VANITY: Book Recommendations Wanted

[GodfearingTexan]

Ladies and Gentelmen, I'm writing in hopes that some of you could make a recommendation on books that deal with courage and adventure. Nonfiction books only please. I'm stationed out in the middle of nowhere and reading is my only real R&R. I'm especially interested in nautical adventures or adventures relating to the exploration of Africa or the Middle East. I've searched amazon for hours trying to find that sort of a book, but I have yet to find something worthwhile.

By the way, I recently read In the Heart of the Sea, the story about the whaleship Essex, and it was awesome. I highly recommend it.

Thank you.

[USNBandit]

He asked for non-fiction, but those are great books.

Somebody wrote a book about the Shackleton expedition and I think the title was Endurance.

[nycgal]

If you haven’t yet read “Into Thin Air”. I highly recommend this thrilling true life account of climbing Mt. Everest.

[GodfearingTexan]

I read that as an rotc cadet. i couldnt put it down. i loved it. he was a great, great man and leader. that was one of the best books i’ve ever read.

[Grizzled Bear]

I would like to recommend “America’s Victories” ‘Why the U.S. Wins Wars and Will Win The War on Terror’

---

Larry Schweikart is a FReeper and a Gentleman.

[GodfearingTexan]

i read that one. excellent book. i also couldnt put that one down. i also noticed on amazon that he’s got some new books out.

[Jet Jaguar]

Nodding.

[pillut48]

Clive Cussler has several books concerning real-life situations where he's help explore shipwrecks and even a train wreck! I like his stuff about the Hunley, a Civil War 'submarine'. Here's a link to at amazon.com.

[pillut48]

Sorry. Help=helped.

[pillut48]

Sorry again, somehow deleted the title! “Sea Hunters”.

[Othniel]

"Hiding the Elephant" is great. It's about the development of magic during the 1800's, and how there were different guys thinking up tricks. By the same author (whose name eludes me right now) is a book about Chung Ling Soo, an American/Brit who passed himself off as a Chinese magician so well that when he died (bullet catching trick), nobody believe that he wasn't from China.

"The Physics of Football" is also good. So is anything by RC Sproul.

[BIGLOOK]

There' an older book of short essays of courageous efforts of the military. It's To The Last Cartridge by Robert Barr Smith, Avon, 1994, ISBN 0-380-77212-4.

It presents a picture that's not always successful but realistic of the nature of war.

[spyone]

Good choice. I reluctantly read the first one on a recommendation thinking I wouldn’t like it...loved it...read the second...loved it...just bought the third which I hear is one of the best.

[GodfearingTexan]

i will check into those. thank you

[Tennessee Nana]

Shackleton went to the Antartic 3 times My grandfather went on one of the trips

[Eastbound]

"Yeager: An Autobiography"

Yup!

Also checkout Drew Dix -- The Rescue of River City

Medal of Honor winner, Drew Dix, who wrote one of the most kick-butt war stories you'll ever read.

[Tennessee Nana]

I watch the movie about once evert month or two I love it

[anonsquared]

If you’re someplace hot and want to cool down:

The Conquest of Everest - Sir John Hunt
Endurance - Alfred Lansing
Annapurna - Maurice Herzog
The Ultimate Challenge - Chris Bonington
The Climb - Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt
Ghosts of Everest - Hemmleb, Johnson and Simonson
A Slender Thread - Stephen Venables
Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
Because It’s There - Dudley Green
K2 - Jim Curran
Nanda Devi - John Roskelley
The White Death - Mckay Jenkins

If you’re someplace cold and want to warm up, you can always slog through Seven Pillars of Wisdom - T.E. Lawrence.

Two other adventure books:
Classic Survival Stories - Edited by Lamar Underwood
Deep Survival (Who Lives, Wod Dies, and Why) - Laurence Gonzales

[SatinDoll]

I can recommend three books immediately, though two are definitely out of print with the third, a classic, possibly still available.

The Frigates, by James Henderson CBE; an account of the lesser warships of the wars from 1793 to 1815. The last chapter is a great, rousing true-life adventure at sea. You can sometimes find it on Ebay.

Mrs. Marco Polo Remembers, by Mary Parker Dunning, Houghton Mifflin Co. (publishers), 1968; her husband was a professor and for their honeymoon in 1908 they traveled around the world, visiting the Far East, Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. He died in the 1950s after an African safari and trips to Angkor Wat, Bali and Nepal. Mary was one of the few western women ever to spend a day in a harem and be allowed to leave!

I’m going to include the next book just because so few people have ever read it and it describes a part of the world, eastern Turkey, where few have ever traveled.

The Persian Expedition, by Xenophon, translated by Rex Warner,Penquin Books Ltd., 1949 - 1965; an account of the march of the Ten Thousand Greeks, from Babylon to the Black Sea at the beginning of the 4th century b.c.

I hope you find this short list a good start. Good luck on finding them all.

[scan58]

My husband just read “Innocents Abroad” by Mark Twain and really liked it. Not so much “courageous”, but lots of anecdotal adventure.