Books about Exploration and Adventure

I really liked Conquest: Cortes and Montezuma and The Fall of Old Mexico by Hugh Thomas, but that may not be what you're looking for.

One too many "ands" there.

Touching the Void is plenty crazy-scary enough to scratch that itch.

Mountain-climbing in general generates a high volume of crazy-scary stuff. So did Arctic or Antarctic exploration a century ago. Solo sailing can get pretty hairy. Go to a library computer and search on 'survival'.

What is good Arctic/Antarctic stuff? How is "The Worst Journey in the World" (or whatever it's called)?

Jack London

Adrift, Steve Callahan, is a survival classic by a man who started out solo sailing in a small boat but ended up crossing the Atlantic in a life raft.

I can't recall the titles of the Arctic stuff I read umpty-diddly years ago. I recall that Nansen was the only guy who went about it like he had a brain. Most of the Arctic explorers just kept hurling themselves at the wall, expecting it to give way eventually.

Amundsen! Eminently sensible, not to mention icy-cold. If you appreciate well-laid logistics, his account of the journey to the South Pole is ace. NB do not read if the thought of devouring huskies makes you feel ill.

Try the Cruelest Miles by Gay Salisbury about the diptheria epidemic in Nome, Alaska that made a dog named Balto into kind of a hero. He has a statue in New York and a Don Bluth movie of dubious quality.

I loved Into Thin Air, you should definitely watch the IMAX documentary on Everest that was shot during that same trip. They mostly gloss over the events of the book in the film, but the DVD includes an interview with the dude that lost his nose that's really interesting.

If you are interested in the desert and vanishing cultures you could try Wilfred Thesigers, Arabian Sands. Fascinating picture of an english adventurer traveling through the empty quarter of Arabia in the 40's with the Bedu tribes, while they still retained their traditional lifestyle.

I saw that Everest documentary too, and it was great. I tried to watch Touching the Void when it was on telly, but found it unbearably tense, even though I knew no-one died because the two guys were sitting there being interviewed for the documentary, but even still, it was too tense.

If you're looking for tales of survival with a dash of gore and plenty of "hey, I never knew that" thrown in, you must read Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea. It is the book that got me hooked on seafaring books.

I really enjoyed In the Land of White Death by Valerian Albanov. It's part of the Modern Library exploration series edited by Jon Krakauer.