“The fine snow choked his eyes, ears, and throat, and he did not hear his own smothered death cry. Down in cold blackness, 150 feet down, his falling body smashed into a projecting ledge of ironclad ice. With the shattered remains of his sledge, with the doomed dogs, Belgrave Ninnis plunged deeper and deeper into the abyss.” —Lennard Bickel's Mawson's Will. In Near Death in the Arctic, editor Cecil Kuhne gathers astonishing tales of man versus nature, all set against the bleakly beautiful backdrop of the poles of the earth. On foot, by ship, or by dog-powered sledge, these adventurers brave the most savage and desolate environment on earth, their instinct for self-preservation and survival exceeded only by their desire for excitement and discovery. Also featuring: Captain Roald Amundsen's The South Pole—The heart-pounding story of Amundsen's race to be the first man to reach both Poles despite driving snow, exhausted dogs, and towering glaciers. Ernest Shackleton's South—A riveting memoir of the doomed Endurance, which became trapped in dangerous pack ice that eventually tore the ship apart.Mike Stroud's Shadows on the Wasteland—The unbelievable account of a two-man, ninety-day trek across the Antarctic continent through temperatures as low as minus eighty-five degrees Celsius.

“The fine snow choked his eyes, ears, and throat, and he did not hear his own smothered death cry. Down in cold blackness, 150 feet down, his falling body smashed into a projecting ledge of ironclad ice. With the shattered remains of his sledge, with the doomed dogs, Belgrave Ninnis plunged deeper and deeper into the abyss.” —Lennard Bickel's Mawson's Will. In Near Death in the Arctic, editor Cecil Kuhne gathers astonishing tales of man versus nature, all set against the bleakly beautiful backdrop of the poles of the earth. On foot, by ship, or by dog-powered sledge, these adventurers brave the most savage and desolate environment on earth, their instinct for self-preservation and survival exceeded only by their desire for excitement and discovery. Also featuring: Captain Roald Amundsen's The South Pole—The heart-pounding story of Amundsen's race to be the first man to reach both Poles despite driving snow, exhausted dogs, and towering glaciers. Ernest Shackleton's South—A riveting memoir of the doomed Endurance, which became trapped in dangerous pack ice that eventually tore the ship apart.Mike Stroud's Shadows on the Wasteland—The unbelievable account of a two-man, ninety-day trek across the Antarctic continent through temperatures as low as minus eighty-five degrees Celsius.

'An epic tale of exploration, daring and tragedy told by a fine historian - and a wonderful writer' Peter Frankopan, author of the bestselling The Silk Roads. 'The name of William Barents isn’t that familiar to us these days…but this enthralling, elemental and literally spine-chilling epic of courage and endurance should change all that’ Roger Alton, Daily Mail A dramatic and compelling account of survival against the odds from the golden Age of Exploration. Since its beginning, the human story has been one of exploration and survival - often against long odds. The longest odds of all might have been faced by Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of fifteen, who on Barents’ third journey into the Far Arctic in the year 1597 lost their ship to a crush of icebergs and, with few weapons and dwindling supplies, spent nine months fighting off ravenous polar bears, gnawing cold and seemingly endless winter. This is their story. In Icebound, Andrea Pitzer combines a movie-worthy tale of survival with a sweeping history of the period - a time of hope, adventure and seemingly unlimited scientific and geographic frontiers. At the story’s centre is William Barents, one of the sixteenth century’s greatest navigators, whose larger-than-life ambitions and obsessive quest to find a path through the deepest, most remote regions of the Arctic ended in both catastrophe and glory - glory because the desperation that his men endured had an epic quality that would echo through the centuries as both warning and spur to polar explorers. In a narrative that is filled with fascinating tutorials - on such topics as survival at twenty degrees below, the degeneration of the human body when it lacks Vitamin C, the history of mutiny, the practice of keel hauling, the art of celestial navigation and the intricacies of repairing masts and building shelters - the lesson that stands above all others is the feats humans are capable of when asked to double then triple then quadruple their physical capacities.

This book is every bit as creepy and gory as her earlier tombs. Don't say we didn't warn you. Kilpatrick succeeds in painting vivid characters who, despite being vampires, are identifiable to the reader. They live, they love, they lose, they die Kilpatrick avoids the cardboard draculas so common to the genre and creates enduring characters who live on in the reader's mind long after the last page is turned.-Writers Block Magazine"

“One helluva read.”—Newsweek • “Gripping.”—Outside • “Spellbinding.”—Associated Press • “Powerful.”—New York In 1912, the Saint Anna, a Russian exploration vessel in search of fertile hunting grounds, was frozen into the polar ice cap, trapping her crew aboard. For nearly a year and a half, they struggled to stay alive. As all hope of rescue faded, they realized their best chance of survival might be to set out on foot, across hundreds of miles of desolate ice, with their lifeboats dragged behind them on sledges, in hope of reaching safety. Twenty of them chose to stay aboard; thirteen began the trek; of them all, only two survived. Originally published in Russia in 1917, In the Land of White Death was translated into English for the first time by the Modern Library to widespread critical acclaim. As well as recounting Albanov’s vivid, first-person account of his ninety-day ordeal over 235 miles of frozen sea, this expanded paperback edition contains three newly discovered photographs and an extensive new Epilogue by David Roberts based on the never-before-published diary of Albanov’s only fellow survivor, Alexander Konrad. As gripping as Albanov’s own tale, the Epilogue sheds new light on the tragic events of 1912–1914, brings to life many of those who perished (including the infamous captain Brusilov and nurse Zhdanko, the only woman on board), and, inadvertently, reveals one new piece of information—about the identity of the traitors who left Albanov for dead—that is absolutely shocking. “Poetic.”—The Washington Post • “A lost masterpiece.”—Booklist • “A jewel of polar literature.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer • “Vivid . . . [a work of] terrifying beauty.”—The Boston Globe

Set in the remote arctic region of Northern Canada, this book takes readers on a harrowing canoe voyage that results in tragedy, redemption, and, ultimately, transformation. George Grinnell was one of six young men who set off on the 1955 expedition led by experienced wilderness canoeist Art Moffatt. Poorly planned and executed, the journey seemed doomed from the start. Ignoring the approaching winter, the men became entranced with the peace and beauty of the arctic in autumn. As winter closed in, they suddenly faced numbing cold and dwindling food. When the crew is swept over a waterfall, Moffatt is killed and most of the gear and emergency food supplies destroyed. Confronting freezing conditions and near starvation, the remaining crew struggled to make it back to civilization. For Grinnell, the three-month expedition was both a rite of passage and a spiritual odyssey. In the Barrens, he lost his sense of identity and what he had been conditioned to think about society and himself. Forever changed by the experience, he unsparingly describes how the expedition influenced his adult life and what powerful insights he was able to glean from this life-altering experience.