Kon Tiki was the first adult level book I read that captured my soul. Just a kid it alerted my senses to learning. My addiction to hf radio and geography. It just would not let me go. I guess eventually the siren song of girls and then aviation came along and modified my interest over the subsequent decades.
But for more than a few years I wanted to be adrift on that raft leading the team to new discovery.
I got my late father a box ppbk set of the Heyerdahl titles then available — Fatu Hiva, Kon-Tiki, Aku-Aku, The Ra Expeditions — and afaik he never cracked any of them. I wound up reading them in my early 20s I guess, then got “The Tigris Expedition” “The Maldives Mystery” and “Early Man and the Ocean”. They’re, uh, around here someplace.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/thor-heyerdahl/210159/