The Huautla Caves system in Mexico has long been the Holy Grail of cavers. Fighting floods, cave-ins & Mazatec Indians who believe the caves are holy, caving teams have competed every year to be the first to prove the cave's depth. No-one has gone further than Bill Stone, the world's foremost caver, whose 20-year obsession nearly ended in disaster. He first explored Huautla in 1976 during the frontier days of caving. Over the next 15 years he stayed at the top, inventing clothing & equipment to help in his obsession. Finally, in 1994, after years of preparation, Stone & his 44-member team entered the Sotano de San Augustin sinkhole at Huautla. It was the beginning of a journey that would untimately claim the life of one diver & force every member of the team back
- except Bill Stone & team member Barbara am Ende, who forged on alone, with no hope of rescue, to set the record for the deepest cave dive in the Western Hemisphere.
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Richard Skelton spent nearly half a decade living in a small valley high in the Furness hills of Cumbria, in northern Engl&. When not writing or composing music, most of his days were spent beating the valley`s bounds, exploring its network of paths, streams & walls. Beyond the Fell Wall is a distillation of his observations & thoughts about this particular patch of l&. It is a poetic enquiry into the life of an seemingly inanimate landscape
- its otherwise unheard melodies & unseen movements. It considers both vast geological epochs & brief moments of intimacy, & in turn it asks us to consider sentience in all things, whether animal, vegetable or mineral. At the heart of the book is the fell wall itself: vast & serpentine
- a vessel for the lives, voices & myths of the landscape.

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Richard Parks has what must be one of contemporary sport`s most extraordinary & inspirational stories. Soon after he turned thirty, the professional career in rugby that had been his life for over a decade was cut short by injury, leaving him faced with an uncertain future. But unlike many other young athletes, Richard decided to tackle his fears, anxiety & depression head on, taking inspiration from Ranulph Fiennes & a line from his grandmother`s eulogy
- ” The horizon is only the limit of our sight” & setting out on challenges that have become part of his everyday life. Richard created history with his first endeavour
- the 737 Challenge
- by becoming the first person to conquer the highest mountain on each of the world`s continents & venture to both the North & South Poles within seven months. Then in 2013 he tackled three hugely challenging events
- an ultramarathon through the Peruvian jungle, the world`s highest mountain bike race, & a double iron man triathlon in Snowdonia
- in preparation for an even more extraordinary challenge: to record the fastest solo, unsupported & unassisted journey to the South Pole. These three challenges & the Antarctic speed record quest that saw Richard ski 11 hours a day enduring perishing conditions, broken skis & spending Christmas & New Year alone on the ice, were all filmed for a major four-part series to be broadcast on Channel 5 later this year. Beyond the Horizon is an amazing, inspiring, & exciting story for armchair adventurers, extreme sports & mountaineering fans alike.




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There are now precious few places left on earth with which we do not feel familiar, if not from first hand experience then at least from the perspective of the armchair traveller
- & fewer still where the camera has not yet prescribed our vision. An unrivalled collection of images of one of the last unsullied wildernesses in the world: the vast, uninhabited spaces of north-east Greenl&. These beautiful, majestic & poetic landscapes exist in one of the harshest environments on earth. Roy traces the historical background with a brief outline of Greenland`s early exploration. He documents the poignant traces of the Inuit tribe
- their winter houses, summer tent circles & graves & enigmatic stone mosaics
- & the structures left by the European trappers who once plied their dog-sledges in the lonely fjords. Iain Roy`s first expedition to Greenland was in 1982, to the mountainous region of the south near Cape Farewell. He was a member of a small group of Arctic enthusiasts who shared a love of wild spaces & whose ambitions were fuelled by the accounts of earlier pioneers
- early whaling & expedition journals & memoirs of scientists & trappers from the pre-war period. The group pooled their resources in order to reach remote corners of a faraway region that had become their common obsession. Roy himself has since made ten expeditions to the region.



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Sir Ranulph Fiennes has been hailed by the GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS as the world`s greatest living explorer. Following his most recent unsupported attempt to reach the North Pole which nearly cost him his life, he looks back on three decades of adventures in all corners of the globe & what he has learned from them. Reflecting on such diverse themes as the importance of choosing the right team, monitoring the opposition & dealing with the media, Sir Ranulph presents a breathtaking collection of photographs from his personal archive & discusses the
- sometimes painful
- lessons he has taken away from each expedition. From the famous & successful Transglobe voyage in the early 1980s to his life-threatening attempt on the North Pole in 2000, this is a riveting & enlightening insight into the life of an extraordinary man.

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Geography is getting stranger. Out there, fleets of new islands are under construction & micro-nations are struggling into the light. As new borders & boundaries ebb & flow with increasing speed, it feels as if our old maps are being discarded, redrawn or torn up. Alastair Bonnett uncovers the stories of thirty-nine extraordinary places, each of which challenges us to re-imagine the world around us. From emerging islands, disruptive enclaves & bold utopian visions to uncanny ruins, ghostly tunnels & hidden landscapes
- these are destinations that lie beyond ordinary coordinates. A follow on from the critically acclaimed Off the Map, this is a timely & fascinating discussion of place, ownership & ideas of state.
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Geography is getting stranger. Out there fleets of new islands are under construction & eye-wateringly insane micro-nations are struggling into the light; unseen rivers are tumbling under sleeping cites & once secret fantasy-gardens are cracking open their doors. As groups like Islamic State fabricate proto-states whose boundaries ebb & flow with each passing day, it certainly feels as if all the old maps are being frantically scribbled over or torn up. Alaistair Bonnet presents the stories of 43 of these extraordinary places, all of which will challenge the very concept of place. The ever more unruly maps of human & physical geography can seem overwhelming. Perhaps that`s why little places, the small secrets, the hidden surprises, have become so important. Alastair will set out on a journey across the world in search of a diverse range of modern utopias, from the Dubai Shopping Mall to the Findhorn eco-community in Scotland & Cybertopias such as Second Life. Beyond the Map takes you to the world`s unruly places, the zones unmarked on any official map that are multiplying & changing fast & asks us to reexamine what the borders of state, place, home mean in today`s world. ...

Beyond the Mountain is a personal & reflective account on climbing written by Steve House, the man Reinhold Messner regards as the best high-altitude climber in the world today. It is a window into the process of a man working to be the best he can at a heightened extreme of existence. House addresses many issues common to non-climbing life such as mentorship, trust, failure, success, goal setting, heroes & partnership, as well as the mountaineer’s more than average experience of the loss of friends & appreciation of life’s risks. * Boardman Tasker Prize 2009 winner.* ...

In the dying days of the eighth century, the Vikings erupted onto the international stage with brutal raids & slaughter. The medieval Norsemen may be best remembered as monk murderers & village pillagers, but this is far from the whole story. Throughout the Middle Ages, long-ships transported hairy northern voyagers far & wide, where they not only raided but also traded, explored & settled new lands, encountered unfamiliar races, & embarked on pilgrimages & crusades. The Norsemen travelled to all corners of the medieval world & beyond; north to the wastelands of arctic Scandinavia, south to the politically turbulent heartlands of medieval Christendom, west across the wild seas to Greenland & the fringes of the North American continent, & east down the Russian waterways trading silver, skins, & slaves. Beyond the Northlands explores this world through the stories that the Vikings told about themselves in their sagas. But the depiction of the Viking world in the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas goes far beyond historical facts. What emerges from these tales is a mixture of realism & fantasy, quasi-historical adventures & exotic wonder-tales that rocket far beyond the horizon of reality. On the crackling brown pages of saga manuscripts, trolls, dragons & outlandish tribes jostle for position with explorers, traders, & kings. To explore the sagas & the world that produced them, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough now takes her own trip through the dramatic landscapes that they describe. Along the way, she illuminates the rich but often confusing saga accounts with a range of other evidence: archaeological finds, rune-stones, medieval world maps, encyclopaedic manuscripts, & texts from as far away as Byzantium & Baghdad. As her journey across the Old Norse world shows, by situating the sagas against the revealing background of this other evidence, we can begin at least to understand just how the world was experienced, remembered, & imagined by this unique culture from the outermost edge of Europe so many centuries ago. ...

Elliot`s life is spiralling out of control. He`s been suspended from school, his ex-convict dad is useless around the house & his mum`s health is worsening. What`s more, the gods are determined to forge on with the quest for the third chaos stone. An unlikely, hilarious & heart-warming odyssey begins. But Elliot has heard of a mythical potion rumoured to cure all ills
- can he save his mum, even if it means sacrificing the fate of the world?
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