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Recommendations from OED
Recommendations from OED
Borrow Box Books
Borrow Box Books
Aged just 14, New Zealand-born Laura Dekker defied the authorities and braved the open oceans to realise her dream of becoming the youngest ever sailor to circumnavigate the Earth. When she finished the journey she was still only 16, the youngest ever person to achieve this feat. Her extraordinary story is both a real-life adventure for all ages, and an inspirational account of how a free spirit and will to succeed can accomplish anything.
“Bear Grylls is a veritable superhero….The former UK Special Forces paratrooper has braved the world’s harshest environments.” —Hampton Sides, Outside Magazine
“Bear Grylls is one tough, crazy dude.” —Washington Post
THE THRILLING #1-BESTSELLING MEMOIR BY THE ADVENTURE LEGEND AND STAR OF NBC'S RUNNING WILD WITH BEAR GRYLLS
Bear Grylls has always sought the ultimate in adventure. Growing up on a remote island off of Britain's windswept coast, he was taught by his father to sail and climb at an early age. Inevitably, it wasn't long before the young explorer was sneaking out to lead all-night climbing expeditions.
As a teenager at Eton College, Bear found his identity and purpose through both mountaineering and martial arts. These passions led him into the foothills of the mighty Himalayas and to a karate grandmaster's remote training camp in Japan, an experience that soon helped him earn a second-degree black belt. Returning home, he embarked upon the notoriously grueling selection course for the British Special Forces to join the elite Special Air Service unit 21 SAS—a journey that would push him to the very limits of physical and mental endurance.
Then, disaster. Bear broke his back in three places in a horrific free-fall parachuting accident in Africa. It was touch and go whether he would walk again, according to doctors. However, only eighteen months later, a twenty-three-year-old Bear became one of the youngest climbers to scale Mount Everest, the world's highest summit. But this was just the beginning of his many extraordinary adventures. . . .
Known and admired by millions as the star of Man vs. Wild, Bear Grylls has survived where few would dare to go. Now, for the first time, Bear tells the story of his action-packed life.
Other Recommendations not on Borrow Box
Other Recommendations not on Borrow Box
The Beckoning Silence - Joe Simpson
The Beckoning Silence - Joe Simpson
Felt more like lots of smaller stories rather than one long one, but all circling around risk and loss
Insight to why we do things even if they are considered ‘risky’
Let my people go surfing - Yvon Chouinard
Let my people go surfing - Yvon Chouinard
A great history of the brand, what started it and what keeps them going.
A look at being different has helped in the world of business but also on a personal level
Living the best day ever - Hendri Coetzee
Living the best day ever - Hendri Coetzee
“He preferred to assume that plenty was still unknown, and to accept that fear was the price you paid for paddling into Nature’s secrets.”
The Economist, Obituary, December 29, 2010
Previous Recommendations
Previous Recommendations
At the heart of Born to Run lies a mysterious tribe of Mexican Indians, the Tarahumara, who live quietly in canyons and are reputed to be the best distance runners in the world; in 1993, one of them, aged 57, came first in a prestigious 100-mile race wearing a toga and sandals. A small group of the world's top ultra-runners (and the awe-inspiring author) make the treacherous journey into the canyons to try to learn the tribe's secrets and then take them on over a course 50 miles long.
With incredible energy and smart observation, McDougall tells this story while asking what the secrets are to being an incredible runner. Travelling to labs at Harvard, Nike, and elsewhere, he comes across an incredible cast of characters, including the woman who recently broke the world record for 100 miles and for her encore ran a 2:50 marathon in a bikini, pausing to down a beer at the 20 mile mark.
60 of the World’s Most Extreme Survival Stories
These are astonishing stories of human endurance and endeavour. The statistics, descriptions, archive photographs and illustrative maps will give the reader a full understanding of how Joe Simpson crawled to safety in the South American Andean mountains, how Anthony Farrar-Hockley evaded capture after the Battle of Imjin River in the Korean War and how Shackleton’s men survived the incredible journey by boat to South Georgia.
A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century
The highly anticipated new book from the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of Landmarks, The Lost Words and The Old Ways
Discover the hidden worlds beneath our feet...
In Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes us on a journey into the worlds beneath our feet. From the ice-blue depths of Greenland's glaciers, to the underground networks by which trees communicate, from Bronze Age burial chambers to the rock art of remote Arctic sea-caves, this is a deep-time voyage into the planet's past and future. Global in its geography, gripping in its voice and haunting in its implications, Underland is a work of huge range and power, and a remarkable new chapter in Macfarlane's long-term exploration of landscape and the human heart.
Solving the Mystery of a Polar Tragedy
Two days into their journey they make a crash landing then disappear into a white nightmare.
33 years later. The men's bodies are found, perfectly preserved under the snow and ice. They had enough food, clothing and ammunition to survive. Why did they die?
66 years later. Bea Uusma is at a party. Bored, she pulls a books off the shelf. It is about the expedition. For the next fifteen years, Bea will think of nothing else...
Can she solve the mystery of The Expedition?
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