Recommendations based on "You Wouldn't Want to Be in the First Submarine! An Undersea Expedition Youd Rather Avoid"

In 1991, Doug Tompkins abandoned his comfortable life in San Francisco and flew 6,500 miles south to a shack in Patagonia. Instead of the Golden Gate Bridge, Tompkins stared out the window at Volcano Michinmahuida, blanketed in snow and prowled by mountain lions. Shielded by waterfalls and wilderness, the founder of such groundbreaking companies as Esprit and The North Face suddenly regretted the corporate capitalism from which he had profited from years. As a CEO he had caused much pollution and, “made things nobody needed.” Now, he declared, it was time to reverse the damage to the planet, and maybe even himself.In A Wild Idea, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Jonathan Franklin tells the incredible true story of Douglas Tompkins, who became one of the primary founders of our modern conservation and land protection movement.Piloting his small plane, Tompkins explored the uninhabited lands of Patagonia and gaped at the singular beauty: active volcanoes, forests never logged, rivers never dammed—all so undisturbed, so exquisitely designed.Could he protect this wild beauty? For the ensuing quarter century, that dream— that obsession—became his life. Only in death did it become his legacy.

An adventure about living off the land in Alaska

This is the story of how Thor Heyderdahl and five other men crossed the Pacific Ocean on a balsa-wood raft in an extraordinary bid to prove Heyderdahl's theory that the Polynesians undertook the same feat on such a craft over 1000 years ago.

The First Volume In Tim Robinson's Phenomenal Connemara Trilogy - Which Robert Macfarlane Has Called 'one Of The Most Remarkable Non-fiction Projects Undertaken In English'. In Its Landscape, History And Folklore, Connemara Is A Singular Region: Ill-defined Geographically, And Yet Unmistakably A Place Apart From The Rest Of Ireland. Tim Robinson, Who Established Himself As Ireland's Most Brilliant Living Non-fiction Writer With The Two-volume Stones Of Aran, Moved From Aran To Connemara Nearly Twenty Years Ago. This Book Is The Result Of His Extraordinary Engagement With The Mountains, Bogs And Shorelines Of The Region, And With Its Folklore And Its Often Terrible History: A Work As Beautiful And Surprising As The Place It Attempts To Describe. Chosen As A Book Of The Year By Iain Sinclair, Robert Macfarlane And Colm Tóibín 'one Of The Greatest Writers Of Lands ... No One Has Disentangled The Tales The Stones Of Ireland Have To Tell So Deftly And Retold Them So Beautifully' Fintan O'toole 'dazzling ... An Indubitable Classic' Giles Foden, Condé Nast Traveller 'he Is That Rarest Of Phenomena, A Scientist And An Artist, And His Method Is To Combine Scientific Rigour With Artistic Reverie In A Seamless Blend That Both Informs And Delights' John Banville 'one Of Contemporary Ireland's Finest Literary Stylists' Joseph O'connor, Guardian

"A heart-pounding, mind-bending adventure." —Ilyon WooA riveting biography of Alexander the Great's final years, when the leader's insatiable desire to conquer the world set him off on an exhilarating, harrowing journey that would define his legacy. By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia. Yet Alexander had other plans. He was determined to continue heading east to Afghanistan in search of his ultimate goal: to reach the end of the world.Alexander's unrelenting desire to press on resulted in a perilous seven-year journey through the unknown eastern borderlands of the Persian empire that would test the great conqueror's physical and mental limits. He faced challenges from the natural world, moving through deadly monsoons and extreme temperatures; from a rotating cast of well-matched adversaries, who conspired against him at every turn; and even from his own men, who questioned his motives and distrusted the very beliefs on which Alexander built his empire. This incredible sweep of time, culminating with his death in 323 BC at the age of 32, would come to determine Alexander's legacy and shape the empire he left behind.In Alexander at the End of the World, renowned classicist and art history professor Rachel Kousser vividly brings to life Alexander's labyrinthine, treacherous final years, weaving together a brilliant series of epic battles, stunning landscapes, and nearly insurmountable obstacles. Meticulously researched and grippingly written, Kousser's narrative is an unforgettable tale of daring and adventure, an inspiring portrait of grit and ambition, and a powerful meditation on the ability to learn from failure.

‘The most precious hymn to resilience … written with a beautiful attention to detail … Wonderful ’ ADAM NICOLSON, winner of the 2018 Wainwright Prize‘Extraordinary … Just when you thought there was nowhere left to explore, along comes an author with a new category of terrain … Dazzling’ SPECTATORThis is a book about abandoned places: ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands – and what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its place.In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. In Detroit, once America’s fourth-largest city, entire streets of houses are falling in on themselves, looters slipping through otherwise silent neighbourhoods.This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in tiny, precarious numbers – to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. From Tanzanian mountains to the volcanic Caribbean, the forbidden areas of France to the mining regions of Scotland, Flyn brings together some of the most desolate, eerie, ravaged and polluted areas in the world – and shows how, against all odds, they offer our best opportunities for environmental recovery.By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone?‘A redemptive, celebratory pageant of a book, rich in reflection and revelation’Gavin Francis, author of Island Dreams‘Meticulous research, lyrical writing’Louise Gray, author of The Ethical Carnivore‘Fascinating, poignant, mysterious, surreal, compelling’Keggie Carew, bestselling author of Dadland

A memoir of the author's journey from an office job to restoring a cabin in the Pacific Northwest, based on his wildly popular Outside Magazine piece.Wit’s End isn’t just a state of mind. It’s the name of a gravel road, the address of a run-down off-the-grid cabin, 120 shabby square feet of fixer-upper Patrick Hutchison purchased on a whim in the mossy woods of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state.To say Hutchison didn’t know what he was getting into is no more an exaggeration than to say he’s a man with nearly zero carpentry skills. Well, used to be. You can learn a lot over six years of renovations.CABIN is the story of those renovations, but it's also a love story; of a place, of possibilities, and of the process of construction, of seeing what could be instead of what is. It is a book for those who know what it’s like to bite off more than you can chew, or who desperately wish to.

'A memorable, oddly beautiful book' Wall Street Journal 'A marvellous glimpse of the Japan that rarely peeks through the country's public image' Washington Post One sunny spring morning in the 1970s, an unlikely Englishman set out on a pilgrimage that would take him across the entire length of Japan. Travelling only along small back roads, Alan Booth travelled on foot from Soya, the country's northernmost tip, to Sata in the extreme south, traversing three islands and some 2,000 miles of rural Japan. His mission: 'to come to grips with the business of living here,' after having spent most of his adult life in Tokyo. The Roads to Sata is a wry, witty, inimitable account of that prodigious trek, vividly revealing the reality of life in off-the-tourist-track Japan. Journeying alongside Booth, we encounter the wide variety of people who inhabit the Japanese countryside - from fishermen and soldiers, to bar hostesses and school teachers, to hermits, drunks and the homeless. We glimpse vast stretches of coastline and rambling townscapes, mountains and motorways; watch baseball games and sunrises; sample trout and Kilamanjaro beer, hear folklore, poems and smutty jokes. Throughout, we enjoy the wit and insight of a uniquely perceptive guide, and more importantly, discover a new face of an often-misunderstood nation.

We are all in need of lights to follow. One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on. Back at home, Rebanks couldn't stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly - and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly- her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island. This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, building little wooden huts that will protect the ducks come spring; to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for the woman to gather, like feathered gold. Slowly, Rebanks begins to understand that this woman and her world are not at all what he had previously thought. As the weeks pass, what began as a journey of escape becomes an extraordinary lesson in self-knowledge and forgiveness.

Follow along a Navy SEAL's firsthand account of American heroism during a secret military operation in Afghanistan in this true story of survival and difficult choices. On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive. This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers. A six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell takes us, blow by blow, through the brutal training of America's warrior elite and the relentless rites of passage required by the Navy SEALs. He transports us to a monstrous battle fought in the desolate peaks of Afghanistan, where the beleaguered American team plummeted headlong a thousand feet down a mountain as they fought back through flying shale and rocks. In this rich, moving chronicle of courage, honor, and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers one of the most powerful narratives ever written about modern warfare -- and a tribute to his teammates, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.