20 Best Adventurers & Explorers, History Books
Adventurers & Explorers, History is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Adventurers & Explorers, History audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 20 Adventurers & Explorers, History audiobooks below.
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Mercury Rising
- By: Jeff Shesol
- Length: 11 hours 41 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: June 01, 2021
- Language: English
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4.29(540 ratings)
4.29(540 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDA riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race. If the United States couldn’t catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy atA riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race.
If the United States couldn’t catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War?a perilous time when the Soviet Union built the wall in Berlin, tested nuclear bombs more destructive than any in history, and beat the United States to every major milestone in space. The race to the heavens seemed a race for survival?and America was losing.
On February 20, 1962, when John Glenn blasted into orbit aboard Friendship 7, his mission was not only to circle the planet; it was to calm the fears of the free world and renew America’s sense of self-belief. Mercury Rising re-creates the tension and excitement of a flight that shifted the momentum of the space race and put the United States on the path to the moon. Drawing on new archival sources, personal interviews, and previously unpublished notes by Glenn himself, Mercury Rising reveals how the astronaut’s heroics lifted the nation’s hopes in what Kennedy called the “hour of maximum danger.”
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Race to the Pole
- By: Ranulph Fiennes
- Narrator: David Povall
- Length: 16 hours 21 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2004
- Language: English
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4.24(253 ratings)
4.24(253 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.95 USDDuring the Golden Era of Exploration, Captain Robert Scott and his competitor Roald Amundsen conquered the unconquerable: Antarctica. Their perilous race to the South Pole claimed Scott’s life and became the stuff of legend as well as endlessDuring the Golden Era of Exploration, Captain Robert Scott and his competitor Roald Amundsen conquered the unconquerable: Antarctica. Their perilous race to the South Pole claimed Scott’s life and became the stuff of legend as well as endless scrutiny. In this compelling biography of Captain Scott and his fatal journey, renowned modern-day explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, holder of ten expeditionary records, has written what is sure to become the definitive book on this hotly debated subject. Infused with the intensity of fiction, and the author’s hard-won, firsthand knowledge of what it takes to traverse the Antarctic continent, Race to the Pole is a prodigious achievement certain to become a classic in the literature of exploration.
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The Pacific
- By: Meaghan Wilson Anastasios
- Narrator: Alan King
- Length: 13 hours 31 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: November 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.21(87 ratings)
4.21(87 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.99 USDA rich, complex and engaging account of Cook’s voyages across the Pacific, from actor and raconteur Sam Neill. Captain James Cook first set sail to the Pacific in 1768, just over 250 years ago. These vast waters, one third of theA rich, complex and engaging account of Cook’s voyages across the Pacific, from actor and raconteur Sam Neill.
Captain James Cook first set sail to the Pacific in 1768, just over 250 years ago. These vast waters, one third of the earth’s surface, were uncharted but not unknown. A rich diversity of people and cultures navigated, traded, lived and fought here for thousands of years. Before Cook, the Pacific was disconnected from the power and ideas of Europe, Asia and America. In the wake of Cook, everything changed.
The Pacific with Sam Neill is the companion book to the Foxtel documentary series of the same name, in which actor and raconteur Sam Neill takes a deeply personal, present-day voyage to map his own understanding of James Cook, Europe’s greatest navigator, and the immense Pacific Ocean itself.
Voyaging on a wide variety on vessels, from container ships to fishing trawlers and sailing boats, Sam crosses the length and breadth of the largest ocean in the world to experience for himself a contemporary journey in Cook’s footsteps, engaging the past and present in both modern and ancient cultural practice and peoples.
Fascinating, engaging, fresh and vital – this is history … but not as you know it.
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South
- By: Ernest Shackleton
- Narrator: Geoffrey Howard
- Length: 12 hours 31 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2006
- Language: English
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4.21(6335 ratings)
4.21(6335 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDIn 1911, veteran explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to lead the first expedition across Antarctica, the last unknown continent. Instead, his ship, the Endurance, became locked in sea ice, and for nine months, Shackleton fought a losing battleIn 1911, veteran explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to lead the first expedition across Antarctica, the last unknown continent. Instead, his ship, the Endurance, became locked in sea ice, and for nine months, Shackleton fought a losing battle with the elements before the drifting ship was crushed, marooning him and his crew.
This gripping first-hand account follows Shackleton and his men on their harrowing journey back to civilization: over 600 miles of unstable ice floes on foot, 850 miles of the worst seas in an open 22-foot boat, and then 20 miles of mountainous terrain to reach the nearest outpost of civilization.
An astonishing story that explores the limits of human courage, Shackleton’s South ranks among history’s greatest adventures.
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Undaunted Courage
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrator: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 21 hours 43 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1996
- Language: English
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4.2(51969 ratings)
4.2(51969 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure storiesFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time.
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In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
Ambrose has pieced together previously unknown information about weather, terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to provide a vivid backdrop for the expedition. Lewis is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters, first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest in exploring and acquiring the American West went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched Jefferson’s. There are numerous Indian chiefs, and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition, along with the French-Indian hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more leading political, scientific, and military figures of the turn of the century.
High adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and diplomacy combine with high romance and personal tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship as readable as a novel. -
Undaunted Courage
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrator: Cotter Smith
- Length: 4 hours 33 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1996
- Language: English
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4.2(51969 ratings)
4.2(51969 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0015.95 USDFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure storiesFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time.
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In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
Ambrose has pieced together previously unknown information about weather, terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to provide a vivid backdrop for the expedition. Lewis is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters, first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest in exploring and acquiring the American West went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched Jefferson’s. There are numerous Indian chiefs, and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition, along with the French-Indian hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more leading political, scientific, and military figures of the turn of the century.
High adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and diplomacy combine with high romance and personal tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship as readable as a novel. -
Dreams of El Dorado
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrator: Matt Kugler
- Length: 17 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: October 22, 2019
- Language: English
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4.2(1267 ratings)
4.2(1267 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.98 USD“Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope” (Hampton Sides), this masterfully told account of the American West from a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist sets a new standard as it sweeps from the California Gold Rush and beyond.In Dreams of“Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope” (Hampton Sides), this masterfully told account of the American West from a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist sets a new standard as it sweeps from the California Gold Rush and beyond.In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor’s fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants’ dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame-and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. The West was where riches would reward the miner’s persistence, the cattleman’s courage, the railroad man’s enterprise; but El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East.... Read moreBalanced, authoritative, and masterfully told, Dreams of El Dorado sets a new standard for histories of the American West.
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The Flight
- By: Dan Hampton
- Narrator: John Pruden
- Length: 8 hours 58 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 16, 2017
- Language: English
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4.19(335 ratings)
4.19(335 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.005.99 USDA gripping and unique “in-the-cockpit” account of Charles Lindbergh’s extraordinary first transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, by acclaimed aviation historian (Viper Pilot, Lords of the Sky) and former fighter pilot DanA gripping and unique “in-the-cockpit” account of Charles Lindbergh’s extraordinary first transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, by acclaimed aviation historian (Viper Pilot, Lords of the Sky) and former fighter pilot Dan Hampton–“one of the most decorated pilots in Air Force history” (New York Post).
America’s finest aviation story in the hands of our finest aviation historian, The Flight is Dan Hampton’s biggest, most dramatic book yet.
On the morning of May 20, 1927, a little known pilot named Charles Lindbergh waited to take off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island. He was determined to claim the $25,000 Orteig Prize promised to the first pilot to fly nonstop from New York to Paris–a contest that had already claimed six men’s lives. Just twenty-five years old, Lindbergh had never before flown over water. Yet thirty-three hours later, his single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, touched down in Paris. Overnight, Charles Lindbergh became the most famous aviator of all time.
The Flight is a long overdue, flyer’s-eye-view look at Lindbergh’s legendary journey. Decorated fighter pilot and bestselling author Dan Hampton offers a unique appreciation for Lindbergh’s accomplishment: Hampton has flown the exact same route many times, knowledge that informs and shapes The Flight. Relying upon a trove of primary sources, including Lindbergh’s own personal diary and writings, Hampton crafts a dramatic narrative of a challenging, death-defying feat that many had believed was impossible.
Moving hour by hour, Hampton recounts Lindbergh’s uncertainty over his equipment and his courage as he traverses the vast darkness of the Atlantic with no radar. Moving between the sky and ground, Hampton intersperses the tale of the flight with Lindbergh’s personal history as well as some of the stories of those waiting for him on the ground, praying he would make it safely across.
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Scott’s Last Expedition
- By: Robert Falcon Scott
- Narrator: William Sutherland
- Length: 18 hours 35 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2006
- Language: English
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4.15(1140 ratings)
4.15(1140 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0031.95 USDIn November 1910, the vessel Terra Nova left New Zealand carrying an international team of explorers led by Robert Falcon Scott, an Englishman determined to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Scott kept a detailed journal of his adventuresIn November 1910, the vessel Terra Nova left New Zealand carrying an international team of explorers led by Robert Falcon Scott, an Englishman determined to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Scott kept a detailed journal of his adventures until March 29, 1912, when he and the few remaining members of his team met their ends in a brutal blizzard. The daily progress of the expedition toward the pole is recorded in an immensely vivid and personal narrative, depicting the beauty of the Antarctic tundra, the harsh living conditions, and Scott’s own desperation to beat rival explorers to the pole.
Even in his final hours, Scott continued to make entries of his observations in his journal, allowing the adventure he and his fellow explorers undertook to live on once discovered.
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Sufferings in Africa
- By: James Riley
- Narrator: Brian Emerson
- Length: 9 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2006
- Language: English
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4.06(345 ratings)
4.06(345 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDIn this classic true adventure story, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, is captured by a band of nomadic Arabs and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survivalIn this classic true adventure story, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, is captured by a band of nomadic Arabs and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survival and a quest for freedom that takes him across the Sahara desert.
This dramatic account of Captain Riley’s trials and sufferings sold more than one million copies in his day and was even read by a young and impressionable Abraham Lincoln. The degradations of a slave existence and the courage to survive under the most harrowing conditions have rarely been recorded with such painful honesty.
Sufferings in Africa is a classic travel-adventure narrative and a fascinating testament of white Americans enslaved abroad, during a time when slavery flourished throughout the United States.
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The Boiling River
- By: Andres Ruzo
- Narrator: Andres Ruzo
- Length: 2 hours 37 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio / TED
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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3.98(347 ratings)
3.98(347 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0011.99 USDIn this exciting adventure mixed with amazing scientific study, a young, exuberant explorer and geoscientist journeys deep into the Amazon–where rivers boil and legends come to life.When Andres Ruzo was just a small boy in Peru, hisIn this exciting adventure mixed with amazing scientific study, a young, exuberant explorer and geoscientist journeys deep into the Amazon–where rivers boil and legends come to life.
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When Andres Ruzo was just a small boy in Peru, his grandfather told him the story of a mysterious legend: There is a river, deep in the Amazon, which boils as if a fire burns below it. Twelve years later, Ruzo–now a geoscientist–hears his aunt mention that she herself had visited this strange river.
Determined to discover if the boiling river is real, Ruzo sets out on a journey deep into the Amazon. What he finds astounds him: In this long, wide, and winding river, the waters run so hot that locals brew tea in them; small animals that fall in are instantly cooked. As he studies the river, Ruzo faces challenges more complex than he had ever imaged.
The Boiling River follows this young explorer as he navigates a tangle of competing interests–local shamans, illegal cattle farmers and loggers, and oil companies. This true account reads like a modern-day adventure, complete with extraordinary characters, captivating plot twists, and jaw-dropping details–including stunning photographs and a never-before-published account about this incredible natural wonder. Ultimately, though, The Boiling River is about a man trying to understand the moral obligation that comes with scientific discovery –to protect a sacred site from misuse, neglect, and even from his own discovery. -
Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls
- By: Edward E. Leslie
- Narrator: John Lescault
- Length: 21 hours 23 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2007
- Language: English
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3.96(260 ratings)
3.96(260 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0031.95 USDFrom Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson to Alive! and Adrift, tales of survival have always captivated readers. This powerful collection chronicles the remarkable true stories of real-life maroons, castaways, and other survivors as theyFrom Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson to Alive! and Adrift, tales of survival have always captivated readers. This powerful collection chronicles the remarkable true stories of real-life maroons, castaways, and other survivors as they struggle to endure against insurmountable odds. From the 1500s to the present, in the most isolated and unforgiving terrains imaginable, they faced shipwrecks and plane crashes, crossed vast deserts and icy poles, and struggled against avalanches, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Here are their moral dilemmas, their personalities, and their influence on society, literature, and art. Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls is an unforgettable exploration of a subject of perennial fascination.
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The Men Who United the States
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrator: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hours 34 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 15, 2013
- Language: English
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3.84(3243 ratings)
3.84(3243 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.005.99 USDSimon Winchester, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect,Simon Winchester, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings.
How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, such as Lewis and Clark and the leaders of the Great Surveys; the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph and the powerful civil engineer behind the Interstate Highway System. He treks vast swaths of territory, from Pittsburgh to Portland, Rochester to San Francisco, Seattle to Anchorage, introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States.
Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree. Featuring 32 illustrations throughout the text, The Men Who United the States is a fresh look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together.
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Sky Girls
- By: Gene Nora Jessen
- Narrator: Gene Nora Jessen
- Length: 10 hours 12 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: August 18, 2018
- Language: English
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3.84(77 ratings)
3.84(77 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDThe inspiring, true story of the first female pilots taking their rightful place in the exciting world of aviation. In 1929, nineteen gutsy women blazed out of the darkness by setting out from California in propeller-driven planes, each competing toThe inspiring, true story of the first female pilots taking their rightful place in the exciting world of aviation. In 1929, nineteen gutsy women blazed out of the darkness by setting out from California in propeller-driven planes, each competing to be the winner of the first female cross-country air race. The hazards were many, from disastrous weather to possible sabotage, but by facing the dangers with skill and determination, the racers thrilled the nation, and pioneered a new future for female pilots and women’s rights.
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The Moth and the Mountain
- By: Ed Caesar
- Narrator: James Langton
- Length: 7 hours 19 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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3.8(1624 ratings)
3.8(1624 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USD“An outstanding book.” —The Wall Street Journal * “Gripping at every turn.” —Outside * “A hell of a ride.” —The Times (London) An extraordinary true story about one man’s attempt to salve“An outstanding book.” —The Wall Street Journal * “Gripping at every turn.” —Outside * “A hell of a ride.” —The Times (London)
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An extraordinary true story about one man’s attempt to salve the wounds of war and save his own soul through an audacious adventure.
In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Mount Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceives his own crazy, beautiful plan: he will fly a plane from England to Everest, crash-land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit–completely alone. Wilson doesn’t know how to climb. He barely knows how to fly. But he has the right plane, the right equipment, and a deep yearning to achieve his goal. In 1933, he takes off from London in a Gipsy Moth biplane with his course set for the highest mountain on earth. Wilson’s eleven-month journey to Everest is wild: full of twists, turns, and daring. Eventually, in disguise, he sneaks into Tibet. His icy ordeal is just beginning.
Wilson is one of the Great War’s heroes, but also one of its victims. His hometown of Bradford in northern England is ripped apart by the fighting. So is his family. He barely survives the war himself. Wilson returns from the conflict unable to cope with the sadness that engulfs him. He begins a years-long trek around the world, burning through marriages and relationships, leaving damaged lives in his wake. When he finally returns to England, nearly a decade after he first left, he finds himself falling in love once more–this time with his best friend’s wife–before depression overcomes him again. He emerges from his funk with a crystalline ambition. He wants to be the first man to stand on top of the world. Wilson believes that Everest can redeem him.
This is the “rollicking” (The Economist) tale of an adventurer unlike any you have ever encountered: complex, driven, wry, haunted, and fully alive. He is a man written out of the history books–dismissed as an eccentric and gossiped about because of rumors of his transvestism. The Moth and the Mountain restores Maurice Wilson to his rightful place in the annals of Everest and tells an unforgettable story about the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity. -
Icebound
- By: Andrea Pitzer
- Narrator: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
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3.74(1414 ratings)
3.74(1414 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDIn the bestselling tradition of Hampton Sides’s In the Kingdom of Ice, a “gripping adventure tale” (The Boston Globe) recounting Dutch polar explorer William Barents’ three harrowing Arctic expeditions–the last of whichIn the bestselling tradition of Hampton Sides’s In the Kingdom of Ice, a “gripping adventure tale” (The Boston Globe) recounting Dutch polar explorer William Barents’ three harrowing Arctic expeditions–the last of which resulted in a relentlessly challenging year-long fight for survival.
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The human story has always been one of perseverance–often against remarkable odds. The most astonishing survival tale of all might be that of 16th-century Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of sixteen, who ventured farther north than any Europeans before and, on their third polar exploration, lost their ship off the frozen coast of Nova Zembla to unforgiving ice. The men would spend the next year fighting off ravenous polar bears, gnawing hunger, and endless winter.
In Icebound, Andrea Pitzer masterfully combines a gripping tale of survival with a sweeping history of the great Age of Exploration–a time of hope, adventure, and seemingly unlimited geographic frontiers. At the story’s center is William Barents, one of the 16th century’s greatest navigators whose larger-than-life ambitions and obsessive quest to chart a path through the deepest, most remote regions of the Arctic ended in both tragedy and glory. Journalist Pitzer did extensive research, learning how to use four-hundred-year-old navigation equipment, setting out on three Arctic expeditions to retrace Barents’s steps, and visiting replicas of Barents’s ship and cabin.
“A resonant meditation on human ingenuity, resilience, and hope” (The New Yorker), Pitzer’s reenactment of Barents’s ill-fated journey shows us how the human body can function at twenty degrees below, the history of mutiny, the art of celestial navigation, and the intricacies of building shelters. But above all, it gives us a firsthand glimpse into the true nature of courage. -
To the Edges of the Earth
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrator: Paul Michael Garcia
- Length: 12 hours 6 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: March 13, 2018
- Language: English
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3.62(527 ratings)
3.62(527 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, an entwined narrative of the most adventurous year of all time, when three expeditions simultaneously raced to the top, bottom, and heights of the world. As 1909 dawned, the greatest jewels ofFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, an entwined narrative of the most adventurous year of all time, when three expeditions simultaneously raced to the top, bottom, and heights of the world.
As 1909 dawned, the greatest jewels of exploration–set at the world’s frozen extremes–lay unclaimed: the North and South Poles and the so-called “Third Pole,” the pole of altitude, located in unexplored heights of the Himalaya. Before the calendar turned, three expeditions had faced death, mutiny, and the harshest conditions on the planet to plant flags at the furthest edges of the Earth.
In the course of one extraordinary year, Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson were hailed worldwide at the discovers of the North Pole; Britain’s Ernest Shackleton had set a new geographic “Furthest South” record, while his expedition mate, Australian Douglas Mawson, had reached the Magnetic South Pole; and at the roof of the world, Italy’s Duke of the Abruzzi had attained an altitude record that would stand for a generation, the result of the first major mountaineering expedition to the Himalaya’s eastern Karakoram, where the daring aristocrat attempted K2 and established the standard route up the most notorious mountain on the planet.
Based on extensive archival and on-the-ground research, Edward J. Larson weaves these narratives into one thrilling adventure story. Larson, author of the acclaimed polar history Empire of Ice, draws on his own voyages to the Himalaya, the arctic, and the ice sheets of the Antarctic, where he himself reached the South Pole and lived in Shackleton’s Cape Royds hut as a fellow in the National Science Foundations’ Antarctic Artists and Writers Program.
These three legendary expeditions, overlapping in time, danger, and stakes, were glorified upon their return, their leaders celebrated as the preeminent heroes of their day. Stripping away the myth, Larson, a master historian, illuminates one of the great, overlooked tales of exploration, revealing the extraordinary human achievement at the heart of these journeys.
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The Stowaway
- By: Laurie Gwen Shapiro
- Narrator: Jacques Roy
- Length: 6 hours 27 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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3.52(1078 ratings)
3.52(1078 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDThe spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New York’s Lower East Side who stowed away on the most remarkable feat of science and daring of the Jazz Age, The Stowaway is “a thrilling adventure that captures not only the makingThe spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New York’s Lower East Side who stowed away on the most remarkable feat of science and daring of the Jazz Age, The Stowaway is “a thrilling adventure that captures not only the making of a man but of a nation” (David Grann, bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon).
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It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planet’s final frontier?
Everyone wanted in on the adventure. Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken along as mess boys, and newspapers across the globe covered the planning’s every stage. And then, the night before the expedition’s flagship set off, Billy Gawronski–a mischievous, first-generation New York City high schooler, desperate to escape a dreary future in the family upholstery business–jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard.
Could he get away with it?
From the soda shops of New York’s Lower East Side to the dance halls of sultry Francophone Tahiti, all the way to Antarctica’s blinding white and deadly freeze, author Laurie Gwen Shapiro “narrates this period piece with gusto” (Los Angeles Times), taking readers on the “novelistic” (The New Yorker) and unforgettable voyage of a plucky young stowaway who became a Roaring Twenties celebrity, a mascot for an up-by-your bootstraps era. -
Exploration Fawcett
- By: P. H. Fawcett
- Narrator: Robin Sachs
- Length: 15 hours 37 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2010
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.95 USDThe mystic and legendary British explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett disappeared in the unknown and unexplored territory of Brazil’s Mato Grosso in 1925. For ten years he had wandered the forests and death-filled rivers in search of aThe mystic and legendary British explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett disappeared in the unknown and unexplored territory of Brazil’s Mato Grosso in 1925. For ten years he had wandered the forests and death-filled rivers in search of a fabled lost city. Finally, convinced that he had discovered the location, he set out for the last time with two companions, one of whom was his eldest son, to destination “Z,” never to be heard from again. This thrilling and mysterious account of Fawcett’s ten years of travels in deadly jungles and forests in search of a secret city was compiled by his younger son from manuscripts, letters, and logbooks. What happened to him after remains a mystery.
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Alone on the Ice
- By: Jenny Piening
- Narrator: Matthew Brenher
- Length: 11 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDHis two companions were dead, his food and supplies had vanished in a crevasse, and Douglas Mawson was still one hundred miles from camp. On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, wasHis two companions were dead, his food and supplies had vanished in a crevasse, and Douglas Mawson was still one hundred miles from camp.
On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp. The dogs were gone. Now Mawson himself plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface.
Mawson was sometimes reduced to crawling, and one night he discovered that the soles of his feet had completely detached from the flesh beneath. On February 8, when he staggered back to base, his features unrecognizably skeletal, the first teammate to reach him blurted out, “Which one are you?”
This thrilling and almost unbelievable account establishes Mawson in his rightful place as one of the greatest polar explorers and expedition leaders.
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Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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