Explore: Stories of Survival from Off the Map (Adrenaline) [Paperback]

Jennifer Schwamm (Author), Clint Willis (Author)

Book Description

Series: Adrenaline | Publication Date: August 15, 2000

Explore: Stories of Survival from Off the Map offers first-hand accounts by the world's boldest explorers, who have encountered storms, starvation, canibals, predators, and disease in their pursuit of mystery and adventure. Nunez Cabeza de Vaca writes of his 16th century expedition to the region north of the Gulf of Mexico, an amazing tale of survival and hardship that begins with the loss of de Vaca's ships and the capture and enslavement of his party by Indians. Argentinian novelist Abel Posse gives us an unforgettable Christopher Columbus facing down mutiny and the threat of starvation Tim Flannery almost dies while searching for Fulmer's Fruit Bat, thought to have become extinct 12,000 years ago. Thor Heyderdahl recounts his earliest adventure in Polynesia. Premier mountaineering and adventure writer David Roberts searches for a legendary lost city high in the cliffs of New Mexico. Following an ancient trail, Roberts discovers a beautifully preserved Anasazi city — and a curse. Explore also includes writing by Lawrence Millman, Gene Savay, John Long, Redmond O'Hanlon, Fanny Bullock Workman and William Hunter Workman, Andrea Barrett, and W.H. Murray.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

These 19 masterful adventure tales span five centuries of exploration. There is an excerpt from Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's account of his sixteenth-century journey to the region north of the Gulf of Mexico, first published in Spain in 1542. There are stories of visits to the Liawep, a "lost tribe" living in the New Guinea jungle, and to the Ecuadorian Amazon, looking for a tribe of headhunters. Other exotic tales include a search for an ancient lost city once inhabited by the cliff-dwelling Anasazi in New Mexico and a search for the legendary capital city of the Inca civilization in Peru. An unsuccessful voyage to the North Pole in 1893 is matched with an expedition in 1932 in which two explorers climbed to more than 16,000 feet in East Africa's Ruwenzori mountains. And also appearing is an excerpt from the late novelist Harold Brodkey's journal that he kept after learning in 1993 that he was dying of AIDS. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Editor Jennifer Schwamm Willis grew up next door to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. She graduated from Princeton in 1979, and has worked as a designer, teacher and editor. She lives in Maine with her husband and their two sons. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560252782
• ISBN-13: 978-1560252788
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,273,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A strong addition to a terrific series, October 7, 2000

By 

Andy Entwistle (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Explore: Stories of Survival from Off the Map (Adrenaline) (Paperback)

EXPLORE adds 18 well-selected tales of adventure to the Adrenaline series. They blend of humor, like Tim Cahill's Peruvian expedition with two eccentric companions; dangerous adventure, including A.N. de Vaca's exploration of America in the early 1500's; and more scholarly accounts, such as David Roberts' search for lost cliff dwellings in New Mexico. The best feature of this book, and the series as a whole, is that it exposes us to writings that we would otherwise never see. Ms Schwamm has cast her net widely and hauled in four centuries of engaging exploration stories. Some are excerpted from works out of print, but the bibliography makes it possible to track these books down if you must hear the rest of the story. So why only four stars? As a collector of the entire series, I find this volume less spine-tingling than the rest, with fewer stories of death-defying danger, which is okay - not all exploration involves a struggle to survive if you go about it properly. If you like National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, this is a book for you.