Email: Fiancé’s 35th birthday. Loves adventure, books. (Canada)
Happy Birthday!
From snow-capped Everest to Mexican roads, these adventurous women have written their way through some of world’s most spectacular & fearful landscapes. They’ve pushed every possible boundary for a glimpse of the natural, the wild.
Lands of Lost Borders. Kate Harris covered 10 countries, 10,000 kms in a 10-month bicycle journey from Istanbul to India. Re-tracing the path of ancient Silk Road, contended with tough Himalayan hill climbs, unforgiving landscapes to access the Tibetan Plateau.
The Valleys of the Assassins. A student of ancient languages & human quirks, Freya Stark blazed across the Middle East searching for the legendary mountain home of the Assassins, a warrior sect that defied both crusaders & caliphs. Her fearless approach to discovery & interactions with remote tribes is thrilling.
Maiden Voyage. Bicycle messenger Tania Aebi set sail from the US for a round-the-world voyage in a 26-foot sloop Varuna. She had 6 months of sailing experience, a cat for company. The youngest person to complete a solo circumnavigation.
Travels with Myself and Another. Dry wit & plenty of whiskey buoyed Martha Gellhorn during terrifying flights, insect-infested hotel rooms, tropical diseases as she chased stories across the globe. Collected the best horror journeys into a wry account, hallucinating with fever in the Serengeti.
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube. Chasing adventure, Blair Braverman left the US for a dogsledding school in the Norwegian Arctic. Vivid accounts of Norwegian snow-drifts to Alaskan glaciers. Heart wrenching descriptions of sexual assault, most moving passages. She returned with 21 huskies.
West with the Night. From a childhood spent roaming the bush in Kenya to adventures at the dawn of aviation, Markham’s autobiography blends grit with bygone glamour. She made her mark by training horses, scouting African wildlife herds from the air.
Honouring High Places. When Japanese alpinist Junko Tabei reached the summit of Mount Everest, she became the 1st woman to take in the view from earth’s wind-whipped ceiling. Tabei juggled family life with boundary-pushing mountaineering. Re-counts her love for what she calls an unforgiving terrain. Gripping account of high-altitude dangers.
Alone in Antarctica. Along with jigsaw ice fields & scouring winds, Aston grappled with solitude & self-doubt on her ground-breaking ski trip across Antarctica. 1st woman to complete the solo journey. Account of her frigid voyage is a bracingly honest, looks at the grind of adventure, physical exhaustion & fear.
A Visit to Don Otavio. Toting a traveling case stocked with cocktail glasses, a writing board, a pepper grinder, British traveler Sybille Bedford escaped the confines of New York for a rambling trip through Mexico. Preferring serendipity, she wandered the country on local buses, encountered remarkable hospitality in Don Otavio’s hacienda by Lake Chapala.
Rough Magic. At the starting line of 620 mile Mongolian Derby, Lara Prior-Palmer was blithely unprepared for the challenges she’d find on the steppe. She won anyway. Her book about an iconic horse race blends humour with a sense of enchantment & wildness.
Tracks. 4 camels & a dog named Diggity followed Robyn Davidson from the edge of Alice Springs to cross Australia on foot. She re-counts time spent in the outback. Meditates on the power of solitude & Aboriginal knowledge.
Incredibly inspiring, courageous & passionate writers.