Showing titles in Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

After passing the world's toughest Special Forces selection to get into D Squadron, 22 SAS, in 1979, Mark 'Splash' Aston thought he'd missed out on all the action. Too late to fight with the SAS in a decade long secret war in Oman, when terrorists then seized the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980 Splash missed out again when responsibility for the counter-terror role was passed to their comrades in B Squadron just weeks earlier. Then on April 2nd 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.

In 1990, David Muller set sail to Mozambique with his wife and two young children, to fulfil a boyhood dream of sailing to the tropics on the yacht he had spent ten years building. The dream holiday came to a shocking end when the yacht ran aground on a beach near Bazaruto Islands. While waiting for high tide to refloat the yacht, a patrol of Renamo child soldiers, armed with AK47’s, arrive, along with two adult captives.

Ross Edgley famously ran a marathon pulling a 1.4-tonne car and climbed a rope the height of Everest (8,848 m), after living with Yamabushi warrior monks in Japan and partaking in Shamanic pain rituals with fire ants in the Amazon jungle. On his epic 1,780-mile journey around Great Britain, which lasted 157 days, Ross swam through giant jellyfish, arctic storms, ‘haunted’ whirlpools and polluted shipping lanes, going so hard, and so fast, his tongue fell apart.

In March 2020, Kate Garraway's husband, Derek Draper, contracted COVID-19 and was placed in a medically induced coma. Initially, Kate was told that he would not survive. Still in hospital and in a critical condition, he is thought to be the UK's longest-fighting COVID-19 patient. In this intimate book, Kate shares her deeply personal story.

A new memoir from Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Cathy Glass. Eight-year-old Aimee was on the child protection register at birth. Her five older siblings were taken into care many years ago. So no one can understand why she was left at home to suffer for so long. It seems Aimee was forgotten. The social services are looking for a very experienced foster carer to look after Aimee and, when she reads the referral, Cathy understands why.

Michael Palin's epic voyages have seen him circumnavigate the globe, travel from the North to the South Pole, and circle the countries of the Pacific Ocean, but perhaps the greatest single challenge he has faced is his latest: a crossing of the vast and merciless Sahara Desert. As the journey unfolds, the Sahara reveals not only the emptiness of endless sand dunes, but a huge and diverse range of cultures and landscapes, and a long history of civilisation, trade, commerce, and conquest.

Tom Crean was the farmer’s son from Kerry who sailed on three major expeditions to the unknown Antarctic over a century ago. He served with both Captain Robert Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton, spent longer on the ice than either and outlived them both. But Tom Crean returned to Ireland and never spoke about his exploits, taking his incredible story to the grave - until the publication of An Unsung Hero, which unearthed his story and saw him rightfully placed amongst the annals of the great explorers.

Carrying little more than a change of clothes and a pair of binoculars, two young Americans, Mark and Delia Owens, caught a plane to Africa, bought a thirdhand Land Rover, and drove deep into the Kalahari Desert. There they lived for seven years, in an unexplored area with no roads, no people, and no source of water for thousands of square miles. In this vast wilderness the Owenses began their zoology research, working along animals that had never before been exposed to humans.

It takes a tough mind-set to be a successful sniper, to be able to dig in for days on your own as you wait for your target, to stay calm on a battlefield when you yourself have become the target the enemy most wants to take out. Craig Harrison has what it takes, and in November 2009 in Afghanistan, under intense pressure, he saved the lives of his comrades with the longest confirmed sniper kill - 2,475 metres, the length of 25 football pitches.

One of the inspirations for the major motion picture Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley. This is the true story of a 24-hour period on Everest when members of three separate expeditions were caught in a storm and faced a battle against hurricane-force winds, exposure, and the effects of altitude, which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peak's history.

Ask almost anyone their view on Aleister Crowley and opinions will polarize: he was a genius; a psychopath; a drug-riddled sex maniac; a champion of sexual freedom against the restrictions of Victorian prudery and hypocrisy; he was a secret agent; a lost-soul poet; a playboy with little better to do than dabble in magic; a lifestyle imitator of Oscar Wilde and Richard Burton; a drug addict; a narcissistic sadist; a visionary artist.

In her unflinching memoir, Balascio bravely reveals an astonishing tale of a lifetime of manipulation, unexplained upheavals, and silent fear. Some part of her had always known what her father was capable of, but the full truth of how she came to these revelations is as riveting as it is quietly terrifying. Through searing storytelling, dedicated research, and intimate insight, Raised by a Serial Killer is a gripping, courageous memoir unlike any other.

In July 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins piloted the Apollo 11 spacecraft to the moon. Fifty years later, it is still one of the greatest achievements in human history. In this remarkable memoir, a defining classic, Michael Collins conveys, in a very personal way, the drama, beauty, and humour of that adventure.

Robert Falcon Scott and the men of his polar expedition were heroes of their age, enduring tremendous hardships to further the reputation of the empire they served. But they were also husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. Now for the first time, and with unprecedented access to family archives, Katherine MacInnes retells the story of the race for the South Pole from the perspective of the women whose lives would be forever changed by it, five women who offer a window into a lost age.

Danny Baker is a national treasure with a well-documented and colourful life. For over a quarter of a century, he has amused and entertained audiences on both radio and television. Beginning his career at the age of 15 in a small record shop in London's West End, Danny went on to become an acclaimed music journalist and started his radio career on BBC GLR in 1989. With a unique take on life and a lot to say, Danny's latest book is full of his trademark warmth, wit and insight.

Journeys to Impossible Places continues the story Simon started in his phenomenal Sunday Times best seller Step by Step, which traced the first decades of his life from depressed and unemployed teenager through to his early TV programmes. Now Simon takes us on the epic and thrilling adventures that followed, in beautiful, tricky and downright dangerous corners of the world, as he travelled through the Tropics, to remote paradise islands, jungles dripping with heat and life and on nerve-wracking secret missions.

When Kat Ward put down her pen after finishing the seventh book in her “KERI” series, she considered her mission complete. Nearly twenty years had passed since her therapist originally recommend writing as a means of healing her childhood wounds. And after taking listeners on a stomach-twisting journey through her hellish formative years, she was ready to look in the mirror again.

In 1804, John Colter set out with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on the first US expedition to traverse the North American continent. During the 28-month ordeal, Colter served as a hunter and scout, and honed his survival skills on the western frontier. But when the journey was over, Colter stayed behind. He spent two more years trekking alone through dangerous and unfamiliar territory, charting some of the West's most treasured landmarks.

In May of 1963, Seattle mountaineer Jim Whittaker stepped into world history by becoming the first American to summit Mount Everest. More than 50 years later, he is still regarded as a seminal figure in North American mountaineering, as well as an astute businessman who helped create the outdoor recreation industry. A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond is Jim's courageous, no-punches-pulled autobiography and a look at a peripatetic, sometimes difficult life.

Speaking out for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie answers violence with art, and reminds us of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable. Knife is a gripping, intimate, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art - and finding the strength to stand up again.