In October 1968 Donn Eisele flew with fellow astronauts Walt Cunningham and Wally Schirra into Earth orbit in Apollo 7. The first manned mission in the Apollo program and the first manned flight after a fire during a launch pad test killed three astronauts in early 1967, Apollo 7 helped restart NASA’s manned-spaceflight program.Known to many as a goofy, lighthearted prankster, Eisele worked his way from the U.S. Naval Academy to test pilot school and then into the...

“I will never forget my first flight, the feeling of being pushed back in the seat, the rumbling that suddenly turned into silence. It fascinated me then, it does now.”When Ryan Campbell was six, he fell in love with aeroplanes. Inspired by his first flight, and his uncle and grandfather who were both aviators, flying was a passion that dominated his childhood. It was no surprise to his family and friends when at 15 Ryan became the youngest pilot in Australia. Then...

Named one of the Five Adventure Books You Need to Read This Summer” by Backpacker MagazineFor readers of Into Thin Air, riveting high-altitude drama and the passion and drive that inspire outsized mountaineering achievements.Master of Thin Air opens with a fall that the author very nearly could not stop down an almost vertical rock ramp leading to a three-thousand-foot drop. The qualities that saved him then on K2-in addition to ...

The boreal forest of Quebec/Labrador -- some of the most rugged and isolated land in Canada -- has captivated avid canoeists for generations. In the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, the intrepid A.P. Low of the Geological Survey of Canada spent, in total, more than ten years of his working life surveying the area. Employing Aboriginal canoemen and guides, he travelled by canoe, snowshoe and sailing vessel to map and document much of this vast territory.Challenged by the mystiq...

WARNING: This is NOT a ‘How-to-be-a-documentary-cameraman’ book. Rather, this is a non-fiction book where I take the reader on different journeys throughout the world as I practiced my craft of 35 years – filming and making documentaries. The stories I chose to tell are filled with the most diverse group of characters in some of the remotest parts of the planet. Most of these assignments were extreme, involving risk and they could have been fatal but fortunately, I hope you’ll agree, I sur...

David Crane has given us the definitive biography of one of Britain’s greatest heroes and explorers.‘It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more…For God’s sake look after our people.’These were the final words written in Scott’s diary on 29 March 1912, as he lay dying in his tent with Birdie Bowers and Edward Wilson. Oates had taken himself into a blizzard a few days before, and the fifth member of the Polar party, Edgar Evans, had died some ten days previously, wo...

Craving change and lacking logic, at 26, Jamie, a cute and quirky Californian, impulsively moves to New Zealand to avoid dating after reading that the country's population has 100,000 fewer men. In her journal, she captures a hysterically honest look at herself, her past and her new wonderfully weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs. It takes a zany jaunt to the end of the Earth and a serendipitous meeting with a fellow traveler bef...

Explorer and adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes explores the concept of fear, and shows us through his own experiences how we can push our boundaries in everyday life.Sir Ranulph Fiennes has climbed the Eiger and Mount Everest. He's crossed both Poles on foot. He's been a member of the SAS and fought a bloody guerrilla war in Oman. And yet he confesses that his fear of heights is so great that he'd rather send his wife up a ladder to clean the gutters than do it himsel...

In 2012, while others his age were enjoying quiet retirement, Ron Fellowes set off on the challenge of a lifetime. His dream to ride a 102 year-old FN motorcycle across the world - to the Belgian factory where the bike originated - had all the hallmarks of an epic adventure: one that was never going to be easy.For eight months Ron rode 14,600 kilometres through 15 countries under grueling conditions, into some of the world's most hostile territory. He faced desert sandstorms, mounta...

In life we are occasionally faced with detours. Some of them are thrust upon us just when we think we have life all figured out. Sometimes, however, they are self-created. We choose to take them, driven by some inner desire or passion. Author Jason Thiessens extraordinary adventure was just such a detourborne of the dreams of a young boy with only an atlas as his guide to an unseen world.Nearly thirty years after those dreams began, they became a reality. Thiessen, a man with a wif...

Born in Manitoba of Icelandic parents, Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962) became one of Canada’s most famous and controversial Arctic explorers. After graduate studies in anthropology at Harvard University, Stefansson lived with and studied Inuit in the Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories in the winter of 1906-07. In two subsequent expeditions he completed a major anthropological survey of the Central and Western Arctic coasts and islands of North America; located and lived w...

Depression: The Fool-Proof Method To Overcome Depression and StressIn the last decade, depression rates in US have skyrocketed, and scientists estimate that one in four Americans will suffer from major depression at some point in their lives. When somebody suffers from depression, loved ones and friends naturally want to help, but usually their good intentions come out all wrong. Without the right tools, they are left with feelings of sadness.The good news is that bad mood, ...