by Jon Krakauer (1997)
A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down. He was one of the few who lived to tell what happened during the deadliest Everest blizzard in history.
Bill Bryson
The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America. Bill Bryson, accompanied by his idiosyncratic friend Stephen Katz, sets out to hike this magnificent footpath. Bryson faces raging rivers, bears, and eccentric fellow hikers with razor-sharp humor.
Jon Krakauer
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.
Laurie Lee
In the summer of 1934, young Laurie Lee walked out of his Cotswold village with a violin and a blanket, trekking across England and traversing Spain on foot on the eve of the Spanish Civil War.
Alden Jones
Through personal journeys both interior and across the globe, Alden Jones investigates what motivates us to travel abroad in search of the unfamiliar. By way of explorations to Costa Rica, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Burma, Cambodia, Egypt, and around the world on a ship, Jones chronicles her experience as a young American traveler while pondering her role as an outsider in the cultures she temporarily inhabits. Her wanderlust fuels a strong, high-adventure story and, much in the vein of classic travel literature, Jones's picaresque tale of personal evolution informs her own transitions, rites of passage, and understandings of her place as a citizen of the world. With sharp insight and stylish prose, Jones asks: Is there a right or wrong way to travel? The Blind Masseuse concludes that there is, but that it's not always black and white.