A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. And Adventure, to put it simply, is the movement from safety to danger then back again. Adventure is not something you seek – you can trek out into the open country and wait for it to happen but you can’t plan it. It originally happens without design, chance, and luck”. Here are some of the books which can take you on an adventure ride, with its words:
1. Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini
Historical background of this novel is loosely based on fact, this story is about a physician sentenced to slavery in the 17th-century Caribbean to survive and become one of the most successful pirates of the time, a man’s ability to create his destiny is an excellent celebration of No problem. Although Sabatini certainly took the story forward from reality, most of the bones of the novel happened to various people, giving it an air of veracity.
2. Stronghold: One Man’s Quest to Save the Worlds Wild Salmon by Tucker Malarkey
“An astonishing story, gripping told with the inspiring example at its heart of a man for whom the wellbeing of the natural world is the goal”.
Guido Rahr preferred to spend his time as a child on his family’s land on the Deschutes River in Oregon rather than with family and classmates. Over the years, he became an expert fly fisherman and noticed the salmon runs were getting smaller and smaller. Rahr set out to understand why this was happening, ultimately traveling to one of the world’s last remaining strongholds for salmon in the Russia Far East, where Malarkey accompanied him to report this book.
3. The World Beneath Their Feet (4.3 stars)
It’s a fascinating book about the efforts, often with tragic consequences, of mountaineers, principally from Britain, Germany, and the United States to reach the summits of Himalayan Achttausenders.
While it took until 1953 for Everest to finally be summited, it was in the 1930s that the race was at its most tenacious. New York Times bestselling author Scott Ellsworth delves into the contest that raged between the various expedition teams from around the world, with elite climbers, local sherpas, millionaire businessmen, and Nazis all racing to bring glory to their nations in a period when global war was on the horizon. If you liked Into Thin Air by John Krakauer then this is one for you.
4. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Krakauer’s iconic book tells the story of the tragic 1996 climbing season on Mt. Everest that left eight people dead and numerous others emotionally and physically scarred by the trauma. On May 10 of that year, several teams of climbers set off for the summit on the world’s highest peaks, only to have an unexpected storm descend upon the mountain. The rapid change in weather caught the mountaineers off guard, sending them into survival mode in an incredibly unforgiving place. The book was a best seller and instantly became a classic, fueling the general publics’ fascination with Everest, and the men and women who climb it that remains firmly in place to this day.
5. The Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne
The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1875. The Mysterious Island, the story begins during the American Civil War that five men escape from a Confederate prison during the Civil War in a hot air balloon, and crash onto an uncharted island. They survive through a combination of their skill, intelligence, and mysterious assistance from some entity on the island they initially can’t identify. A sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the mystery of the island is directly linked to that earlier novel, which just makes it all the more awesome.
6. The Riddle of the Sands, by Erskine Childers
The book, which enjoyed immense popularity in the years before World War I, is an early example of the espionage novel and was extremely influential in the genre of spy fiction.
This story is about when you suspected an unfriendly nation was up to no good on a remote island, and you couldn’t get your government to pay attention? You’d grab a friend and hop on your small sailboat to investigate on your own. That’s the premise of this proto-spy novel, which sees a minor official named Carruthers recruited by his friend Davies to puzzle out just what the Germans are up to shortly before World War I breaks out.
7. The Worst Journey in the World by Aspley Cherry-Gerard
In 1911 British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott found himself caught up in the race to become the first person to reach the South Pole. Desperately trying to outrun his Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen, he arrived at the finish line only to find the flag of Norway already waiting for him. Defeated and deflated, Scott and his men began the long, cold, and excruciatingly slow journey back to the coast where a ship waited to take them home. Along the way, they suffered numerous setbacks that would eventually result in the death of the entire party. The Worst Journey in the World tells the story of that ill-fated expedition which still resonates with modern explorers to this day and will leave readers wondering about the high costs of exploration, both then and now.
8. The Kick: A Life among Writers by Richard Murphy
Irish poet Murphy led an adventurous life that ended in 2018 in Sri Lanka at the age of 90. For many years he lived on the west coast of Ireland. With limited knowledge of sailing he took paying guests out on his traditional sailing boat, a restored Galway hooker. He also bought an uninhabited island. The blend of perilous waters, west coast life, and Murphy’s accounts of visiting fellow poets Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and Theodore Roethke combine for an unforgettable memoir.
9. Dark, Salt, Clear by Lamorna Ash
A beautiful account of immersion in an alien world the tightly bound fishing community of Newlyn in the far west of Cornwall. Spending weeks with fishermen on small fishing boats, and amid their equally turbulent shore life, Ash offers a sharp and poignant portrait of men living an intense and peripheral existence.
10. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
This book is by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad he’s telling a ghost story by a campfire, capturing the story’s sense of claustrophobia, while hinting at the storyteller Marlows own creeping madness. Heart of Darkness follows Captain Marlow into the colonial Congo where he searches for a mysterious ivory trader, Kurtz, and discovers an evil that will haunt him forever.
Treasure Island was the defining story of my childhood, and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (buttressed by Francis Ford Coppolas equally brilliant Apocalypse Now) became the Treasure Island of my late adolescence. I was lucky enough to read it in high school and I’ve loved it ever since. In the context of this list, it’s the perfect counterweight to the more imperialistic adventure stories of the late Victorian era. Conrad’s framing device is brilliant, as is Marlows first-person narration, and, as a vision of what civilized man can become, Kurtz remains extraordinarily prescient.