David Roberts

Chris Priestley

During a visit to his eccentric Uncle Montague to hear several grisly tales behind the unique artifacts in his collection, Edgar discovers the truth about his uncle's past.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror

Alex Honnold

Including two new chapters on Alex Honnold's free solo ascent of the iconic 3,000-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

Alone on the Wall

Describes the epic journey undertaken by Douglas Mawson, who suffered starvation, the loss of his team, and a crippling foot injury as he resorted to crawling back to base camp during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1913.

Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration

Ed Viesturs

The deadly history of the world's most-dangerous mountain illuminates the many lessons both climbers and non-climbers alike can glean from K2, the aptly named Savage Mountain.

Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks

No Shortcuts to the Top

Traces the extraordinary life of the early 20th-century adventurer, writer and watercolor artist, describing his early years as a child prodigy, his solitary journeys through the American Southwest and his mysterious 1934 disappearance in Navajo country. 60,000 first printing.

The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer

Finding Everett Ruess

Famed adventure writer David Roberts re-creates the extraordinary 1,700-mile journey of the eighteenth- century Domínguez-Escalante scouting expedition. In late July 1776, fathers Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Francisco Vélez de Escalante set out from Santa Fe to chart a route to the new Spanish missions in California. The Fransiscans planned to scout the country for mineral wealth and locate the Ute and Navajo tribes for conversion. In present- day Utah, however, the dangers of starvation and hypothermia forced them to turn back. By November the friars were reduced to survival mode: stymied by the raging Colorado River, they had to kill their horses for food. At last they succeeded in fording the river at a place later known as "Crossing of the Fathers." In this adventure- history, David Roberts travels the Spaniards' forgotten route, using Escalante's first- person report as his guide. Blending personal and historical narrative, he relives the glories, catastrophes, and courage of this desperate journey.

On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest

Escalante's Dream

A veteran mountaineer recalls some of his most harrowing and dangerous climbs as he pursues the goal of reaching the summit of the world's fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, detailing his dedication to the philosophy that "getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory" while discussing some of his own close calls, rescues, and errors in judgment on the part of fellow climbers. 75,000 first printing.

An exuberant, hands-on fly-on-the-wall account that combines the thrill of canyoneering and rock climbing with the intellectual sleuthing of archaeology to explore the Anasazi. David Roberts describes the culture of the Anasazi—the name means “enemy ancestors” in Navajo—who once inhabited the Colorado Plateau and whose modern descendants are the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Archaeologists, Roberts writes, have been puzzling over the Anasazi for more than a century, trying to determine the environmental and cultural stresses that caused their society to collapse 700 years ago. He guides us through controversies in the historical record, among them the haunting question of whether the Anasazi committed acts of cannibalism. Roberts’s book is full of up-to-date thinking on the culture of the ancient people who lived in the harsh desert country of the Southwest.

In Search of the Old Ones

An award-winning author and veteran mountain climber takes us deep into the Southwest backcountry to uncover secrets of its ancient inhabitants.

Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest

The Lost World of the Old Ones

By the time David Roberts turned twenty-two, he had been involved in three fatal mountain climbing accidents and had himself escaped death by the sheerest of luck. At age eighteen, Roberts witnessed the death of his first climbing partner in Boulder, Colorado. A few years later, he was the first on the scene of a fatal accident on Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Months afterward, while pioneering a new route in Alaska with the Harvard Mountaineering Club, Roberts watched as his climbing partner and friend fell wordlessly 4,000 feet to a glacier below. Despite these tragedies, Roberts insists that the greatest pleasures in his life have come in the mountains. Several of his challenging routes in Alaska have never been climbed again in the nearly forty years since those first ascents. Roberts continues to climb today, and like all climbers, he still grapples with the cost-benefit calculus of his sport. In a well-known essay that he wrote twenty-five years ago, "Moments of Doubt," Roberts insisted that the benefits of climbing were "worth it." More recently, however, he has gone back to interview relatives and friends of some of his deceased climbing partners. He discovered that even decades later, the wounds had failed to heal, the terrible losses were still acutely felt. And so in this book he comes to a different conclusion about climbing, one that is sure to stir controversy in mountaineering circles and among adventurers generally. Anyone who has ever wondered why mountaineers take the risks that they do will be moved and enlightened by On the Ridge Between Life and Death, as will anyone who appreciates vivid, dramatic storytelling and an unflinchingly honest self-examination of a lifetime spent pursuing a dangerous pastime.

A Climbing Life Reexamined

On the Ridge Between Life and Death

Shipwrecked for Six Years at the Top of the World

Four Against the Arctic

Into the Great Emptiness - Peril and Survival on the Greenland Ice Cap

A Human History of America's Most Endangered Wilderness

Bears Ears

Andrea Beaty

Ada Twist and the Disappearing Dogs: (the Questioneers Book #5)

A profile of the forefront mountaineer describes his Harvard education, efforts to revolutionize mountaineering and mountain photography, and daring explorations in Alaska and the Yukon, a three-month journey during which he traced what was then North America's largest unexplored region. 25,000 first printing.

The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer

The Last of His Kind

Julia Donaldson

The Troll longs for a goat - but has to make do with fish for supper instead. Meanwhile, Hank Chief and his pirate crew are digging for treasure - but it seems they've sailed to the wrong island. Again. Watch the fun unfold as these two worlds collide in a richly inventive, gloriously comic tale from Julia Donaldson and David Roberts, the creators of the highly acclaimed Tyrannosaurus Drip.

The Troll

One hundred years are chronicled in a collection of travel and adventure writing, from Tom Wolfe's description of Chuck Yeager's historic flight to Jon Krakauer's ill-advised ascent up Devil's Thumb.

The Greatest Adventure Writing of the Twentieth Century

Points Unknown

When Ethan and Cathy fall ill during a storm, their father must leave them to fetch the doctor. . .but they are not alone for long. A sailor comes begging for shelter. So, the children agree to let him sit out the throes of the storm as they listen to his grisly tales. But something about the man puts Ethan on edge, and he is anxious for the storm to blow over, their father to return and the long night to come to an end. Storms whistling through the sails, evil pirates pacing the floorboards, and of course, a haunted ship of ghostly beings. All this and more is waiting to give you goose bumps in an atmospheric and thrilling collection of spooky seafaring tales.

David Roberts

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