying on the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of the open road for his daily keep. Along the way, Leon offers up the intriguing and charming tales gathered along his one-of-a-kind journey riding in trains and buses and big rigs and classic cars; sleeping on streets and couches and firehouses; meeting pimps and preachers, astronauts and single moms, celebrities and homeless families, veterans and communists. Each day of his journey, we catch sight of the invisible spiritual underpinning of society in these stories of companionship-and sheer adventure-that prove that the kind, good soul of mankind has not been lost. Masterful storytelling! Leon begins his journey as a merry prankster and ends a grinning philosopher. Really funny-and insightful, too.-Karen Salmansohn, Oprah.com Relationship Columnist, AOL Career Coach If you're looking to find meaning in this disconnected world of ours, this book contains many clues." -Psychology Today "The indefatigable Leon Logothetis elicits generosity and kindness, and occasionally some nuttiness...on his endearingly frugal journey. We also get some great travel tips, too."-Kyle Wagner, Travel Editor, Denver Post

    Armed with wit, a pencil-thin mustache, and a cardboard sign that reads "I’m Not Psycho," he hitchhikes across America from Baltimore to San Francisco, braving lonely roads and treacherous drivers. But who should we be more worried about, the delicate film director with genteel manners or the unsuspecting travelers transporting the Pope of Trash?Before he leaves for this bizarre adventure, Waters fantasizes about the best and worst possible scenarios: a friendly drug dealer hands over piles of cash to finance films with no questions asked, a demolition-derby driver makes a filthy sexual request in the middle of a race, a gun-toting drunk terrorizes and holds him hostage, and a Kansas vice squad entraps and throws him in jail. So what really happens when this cult legend sticks out his thumb and faces the open road?

    Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments floun­der. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled col­leagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.

    They filled them with a deep longing to see the world and little else.It began in 1983, a time before the Internet, Instagram or Skyscanner. It was a journey of connections with people and situations that stretched the limits of their patience and perseverance. It was often hard and sometimes dangerous. But it was a journey of self-discovery, to places where simple choices led to profound transformation, where anything was possible if you just believed in yourself and the power in your hands and heart.Grab your copy today and follow the path of this young woman who set out to find herself in the world and find answers to the eternal questions who am I and why am I here?

    Since Roald Amundsen completed the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906, only twenty-four pleasure craft have followed in his wake. Many more people have gone into space than have traversed the Passage, and a staggering number have died trying. From his home port of Newport, Rhode Island, through the Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be an 8,500-mile trek filled with constant danger from ice, polar bears, and severe weather. What Theobald couldn't have known was just how life-changing his journey through the Passage would be. Reuniting his children and stepchildren after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging over their heads. Unrelenting cold, hungry polar bears, and a haunting landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear the crew apart, make The Other Side of the Ice a harrowing story of survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.TO WATCH THE OFFICIAL HD TEASER FOR "The Other Side of The Ice" (book and documentary) PLEASE GO TO SPRAGUETHEOBALD.COM50 color illustrations

    Diana carried three poignant messages on her way across this stretch of shark-infested waters, and she spoke them to the crowd in her moment of final triumph: 1.   Never, ever give up. 2.   You’re never too old to chase your dreams. 3.   It looks like a solitary sport, but  it’s a Team. Millions of people around the world cheered this maverick on, moved by her undeniable tenacity to be the first to make the historic crossing without the aid of a shark cage. At the end of her magnificent journey, after thirty-five years and four crushing failures, the public found hope in Diana’s perseverance. They were inspired by her mantra—find a way—that led her to realize a dream in her sixties that had eluded her as a young champion in peak form.In Find a Way, Diana engages us with a unique, passionate story of this heroic adventure and the extraordinary life experiences that have served to carve her unwavering spirit. Diana was a world champion in her twenties, setting the record for swimming around Manhattan Island, along with other ocean-swim achievements, all of which rendered her a star at the time. Back then, she made the first attempt at the Mount Everest of swims, the Cuba Swim, but after forty-two hours and seventy-nine miles she was blown desperately off course. Her dream unfulfilled, she didn’t swim another stroke for three decades.Why, at sixty-four, was she able to achieve what she could not at thirty? How did her dramatic failures push her to success? What inner resources did Diana draw on during her long days and nights of training, and how did the power of the human spirit trump both the limitations of the body and the forces of nature across this vast, dangerous wilderness? This is the gripping story of an athlete, of a hero, of a bold mind. This is a galvanizing meditation on facing fears, engaging in our lives full throttle, and living each day with no regrets.

    So when James Campbell's cousin Heimo Korth asked him to spend a summer building a cabin in the rugged Interior, Campbell hesitated about inviting his fifteen-year-old daughter, Aidan, to join him: Would she be able to withstand clouds of mosquitoes, the threat of grizzlies, bathing in an ice-cold river, and hours of grueling labor peeling and hauling logs?But once there, Aidan embraced the wild. She even agreed to return a few months later to help the Korths work their traplines and hunt for caribou and moose. Despite windchills of 50 degrees below zero, father and daughter ventured out daily to track, hunt, and trap. Under the supervision of Edna, Heimo's Yupik Eskimo wife, Aidan grew more confident in the woods.Campbell knew that in traditional Eskimo cultures, some daughters earned a rite of passage usually reserved for young men. So he decided to take Aidan back to Alaska one final time before she left home. It would be their third and most ambitious trip, backpacking over Alaska's Brooks Range to the headwaters of the mighty Hulahula River, where they would assemble a folding canoe and paddle to the Arctic Ocean. The journey would test them, and their relationship, in one of the planet's most remote places: a land of wolves, musk oxen, Dall sheep, golden eagles, and polar bears.At turns poignant and humorous, Braving It is an ode to America's disappearing wilderness and a profound meditation on what it means for a child to grow up--and a parent to finally, fully let go.

    But in this historic setting — a store on the Appalachian Trail called Mountain Crossings — the characters who show up are no fictional creations. They are the real-life stars of the author’s new life as a backpack-purging, canteen-selling, hostel-running, bandage-taping, lost-child finding, argument-settling, romance-fixing, chili-making man of many faces. Like any good drama, there are the good guys (and gals) and the weirdos, too. Some show up once (and that’s enough), and some appear again and again. Some are friends, and some dangerous. But all are united by two things: the author’s story-capturing talent, and whatever it is that lures them to attempt (or conquer) a 2,200-mile path that climbs and plummets from Georgia to Maine.

    It takes real magic to turn a great adventure, into a great book. For one thing, most people can't relate to the mind-set of the long distance cyclist and I found myself laughing along to Tom's thoughts and observations, wondering if they were in - jokes, shared by those who had seen the world at the speed of a bike, for example his relationship with Serbia's stray dogs! . But his anecdotes have a great balance of the cultures and places, as opposed to just inward reflections, so I am sure would be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in travel and human experience. A lovely story, written from the heart.” - Mark Beaumont (around the world record breaking cyclist and adventurer) This was the journey that changed my life. I had dreamed about it for so long, but I never actually thought I'd complete a trip around the globe by bike. It started off as seed in the back of my mind, that grew and grew until the idea consumed me. In March 2011 I set off on the adventure of a lifetime, from my front door, across Europe, Asia and finally the USA. I spent nights in people's houses all over the world, slept in Yurts, camped with nomads, ate delicious food ranging from Tibetan stew to alligator meat, drunk home-made Georgian wine, was given clothes, partied with Kazakhs on the Caspian Sea ferry, saw photos of USSR soldiers in front of statues of Lenin, saw Stalin's house the Grand Canyon and the Great Wall. I cycled through sweltering deserts and over huge mountains. I overcame mechanical problems with the help of an Azerbaijani mechanic and illness due to the kindness of a Tajik Pamiri doctor. On the way I cycled with local people and friends, both old and new. I've written this book to share my story and the amazing experiences that I had. It's not a book full of arty descriptions about beautiful places, it doesn't have any clever metaphors; it's just my story. It tells the story of a normal person spending nine months experiencing the world from the saddle of a bike. I've included bits of history, observations about people's daily life, comparisons of countries and my own opinions as my story is told. I only had one rule; I had to make it round the world on a bike: every inch of the way. I hope you enjoy my story; it will be great to have you along for the ride... The kindle version contains colour photographs from my adventure and the hard copy contains high quality black and white photos.

    But, after a broken engagement and a broken heart, he desperately needed a change of scenery. The ambitious plan he cooked up went a bit overboard in that department; Knighton set out to visit every single one of America's National Parks, from Acadia to Zion. Leave Only Footprints is the memoir of his year spent traveling across the United States, a journey that yielded his "On the Trail" series, which quickly became one of CBS Sunday Morning's most beloved segments. In this smart, informative, and often hilarious book, he'll share how his journey through these natural wonders, unchanged by man, ended up changing his worldview on everything from God to politics to love and technology. Whether it's waking up early for a naked scrub in an Arkansas bathhouse or staying up late to stargaze along our loneliest highway, Knighton goes behind the scenery to provide an unfiltered look at America. In the tradition of books like A Walk in the Woods or Turn Right at Machu Picchu, this is an irresistible mix of personal narrative and travelogue-some well-placed pop culture references, too-and a must-read for any of the 331 million yearly National Parks visitors.

    The only proviso is that each new destination must be to a different country. From Here to Anywhere takes him on a madcap adventure through 16 European nations in just sixteen days. Along the way, he visits a place called Moss in Norway and sees the 'most depressing street in Europe' in Belgium. He wanders through a Syrian refugee camp in Belgrade, crosses a UN-protected border in Cyprus, smashes a bottle of beer in a Hungarian church and drinks some Guinness in Dublin, all the while battling airport queues, cheap coffee and his fellow passengers. Jason Smart is the published author of nine other travel books: The Red Quest Flashpacking through Africa The Balkan Odyssey Temples, Tuk-tuks and Fried Fish Lips Panama City to Rio de Janeiro Bite Size Travel in North America Crowds, Chaos, ColourRapid Fire Europe Meeting the Middle East

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    He tutored The Ultimate Warrior and strangled Bret Hart with a dead chicken. This is the true story of pro wrestling's overlooked legend. GRAPPLER chronicles the rags to almost-riches journey of Lynn "The Grappler" Denton. A star of pro wrestling's territorial era, Denton worked alongside the biggest names of the 1980s. Readers will learn about his adventures with ring icons such as Roddy Piper, Ric Flair and Harley Race. In addition, GRAPPLER features previously untold stories involving Bill Goldberg, Junkyard Dog, Ted Dibiase, Rick Rude, Curt Hennig and countless others. Denton also gives wrestling fans a behind-the-scenes look at several legendary promotions, including Mid-South, World Class, Memphis and Portland Wrestling. The book chronicles the territories' "glory days," and offers a ringside seat for their demise. From Denton's humble beginnings in a Texas dance hall, to the bright lights of the "Monday Night Wars," this is the story of one man chasing his dream through 35 years of wrestling history. With a foreword from WWE legend "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, GRAPPLER is a must have for any fan who wants to learn about the unsung heroes of professional wrestling. This humorous and heartfelt autobiography is proof that not every legend wears a Hall of Fame ring.