THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

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.

It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order. --Entertainment Weekly

McCandess 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. Not long after, he was dead. Into the Wild is the mesmerizing, heartbreaking tale of an enigmatic young man who goes missing in the wild and whose story captured the world's attention.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless.

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.

It was one of history's great vanishing acts.

Around 3,400 BCE--as humans were gathering in complex urban settlements--a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For three millennia, wedge shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon and of Persia's mighty Achaemenid Empire, along with precious minutiae about everyday life in the cradle of civilization. And then...the meaning of the characters was lost.

London, 1857. In an era obsessed with human progress, mysterious palaces emerging from the desert sands had captured the Victorian public's imagination. Yet Europe's best philologists struggled to decipher the bizarre inscriptions excavators were digging up.

Enter a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave British military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector, all vying for glory in a race to decipher this script that would enable them to peek farther back into human history than ever before.

From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.

Cassidy Randall draws on extensive archival research and original interviews to tell an engrossing, edge-of-the-seat adventure story about a forgotten group of climbers who had the audacity to believe that women could walk alone in extraordinary and treacherous heights.

Grace Hoeman dreamed of standing on top of Denali. The tallest peak in North America, the fierce polar mountain loomed large in many climbers' imaginations, and Grace, a doctor in Alaska, had come close to the top, only to be turned back by altitude sickness and a storm that took the lives of seven fellow climbers in one remorseless blow.

Other expeditions denied her a place because of her gender, and when a letter arrived from a climber in California named Arlene Blum, who'd also been barred from expeditions--unless she stayed in base camp and cooked for the men, Grace got a defiant idea: she would organize and lead the first-ever all-female ascent of the frozen Alaskan peak.

Everyone told the Denali Damsels, as the team called themselves, that it couldn't be done: Women were incapable of climbing mountains on their own. Men had walked on the moon; women still had not stood on the highest points on Earth. But these six women were unwilling to be limited by sexists and misogynists. They pushed past barriers in society at large, the climbing world, and their own bodies.

And then, when disaster struck at the worst time on their expedition, they could either keep their wits and prove their mettle, or die and confirm the worst opinions of men.

Lace up your hiking boots! Let Griffin guide you over granite mountains, through thunderstorms, and wildflower-studded meadows. -Barbara Olson Lawrence, author of the forthcoming Drawing Water

Three friends, women in their fifties, set out to hike the most beautiful long-distance trail in the world, the John Muir Trail. From the outset, their adventure is complicated by self-inflicted accidents and ferocious weather, then enriched when they adopt a young hiker abandoned by her partner along the trail.

The women experience the terror of lightning at eleven-thousand feet, the thrill of walking through a towering waterfall, and the joy of dancing among midnight moonshadows. For a month, they live immersed in vast natural beauty, tackle the trail's physical demands, and find camaraderie among an ensemble cast of eccentric trail characters. Together, they are pulled forward toward the trail's end atop the highest peak in the High Sierra, Mt. Whitney, and the culmination of their transformative journey.

Force of Nature is equal parts gripping adventure tale, personal memoir, and vivid nature writing.

The Norwegian explorer, philosopher and acclaimed writer tells of his historic 58-day journey to the North Pole on skis in this provocative memoir that is a profound meditation on nature and the history of explorers' obsession.

The North Pole looms large in our collective psyche--the ultimate Otherland in a world mapped and traversed. It is the center of our planet's rotation, one of the places that is most vulnerable in an epoch of global climate change. Its sub-zero temperatures and strange year of one sunset and one sunrise make it an eerie, utterly disorienting place that challenges human endurance and understanding.

Erling Kagge and his friend B rge Ousland became the first people to ever reach the pole without dogs, without depots and without motorized aids, skiing for 58 days from a drop off point on the ice edge of Canada's northernmost island.

Erling describes his record-making journey, probing the physical challenges and psychological motivations for embarking on such an epic expedition, the history of the territory's exploration, its place in legend and art, and the thrilling adventures he experienced during the trek. It is another example of what bestselling author Robert MacFarlane has called Kagge's extraordinary life in wild places.

Erling also observes the key role that this place holds in our current climate and geopolitical conversations. As majestic, mesmerizing, and monumental as the terrain it captures, After the North Pole is for anyone who has gazed out at the horizon--and wondered what happens if you keep going.

After the North Pole is illustrated with 12-14 photographs.

Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson.

A meditation on solitude, wildness and survival. --The Wall Street Journal

In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life--why did he leave? what did he learn?--as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.

Gripping . . . A delightful companion for adventurers and dog lovers alike, The World Walk poignantly grapples with strength and vulnerability, love and loss, and unpacks what it really means to summon the will to keep going. --Suleika Jaouad, New York Times bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms

Quietly stunning. --Laurie Woolever, New York Times bestselling author of World Travel with Anthony Bourdain and Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography

After the death of a close friend at seventeen, Tom Turcich resolved to make the most out of life; to travel and be forced into adventure; to experience and understand the world. On April 2nd, 2015, he set out to see it all--one step at a time.

The World Walk is the emotional and exhilarating story of the tenth person and first dog to walk around the world. Together, Turcich and his dog, Savannah, covered twenty-eight thousand miles over the course of seven years. Through deserts, jungles, cities, and mountains, Turcich meditated on what's important in life and took lessons from cultures around the globe.

Rarely has there been a true-life tale of such scope. From sheltered suburbanite to world traveler, Turcich's epic account runs the full gamut: He is held up at knifepoint in Panama and gunpoint in Turkey; wanders deep within himself in the deserts of Peru; watches a democracy fortify itself in Georgia; and takes it all in with his resolute companion by his side. His growth spans the most basic elements of surviving on the road--finding food, water, and safe places to camp--to humanity's more noble aspirations, such as the benefits of democracy, the search for love, and the weighing of personal significance.

Accompanied by some of the author's world-class photography, this tour de force of resilience and triumph of the human spirit will reaffirm to readers that the world is beautiful, people are good, and life should be a generous, vibrant adventure.

On an autumn morning in 1849, Henry David Thoreau stepped out his front door to walk the beaches of Cape Cod. Over a century and a half later, Ben Shattuck does the same. With little more than a loaf of bread, brick of cheese, and a notebook, Shattuck sets out to retrace Thoreau's path through the Cape's outer beaches, from the elbow to Provincetown's fingertip.

This is the first of six journeys taken by Shattuck, each one inspired by a walk once taken by Henry David Thoreau. After the Cape, Shattuck goes up Mount Katahdin and Mount Wachusett, down the coastline of his hometown, and then through the Allagash. Along the way, Shattuck encounters unexpected characters, landscapes, and stories, seeing for himself the restorative effects that walking can have on a dampened spirit. Over years of following Thoreau, Shattuck finds himself uncovering new insights about family, love, friendship, and fatherhood, and understanding more deeply the lessons walking can offer through life's changing seasons.

Intimate, entertaining, and beautifully crafted, Six Walks is a resounding tribute to the ways walking in nature can inspire us all.

Born into a family of migrant workers, toiling in the fields by the age of six, Jose M. Hernàndez dreamed of traveling through the night skies on a rocket ship. Reaching for the Stars is the inspiring story of how he realized that dream, becoming the first Mexican-American astronaut.

Hernàndez didn't speak English till he was 12, and his peers often joined gangs, or skipped school. And yet, by his twenties he was part of an elite team helping develop technology for the early detection of breast cancer. He was turned down by NASA eleven times on his long journey to donning that famous orange space suit.

Hernàndez message of hard work, education, perseverance, of reaching for the stars, makes this a classic American autobiography.

By the subject of the National Geographic documentary Endurance, streaming soon on Disney+

As thrilling as any tale from the heroic age of exploration. . . Bound's account is a triumph. The storytelling is piano-wire taut, the writing saturated with polar moodiness. ― Sunday Times

The inside story of how the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton's legendary lost ship, was found in the most hostile sea on Earth, told by the expedition's Director of Exploration.

On November 21, 1914, the Endurance succumbed to the surrounding ice. Ernest Shackleton and his crew had navigated the three-masted wooden vessel ten thousand miles to Antarctica in hopes of becoming the first to cross the barren continent, but early season pack ice trapped them in place offshore. Marooned on the ice for six months, Shackleton's expedition to push the limits of human strength took a new form: one of survival against the odds.

A century after this legendary story entered the annals of polar exploration, renowned marine archeologist Mensun Bound and an elite team of explorers joined a new global race to find the wrecked Endurance. Bound experienced failure and despair in his attempts to locate the wreck, and very nearly found his own vessel frozen in ice. Finally, a century to the day after Shackleton's burial, the discovery: nearly ten thousand feet below the ice lay a remarkably preserved Endurance, its name still emblazoned on the ship's stern.

Told with passion and flair (Washington Post), The Ship Beneath the Ice is a modern-day adventure narrative of the intrepid spirit that joins two mariners across the centuries--both of whom accomplished the impossible.

As Jon Krakauer did with Into the Wild, Blehm turns a missing-man riddle into an insightful meditation on wilderness and the personal demons and angels that propel us into it alone. -- Outside magazine

Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada--mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.

The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain and only successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first larger team, Mimi Zieman's team would climb without using supplemental oxygen, porter support, or chance for rescue. She would accompany the climbers as the doctor--and only woman--although she was still in her third year of medical school. Full of self-doubt, Zieman grappled with whether to go but couldn't resist the call of the mountains. On Everest, when three climbers disappeared during their summit attempt, she reached the knife edge of her limits and dug deeply to fight for the climbers' lives and to find her voice.

Sparkling with suspense and vulnerability, Tap Dancing on Everest is a coming-of-age story about the risks we take to become our truest selves. Zieman weaves her childhood as the daughter of immigrants raised in 1970's New York City, her father a Holocaust survivor, with adventure and medicine, capturing the curiosity and awe of a young woman as she faces down messages to stay small and safe and ventures into the unknown.

As Jon Krakauer did with Into the Wild, Blehm turns a missing-man riddle into an insightful meditation on wilderness and the personal demons and angels that propel us into it alone. -- Outside magazine

Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada--mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.

The mesmerizing, larger-than-life tale of an eccentric adventurer who traversed some of the greatest frontiers of the twentieth century, from uncharted Arctic wastelands to the underground resistance networks of World War II.

An absolute joy...Wanderlust is a compelling introduction to one of the most charismatic explorers to ever cross the ice.--New York Times Book Review

Deep in the Arctic wilderness, Peter Freuchen awoke to find himself buried alive under the snow. During a sudden blizzard the night before, he had taken shelter underneath his dogsled and become trapped there while he slept. Now, as feeling drained from his body, he managed to claw a hole through the ice only to find himself in even greater danger: his beard, wet with condensation from his struggling breath, had frozen to his sled runners and lashed his head in place, exposing it to icy winds that needed only a few minutes to kill him... But if Freuchen could escape that, he could escape anything.

Freuchen's life seemed ripped from the pages of an adventure novel--and provided fodder for many books of his own. A wildly eccentric Dane with an out-of-nowhere sense of humor, his insatiable curiosity drove him from the twilight years of Arctic exploration to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and from the burgeoning field of climate research to the Danish underground during World War II. He conducted jaw-dropping expeditions, survived a Nazi prison camp, and overcame a devastating injury that robbed him of his foot and very nearly his life. Through it all, he was guided not only by restlessness but also by ideals that were remarkably ahead of his time, championing Indigenous communities, environmental stewardship, and starting conversations that continue today.

Meticulously researched and grippingly written, Wanderlust is an unforgettable tale of daring and discovery, an inspiring portrait of restlessness and grit, and a powerful meditation on our relationship to the planet and our fellow human beings. Reid Mitenbuler's exquisite book restores a heroic giant of the last century back into public view.

An important book that will transform how we think about being human. ... that will inspire hope.--Jane Goodall

How can we reclaim the soul-deepening wildness that grounds us and energizes us when so much of the modern world seems designed to tame us?

In this thrilling memoir of a life spent exploring the most incredible places on Earth--from the Great African Seaforest to the crocodile lairs of the Okavango Delta--Craig Foster reveals how we can attend to the earthly beauty around us and deepen our love for all living things, whether we make our homes in the country, the city, or anywhere in between.

Foster explores his struggles to remain present to life when a disconnection from nature and the demands of his professional life begin to deaden his senses. And his own reliance on nature's rejuvenating spiritual power is put to the test when catastrophe strikes close to home.

Foster's lyrical, riveting Amphibious Soul draws on his decades of daily ocean dives, wisdom from Indigenous teachers, and leading-edge science.

Includes a beautiful four-color tracking journal with Foster's photographs and a QR code leading to 27 films that captured key moments in the book.

Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.

Into the Wild is available on audio, read by actor Campbell Scott.

Based on hundreds of hours of interviews, Hush of the Land tells the captivating story of Elser's early days as a packer in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Bitterroot Mountains. Share the joys and thrills of summer rides, harrowing grizzly bear encounters, fishing in clear mountain streams, and many nights around a campfire within some of the West's last wild lands. In this lively narrative, Elser recounts how his testimony for the Wilderness Act, and the fight to preserve and expand Montana's wilderness lands, influenced his career as an outfitter and educator and gave him a voice at the center of Montana's conservation movement.

Our world then was both wide and narrow -- wide in the immensity of sea and mountain; narrow in that the boat was very small, and we lived and camped, explored and swam in a little realm of our own making.
-- M. Wylie Blanchet

The 50th anniversary edition of this coastal British Columbia classic, now in beautifully illustrated hardcover, will make a timeless keepsake. This is a biography and astonishing adventure story of a woman who, left a widow in 1927, packed her five children onto a 25-foot boat and cruised the coastal waters of British Columbia, summer after summer. Muriel Wylie Blanchet acted single-handedly as skipper, navigator, engineer and, of course, mother, as she saw her crew through encounters with tides, fog, storms, rapids, cougars and bears. She sharpened in her children a special interest in Haida culture and in nature itself.

In this book, she left us with a sensitive and compelling account of their journeys.