The 10 books on this stack
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ENDURANCE
Alfred Lansing · 1959
'Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew make today's hightech adventurers look like dilettantes. Their interminable voyage across frozen land and open sea is one of the most harrowing survival stories of all time.' Sebastian Junger, author of the bestselling THEPERFECT STORM. In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men set sail for the South Atlantic on board the Endurance. The object of the expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland. In October 1915, still half a continent away from their intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in ice. For seventeen months Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs and then on the stormiest seas on the globe, were castaways in this most savage region of the world. Frank Hurley, the photographer of the expedition, documented their struggles, miraculously saving his negatives and photographs from destruction at each stage of their journey. His photographs illustrate the dramatic, terrible beauty of the lands with which they were contending. They also provide an unsurpassable insight into the extraordinary spirit of Shackleton and his crew, and their extraordinary indefatigability and lasting civility towards one another in the most adverse conditions. Lansing¿s gripping narrative, based on firsthand accounts of crew members and interviews with survivors, vividly describes how the men lived together in camps on the ice until they reached land, how they were attacked by sea leopards, ate sea lion and polar bear, developed frostbite (an operation to amputate the foot of one member of the crew was carried out on the ice), and finally embarked on a 850-mile voyage in a 22-foot open lifeboat to find help.
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The Revenant
Michael Punke · 2002
A thrilling tale of betrayal and revenge set against the nineteenth-century American frontier, the astonishing story of real-life trapper and frontiersman Hugh Glass.
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Wild
Cheryl Strayed · 1767
Selected to be read on Radio Four's Book of the Week. 'One of the best books I've read in the last five or ten years... Wild is angry, brave, sad, self-knowing, redemptive, raw, compelling, and brilliantly written, and I think it's destined to be loved by a lot of people, men and women, for a very long time.' --Nick Hornby At twenty-six, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's rapid death from cancer, her family disbanded and her marriage crumbled. With nothing to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk eleven-hundred miles of the west coast of America - from the Mojave Desert, through California and Oregon, and into Washington state - and to do it alone. She had no experience of long-distance hiking and the journey was nothing more than a line on a map. But it held a promise - a promise of piecing together a life that lay in ruins at her feet. Strayed's account captures the agonies - both mental and physical - of her incredible journey; how it maddened and terrified her, and how, ultimately, it healed her. Wild is a brutal memoir of survival, grief and redemption: a searing portrayal of life at its lowest ebb and at its highest tide.
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Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe · 1800
Robinson Crusoe is among the first novels written in English. Thanks to its extraordinary realism and drama, it is easily the longest-enduring work of popular fiction in the language. The story, probably based on the Pacific-island ordeal of castaway Alexander Selkirk, was presented by Daniel Defoe as a true account, and is utterly convincing in its topography, action, and character, even three hundred years after its first publication. Robinson Crusoe is a true page-turner: Dr. Samuel Johnson said it was one of only three books he had read that would have been better for being longer.
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Life of Pi
Yann Martel · 2003
Life of Pi (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by Yann Martel Making the reading experience fun! Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, SparkNotes is a new breed of study guide: smarter, better, faster. Geared to what today's students need to know, SparkNotes provides: *Chapter-by-chapter analysis *Explanations of key themes, motifs, and symbols *A review quiz and essay topicsLively and accessible, these guides are perfect for late-night studying and writing papers
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The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway · 1952
One of the greatest novels of the 20th century by one of the greatest writers in American history - THE BOOK THAT WON ERNEST HEMINGWAY THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway's magnificent fable is the story of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. Here, in a perfectly crafted story, is a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man's challenge to the elements in which he lives. Not a single word is superfluous in this widely admired masterpiece, which once and for all established his place as one of the giants of modern literature.
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Touching the Void
Joe Simpson · 1988
Touching the Void is a 1988 book by Joe Simpson, recounting his and Simon Yates's disastrous and nearly fatal climb of the 6,344-metre (20,813 foot) Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.
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Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer · 1996
Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild examines the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man who walked deep into the Alaskan wilderness and whose SOS note and emaciated corpse were found four months later. 'It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order.' - Entertainment Weekly In April 1992, Chris McCandless set off alone into the Alaskan wild. He had given his savings to charity, abandoned his car and his possessions, and burnt the money in his wallet, determined to live a life of independence. Just four months later, Chris was found dead. An SOS note was taped to his makeshift home, an abandoned bus. In piecing together the final travels of this extraordinary young man's life, Jon Krakauer writes about the heart of the wilderness, its terribly beauty and its relentless harshness. Into the Wild is a modern classic of travel writing, and a riveting exploration of what drives some of us to risk more than we can afford to lose. From the author of Under the Banner of Heaven and Into Thin Air . A film adaptation of Into the Wild was directed by Sean Penn and starred Emile Hirsch and Kristen Stewart.
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My Side of the Mountain
Jean Craighead George · 1975
A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship.
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Hatchet: the return
Gary Paulsen · 1992
The thrilling sequel to HATCHET, the ultimate survival story. Two years earlier Brian had been stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness for fifty-four days with nothing but a hatchet. Somehow, he had survived. Now he can hardly believe it. He has been asked to return to the wilds, so that others can learn his skills. Only this time he won't be alone. This time he will be in control. But plans have a way of going wrong...