Passionate Quests

A quest is a journey in the course of which one advances spiritually and mentally, as well as physically travelling miles. The quester leaves the familiar for the unknown. The nature of the goal may not be clear at first and may only become fully apparent at the end of the quest.
~Robert Irwin
 
There are a lot of reasons to undertake a quest.  The thirst for knowledge and/or experience. Traveling in the footsteps of someone you admire. For spiritual advancement. To push yourself to your limits - to find out what your limits are. Discovery, or self-discovery.  Obsession, plain and simple.

The following are a list of books by and about ordinary people, explorers, naturalists, and adventurers who have pursued their dreams to the ends of the earth, and sometimes to the end of the line.

Meet Me in Atlantis: My Quest to Find the 2,500-Year-Old Sunken City by Mark Adams

Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific By Raft by Thor Heyerdahl

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

Planetwalker by John Francis

South With the Sun: Roald Amundsen, His Polar Explorations, and the Quest for Discovery by Lynne Cox

Imperial Dreams: Tracking the Imperial Woodpecker Through the Wild Sierra Madre by Tim Gallagher

Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery - the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick

Called Again: A Story of Love and Triumph by Jennifer Pharr Davis

Kingbird Highway: The Story of a Natural Obsession That Got a Little Out of Hand by Kenn Kaufman

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz

The Will to Climb: Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna--The World's Deadliest Peak by Ed Viesturs, with David Roberts

Travels With a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron

Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier

The Places In Between by Rory Stewart

Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe For a New Kind of Heroine by Holly Morris

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander

In Search of King Solomon's Mines by Tahir Shah

Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback by Robyn Davidson

Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration as told by Fergus Fleming   

Links

11 Books About Obsessive Searches [New York Times]      

If You Loved 'Wild", Try Reading These 9 Books, Too [Bustle]

 

Pink Boots and Bold Spirits: Celebrating Women Who Dared

At the library, we are always getting requests from schoolkids who are researching explorers - usually men like Vasco da Gama, Leif Erikson, Hernando de Soto, Marco Polo, or Ernest Shackleton.   Here at abcreads, we are choosing to take a little time to celebrate their counterparts, female explorers past and present. The following are some titles of derring-do that you won't want to miss!


Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey From NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer by Mireya Mayor

The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal by Vicki Constantine Croke

To the Heart of the Nile: Lady Florence Baker and the Exploration of Central Africa by Pat Shipman

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley

Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven

Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman

They Went Whistling: Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways, and Renegades by Barbara Holland

No Horizon is So Far: Two Women and Their Extraordinary Journey Across Antarctica by Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft, with Cheryl Dahle

Happy 95th Birthday, Thor Heyerdahl!

Thor Heyerdahl (October 6, 1914– April 18, 2002) was a Norwegian scientist & adventurer, perhaps most well known for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed 4,300 miles by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands.

BBC obituary

If you are ever in Norway, visit the Kon-Tiki Museum, just outside Oslo. This is a wonderful museum my parents used to take me to when I was a child. If you don't believe me, take the virtual tour!