Expeditions, Disasters, And Adventures Recommended Books and Bestsellers

This week, to celebrate Columbus Day, LibriVox volunteers bring you six recordings of <i>Columbus</i> by Joaquin Miller. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of October 8th, 2006.

A non-fictional account of Burke and Wills's 1860 expedition to cross the Australian continent from south to north and then return. Containing many excerpts from the diaries and accounts of the explorers, this book was published the year after the expedition met its disastrous end. More information at Wikipedia: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Wills_expedition ">Burke and Wills Expedition</a>. (description written by trioptimum)

3How I Found Livingstone

By Henry Morton Stanley

Sir Henry Morton Stanley is famously quoted for saying "Dr Livingstone, i Presume?". Born in Wales, he migrated over to the United States at the age of 18, he eventually became an overseas correspondent for the New York Herald. In 1869 Stanley was told by James Gordon Bennett Jr to find Livingstone, a Scottish missionary and explorer. When Stanley commented on the cost Bennett's reply was:<br /><br /> <em>"Well, I will tell you what you will do. Draw a thousand pounds now; and when you have gone through that, draw another thousand, and when that is spent, draw another thousand, and when you have finished that, draw another thousand, and so on; but, FIND LIVINGSTONE."</em><br /><br /> How I Found Livingstone is Stanley's personnel account of his trip from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika on this quest, including time spent exploring the area with Livingstone.<br />- Written by Lizzie Driver (Modified from Wikipedia)

4South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917

By Ernest Shackleton

Shackleton's most famous expedition was planned to be an attempt to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea south of the Atlantic to the Ross Sea south of the Pacific, by way of the Pole. It set out from London on 1 August 1914 and reached the Weddell Sea on January 10, 1915, where the pack ice closed in on the <i>Endurance</i>. The ship was broken by the ice on 27 October 1915. The 28 crew members managed to flee to Elephant Island, bringing three small boats with them. Shackleton and five other men managed to reach the southern coast of South Georgia in one of the small boats (in a real epic journey). Shackleton managed to rescue all of the stranded crew from Elephant Island without loss in the Chilean's navy seagoing steam tug <i>Yelcho</i>, on August 30, 1916, in the middle of the Antarctic winter. (Summary from Wikipedia)<br /><br /> As the last section of this project we include a short original recording by Ernest Shackleton about his 1907 "Nimrod" expedition.

5Fast in the Ice

By R. M. Ballantyne

At the age of 16 Ballantyne went to Canada and was six years in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. His rule in writing, being in every case, was to write as far as possible from personal knowledge of the scenes he described.</p><p>In this book he details the lives of the crew as they must overwinter in the frozen north including their meetings with Eskimos and bears and their struggles with disease. This is a realistic account of what life was like for the explorers of the Arctic. (summary by Esther, adapted from Wikipedia)

6South Pole; an account of the Norwegian Antarctic expedition in the Fram, 1910-12

By Roald Amundsen

In contrast to Scott's South Pole expedition, Amundsen's expedition benefited from good equipment, appropriate clothing, and a fundamentally different primary task (Amundsen did no surveying on his route south and is known to have taken only two photographs). Amundsen had a better understanding of dogs and their handling, and he used of skis more effectively. He pioneered an entirely new route to the Pole, and they returned. In Amundsen's own words: "Victory awaits him who has everything in order -- luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck." Short accounts by other members of the party are appended. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Karen Merline.)

7Journals of Robert Falcon Scott; Vol 1 of 'Scott's Last Expedition'

By Leonard Huxley and Robert Falcon Scott

Capt. Robert F. Scott's bid to be the leader of the first expedition to reach the South Pole is one of the most famous journeys of all time. What started as a scientific expedition turned out to be an unwilling race against a team lead by R. Admunsen to reach the Pole. The Norwegian flag already stood at the end of the trail when Scott's party reached their target. All the five men of the Scott expedition who took part in the last march to the Pole perished on their way back to safety.<br><br> Robert F. Scott kept a journal throughout the journey, all the way to the tragic end, documenting all aspects of the expedition. The famous last words of the journal were: 'It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake look after our people.'<br> (Summary by Illiterati)

Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship "Fram", 1893-96 and of a Fifteen Months' Sleigh Journey by Dr. Nansen and Lieut. Johansen / by Fridtjof Nansen ; with an Appendix by Otto Sverdrup (Summary by Fridtjof Nansen)

9Through the Brazilian Wilderness

By Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt's popular book Through the Brazilian Wilderness describes his expedition into the Brazilian jungle in 1913 as a member of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition co-named after its leader, Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. The book describes all of the scientific discovery, scenic tropical vistas and exotic flora, fauna and wild life experienced on the expedition. One goal of the expedition was to find the headwaters of the Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and trace it north to the Madeira and thence to the Amazon River. It was later renamed Rio Roosevel. Roosevelt's crew consisted of his 24-year-old son Kermit, Colonel Cândido Rondon, a naturalist sent by the American Museum of Natural History named George K. Cherrie, Brazilian Lieutenant Joao Lyra, team physician Dr. José Antonio Cajazeira, and sixteen highly skilled paddlers (called <i>camaradas</i> in Portuguese). The initial expedition started on December 9, 1913, at the height of the rainy season. The trip down the River of Doubt started on February 27, 1914.<br/><br/> During the trip down the river, Roosevelt contracted malaria and a serious infection resulting from a minor leg wound. These illnesses so weakened Roosevelt that, by six weeks into the expedition, he had to be attended day and night by the expedition's physician, Dr. Cajazeira, and his son, Kermit. By this time, Roosevelt considered his own condition a threat to the survival of the others. At one point, Kermit had to talk him out of his wish to be left behind so as not to slow down the expedition, now with only a few weeks rations left. Roosevelt was having chest pains when he tried to walk, his temperature soared to 103 °F (39 °C), and at times he was delirious. He had lost over fifty pounds (20 kg). Without the constant support of his son, Kermit, Dr. Cajazeira, and the continued leadership of Colonel Rondon, Roosevelt would likely have perished. Despite his concern for Roosevelt, Rondon had been slowing down the pace of the expedition by his dedication to his own map-making and other geographical goals that demanded regular stops to fix the expedition's position via sun-based survey.<br/><br/> Upon his return to New York, friends and family were startled by Roosevelt's physical appearance and fatigue. Roosevelt wrote to a friend that the trip had cut his life short by ten years. He might not have really known just how accurate that analysis would prove to be, because the effects of the South America expedition had so greatly weakened him that they significantly contributed to his declining health. For the rest of his life, he would be plagued by flareups of malaria and leg inflammations so severe that they would require hospitalization.<br/><br/> The racial attitudes reflected in Roosevelt's American history do not seem to carry over into his attitude toward the native Americans he encounters on this trip, although his enthusiastic anticipation of the development of the virgin wilderness he is crossing may be jarring to some contemporary readers. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Karen Merline.)

10Lewis and Clark: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

By William R. Lighton

In the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, two men commanded an expedition which explored the wilderness that stretched from the mouth of the Missouri River to where the Columbia enters the Pacific, and dedicated to civilization a new empire. Their names were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This book relates that adventure from its inception through its completion as well as the effect the expedition had upon the history of the United States. (Summary from the text and Roger Melin)