Classics in Adventure

If you are looking for a adventure story, close your browser and go to the nearest library. Since the 1980s, globalization and improved transportation have made our world an ever smaller, ever more familiar place. Where once the intrepid explorer could push the boundaries for discovery, now the forces of global trade drive men and machines into the remote reaches of the world, and we are merely tourists in their wake. I doubt the great stories of adventure can be surpassed until we again reach into the frontier of space.

Some of my favorites:

• "The Histories" by Herodotus. Herodotus was the original adventure writer. Part first-hand account, part second hand stories, part history, part folklore, this is what Herodotus heard and saw and theorized as he traveled the known world over 2000 years ago.
• "Kon Tiki" by Thor Heyerdahl. A story of a novel theory about human migration and an adventure of thousands of miles on a balsa raft to help prove it.
• "Wind, Sand, and Stars" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Thoughtful and beautiful writing from a pilot in the days before the FAA. His fetish for planes is on par with any passion a motorcyclist could muster for his bikes.
• "The Worst Journey in the World" by Cherry Apsley-Gerrard. A story about the 1910-1913 British Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott, summed up as "The cleanest way of having a bad time ever devised." If I'm ever cold I think of what they went through and somehow begin to feel not so bad.
• "Farthest North" by Fritjof Nansen. Nansen was truly "the most interesting man in the world" back in his day for his exploits in the Arctic.
• "Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey" by Lawrence and Lorne Blair. This DVD documentary series blew me away. In the 1980s these two brothers traveled through the Indonesian archipelago when many islands hadn't seen white men in 10, 20 or even 200 years. People were open to the outside world through trade and travel, but not yet Westernized.
• "The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst." An everyman saw an around-the-world solo boat race as his way to bring his family out of financial difficulty. He fell behind and made a fateful decision that allowed him to remain in the race, a decision that then ate him away with nothing to reflect on but himself and the vast ocean.

Others I remember less well, but are equally excellent:

• "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" by T.E. Lawrence. The writings of the one and only "Lawrence of Arabia," a British liaison officer to the rebel forces in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks of 1916 to 1918. He was an intelligent and erudite man whose way with words captures both to his surroundings and the culture and lives of his Arab companions. The lessons he learns are good material for any aspiring imperial power to learn from, should they be inclined to support in Middle Eastern insurgency.
• "The Cloud Forest" by Peter Matthiessen. One of the most outstanding South American adventure books. Occurring in the late 50s or early 60s, South America is a wild frontier and Matthiessen is by turns reflective and modestly swashbuckling, relying on shady companions at river outposts, running unconquered rapids with terrified natives, and searching for legendary fossils.
• "The Snow Leopard" by Peter Matthiessen. Less swashbucking and more meditative, Matthiessen does the Himalayas Buddhist-style.
• "Starlight and Storm" by Gaston Rebuffat. If you're interested in books about how the Alps were climbed back in the day, Rebuffat's book is a good one. Maurice Herzog's book "Annapurna" is also worth reading, but somewhat fictionalized. Herzog turned out to have been a bit of a dick on that expedition. Also try Lionel Terray's "Conquistadors of the Useless: From the Alps to Annapurna."
• "Sailing Alone Around the World" by Joshua Slocum. Slocum sailed his self-built boat around the world between 1895 and 1898, becoming the first person to do so single-handed. He's also a fantastic story-teller with a great sense of humor. Scarcely a single page goes by without a cheeky remark.