Books in 140 Seconds: Blind Descent

By , on April 21st, 2011

We’ve been spoiled with a deluge of video recos at the KIRBC this month for Keep Toronto Reading, but we’re not neglecting our standard fare either, and we’ve got our regularly scheduled Books in 140 Seconds for you today. Two weeks ago we talked about The 100-Mile Diet, which nicely tied into the “Let Books Transform You” theme of KTR2011. This week we’re talking about a book that will transform the way you think about the ground beneath your feet and about the limits of human endurance. You also might start seeing mountaineers as sissies compared to spelunkers. Get a load of the awesome adventure of James Tabor’s Blind Descent:

[For more on this book, check out my less yelly, regular review.]

Up next week: Books in 140 Seconds returns to Jessica Grant, this time with a discussion of her short story collection, Making Light of Tragedy. (If you’d like a reason to read along, check out my review and go pick it up!)

Filed under: Books in 140 Seconds | Tags: , , , , , , | One comment

Blind Descent, by James Tabor

By , on August 23rd, 2010

In 1914, famous explorer Ernest Shackleton placed an ad in London newspapers. It read:

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success.”

In Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth, James Tabor compares this vintage ad to the one more suited for today’s extreme cavers:

“Participants wanted for journey to the center of the earth. No wages, constant wet, cold, and darkness. Weeks underground. Safe return doubtful. (Honor and recognition equally so.)”

And these casually enumerated conditions are only the beginning of the challenges facing those willing to crawl, climb, rappel, dig, and dive their way up to two miles beneath the earth’s surface. These veteran divers and climbers spend weeks in complete darkness, using light only when absolutely necessary. They’re often wet, soaked by underground rivers and magnificent waterfalls, with little hope of drying out. They transport heavy equipment, fuelled only by freeze-dried food and chocolate bars,  shedding up to 25 pounds on one expedition. All of this in the name of exploring earth’s final frontier.

Tabor’s book serves as a good introduction to supercaving (likened to climbing a mountain in reverse . . [...]

Filed under: JK's Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 comments

Beyond the Horizon, by Colin Angus

By , on March 15th, 2009

I recently agonized that I thought my TTC reading was causing me to fly through books as I travelled across the city, and while that may cause problems for the Jane Urqhart novel I’ll be starting tomorrow morning, I finished last week’s commute with a book it was okay to race through on my long journey home – one about a man on a longer race for home – the race to achieve the first human-powered circumnavigation of the planet.

I’ve confessed I’m not a motivated non-fiction reader, but crazy Vancouverite Colin Angus had enough motivation for the both of us. In June 2004, Angus left Vancouver on a bicycle (along with his expedition partner Tim Harvey), determined to not only complete a historic feat, but to show the world that if a person can circle the entire planet without generating any carbon emissions, the rest of us can leave the SUV in the driveway when we need a carton of milk.

The journey that follows defies imagination. After the bike ride to Alaska, Colin and Tim row (yes, not sail, just PADDLE) across the Bering Straight in a converted sailboat. And this precarious voyage is only the beginning.What follows includes a [...]

Related Posts with Thumbnails
Filed under: JK's Reviews | Tags: , , , , | 6 comments
 
  Older Entries »