Book picks similar to
The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier by Jim Davidson
adventure
nonfiction
non-fiction
mountaineering
Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland
Amanda Berry - 2015
. . . I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for ten years.” A horrifying story rapidly unfolded. Ariel Castro, a local school bus driver, had separately lured Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight to his home, where he kept them chained. In the decade that followed, the three were raped, psychologically abused, and threatened with death. Berry had a daughter—Jocelyn—by their captor. Drawing upon their recollections and the diary kept by Amanda Berry, Berry and Gina DeJesus describe a tale of unimaginable torment, and Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporters Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan interweave the events within Castro’s house with original reporting on efforts to find the missing girls. The full story behind the headlines—including details never previously released on Castro’s life and motivations—Hope is a harrowing yet inspiring chronicle of two women whose courage, ingenuity, and resourcefulness ultimately delivered them back to their lives and families.
To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
Jedidiah Jenkins - 2018
He chronicled the trip on Instagram, where his photos and reflections drew hundreds of thousands of followers, all gathered around the question: What makes a life worth living?In this unflinchingly honest memoir, Jed narrates his adventure--the people and places he encountered on his way to the bottom of the world--as well as the internal journey that started it all. As he traverses cities, mountains, and inner boundaries, Jenkins grapples with the question of what it means to be an adult, his struggle to reconcile his sexual identity with his conservative Christian upbringing, and his belief in travel as a way to wake us up to life back home.A soul-stirring read for the wanderer in each of us, To Shake the Sleeping Self is an unforgettable reflection on adventure, identity, and a life lived without regret.Praise for To Shake the Sleeping Self"[Jenkins is] a guy deeply connected to his personal truth and just so refreshingly present."--Rich Roll, author of Finding Ultra"This is much more than a book about a bike ride. This is a deep soul deepening us. Jedidiah Jenkins is a mystic disguised as a millennial."--Tom Shadyac, author of Life's Operating Manual"Thought-provoking and inspirational . . . This uplifting memoir and travelogue will remind readers of the power of movement for the body and the soul."
--Publishers Weekly
Disappointment River: Finding and Losing the Northwest Passage
Brian Castner - 2018
In 2016, the acclaimed memoirist Brian Castner retraced Mackenzie's route by canoe in a grueling journey -- and discovered the Passage he could not find.Disappointment River is a dual historical narrative and travel memoir that at once transports readers back to the heroic age of North American exploration and places them in a still rugged but increasingly fragile Arctic wilderness in the process of profound alteration by the dual forces of globalization and climate change. Fourteen years before Lewis and Clark, Mackenzie set off to cross the continent of North America with a team of voyageurs and Chipewyan guides, to find a trade route to the riches of the East. What he found was a river that he named "Disappointment." Mackenzie died thinking he had failed. He was wrong.In this book, Brian Castner not only retells the story of Mackenzie's epic voyages in vivid prose, he personally retraces his travels, battling exhaustion, exposure, mosquitoes, white water rapids and the threat of bears. He transports readers to a world rarely glimpsed in the media, of tar sands, thawing permafrost, remote indigenous villages and, at the end, a wide open Arctic Ocean that could become a far-northern Mississippi of barges and pipelines and oil money.
Ascent
Chris Bonington - 2017
He has undertaken nineteen Himalayan expeditions, including four to Mount Everest which he climbed in 1985 at the age of fifty, and has made many first ascents in the Alps and greater ranges of the world. Along the way we will be fascinated by his many daring climbs, near-death adventures, and the many luminaries of the mountain fraternity he has climbed with, and in some cases - witness their deaths on the rock. The mercurial Dougal Haston; the legendary-tough Don Whillans, the philosopher of the rock Stephen Venables, and the enigmatic Doug Scott, plus many more – this will be an expert’s opinion on the past sixty years of British/ world mountaineering.In Ascent Chris also discusses his first wife (Wendy) who tragically passed away after a long battle with motor neuron disease - his many years of caring for her, and then in his twilight years deciding to return to an iconic climb from his past - The Old Man of Hoy - to summit at the age of 80 years of age. He has now also found love again amidst the sadness and grief. It is a truly inspirational tale.
Ascent
will be a memoir like no other. Not only a cerebral narrative on what it takes to conquer fear, and learn/ develop the technical skills necessary to climb the world’s greatest peaks; what it is like to survive in places no human being can ultimately reside in for longer than a few months at very high altitude, but also how one overcomes emotional obstacles, too, and rediscover what drives us on to happiness.
Minus 148 Degrees
Art Davidson - 1969
Plagued by doubts and cold, group tension and a crevasse tragedy, the expedition tackled McKinley in minimal hours of daylight and fierce storms. They were trapped at three different camps above 14,000 feet during a six-day blizzard and faced the ultimate low temperature of 148 F.Minus 148 is Art Davidson's stunning personal narrative, supplemented by diary excerpts from team members George Wichman, John Edwards, Dave Johnston, and Greg Blomberg. Davidson retells the team's fears and frictions and ultimate triumph with an honesty that has made this gripping survival story a mountaineering classic for over 40 years.
The Salt Path
Raynor Winn - 2018
With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.
The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island
Linda Greenlaw - 2002
Now, taking a break from the swordfishing career that earned her a major role in The Perfect Storm, Greenlaw returns to Isle au Haut, a tiny Maine island with a population of 70 year-round residents, 30 of whom are Greenlaw's relatives. With a Clancy-esque talent for fascinating technical detail and a Keillor-esque eye for the drama of small-town life, Greenlaw offers her take on everything from rediscovering home, love, and family to island characters and the best way to cook and serve a lobster. But Greenlaw also explores the islands darker side, including a tragic boating accident and a century-old conflict with a neighboring community. Throughout, Greenlaw maintains the straight-shooting, funny, and slightly scrappy style that has won her so many fans, and proves once again that fishermen are still the best storytellers around.
Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage: The Lonely Challenge
Hermann Buhl - 1956
Autobiography of Hermann Buhl, whose solo, unaided climb of Nanga Parbat is thought to be a greater achievement than Hillary and Tenzing's climb on Everest.
Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure
Richard Evelyn Byrd - 1937
Byrd set out on his second Antarctic expedition in 1934, he was already an international hero for having piloted the first flights over the North and South Poles. His plan for this latest adventure was to spend six months alone near the bottom of the world, gathering weather data and indulging his desire “to taste peace and quiet long enough to know how good they really are.” But early on things went terribly wrong. Isolated in the pervasive polar night with no hope of release until spring, Byrd began suffering inexplicable symptoms of mental and physical illness. By the time he discovered that carbon monoxide from a defective stovepipe was poisoning him, Byrd was already engaged in a monumental struggle to save his life and preserve his sanity.When Alone was first published in 1938, it became an enormous bestseller. This edition keeps alive Byrd’s unforgettable narrative for new generations of readers.
Woodswoman I: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness
Anne LaBastille - 1975
Here is the unusual story of a young wildlife ecologist who has done just that. When her marriage ended in divorce, Anne LaBastille bought twenty-two acres of virgin forest on a lonely lake in New York State's vast Adirondack Park, and there built the log cabin that has been her home ever since.
Confessions of a GP (The Confessions Series)
Benjamin Daniels - 2010
He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor. A woman with a common cold demanding (but not receiving) antibiotics. A man with a sore knee. A young woman who has been trying to conceive for a while but now finds herself pregnant and isn't sure she wants to go through with it. A 7-year-old boy with 'tummy aches' that don't really exist.These are his patients.Confessions of a GP is a witty insight into the life of a family doctor. Funny and moving in equal measure it will change the way you look at your GP next time you pop in with the sniffles.
Seven Summits
Dick Bass - 1986
Dick Bass had made his fortune as an energy and resort entrepreneur. In middle age, both men left behind home, family, and successful careers to share an impossible dream. Seven Unconquered Summits The challenge: be the first to climb the highest mountain on each of seven continents, from McKinley to Kilimanjaro to Everest. The obstacles: many and merciless, from ice storms to illness to a measurement question that threatened to make their record-breaking expedition a sham. The prize: the sheer, exhilarating triumph of standing at the top of every continent on earth.
The Log from the Sea of Cortez
John Steinbeck - 1951
The expedition was described by the two men in Sea of Cortez, published in 1941. The day-to-day story of the trip is told here in the Log, which combines science, philosophy and high-spirited adventure.Log from the Sea of Cortez includes the narrative of the journey and the essay “About Ed Ricketts.” It does not include pictures and detailed descriptions of the species collected by Steinbeck and Ricketts. (See also Sea of Cortez.)
Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs
Elissa Wall - 2008
At once shocking, heartbreaking, and inspiring, Wall’s story of subjugation and survival exposes the darkness at the root of this rebel offshoot of the Mormon faith.
Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled--and Knuckleheaded--Quest for the Rocky Mountain High
Mark Obmascik - 2009
But when his twelve-year-old son gets bitten by the climbing bug at summer camp, Obmascik can't resist the opportunity for some high-altitude father-son bonding by hiking a peak together. After their first joint climb, addled by the thin air, Obmascik decides to keep his head in the clouds and try scaling all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot mountains, known as the Fourteeners -- and to do them in less than one year. The result is Halfway to Heaven, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Obmascik's rollicking, witty, sometimes harrowing, often poignant chronicle of an outrageous midlife adventure that is no walk in the park, although sometimes it's A Walk in the Woods -- but with more sweat and less oxygen. Half a million people try climbing a Colorado Fourteener every year, but only twelve hundred have reported summiting them all. Can an overweight, stay-at-home dad become No. 1,201? With his ebullient personality and sparkling prose, Obmascik brings us inside the quirky, colorful subculture of mountaineering obsessives who summit these mountains year after year. Honoring his concerned wife's orders not to climb alone, Obmascik drags old friends up the slopes, some of them lifelong flatlanders tasting thin air for the first time, and lures seasoned Rockies junkies into taking on a huffing, puffing newbie by bribing them with free beer, lunches, and car washes. Among the new friends he makes are an ex-drag racer trying to perform a headstand on every summit, the lead oboe player in a Hebrew salsa band, and a climber with the counterproductive pre-climb ritual of gulping down four beers and a burrito. Along the way, Obmascik experiences the raw, rowdy, and rarely seen intimacy of male friendship, braced by the double intoxicants of adrenaline and altitude. Though danger is always present -- the Colorado Fourteeners have killed more climbers than Mount Everest -- Mark knows his aging scalp can't afford the hair-raising adventures of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and his quest becomes a story of family, friendship, and fraternity. In Obmascik's summer of climbing, he loses fifteen pounds, finds a few dozen man-dates, and gains respect for the history of these storied mountains (home to cannibalism, gold rushes, shoot-outs, and one of the nation's most famed religious shrines). As much about midlife and male bonding as it is about mountains, Halfway to Heaven tells how weekend warriors can survive them all as they reach for those most distant things -- the summits of mountains and a teenage son. And as one man exceeds the physical achievements of his youth, he discovers that age -- like summit height -- is just a number.