The subtitle of this book says it all: 76 Days Lost at Sea. A gripping tale of survival, complete with illustrations drawn by the author.

Once the author ditches his KGB escort, he bicycles across the endless rural landscape of Siberia, painting a portrait of the harsh life many in the USSR faced near the end of communism.

Out to prove that his theory of human migration to the South Pacific Islands is possible, Thor Heyerdahl and 5 crew members build a balsa raft in Peru and submit themselves to the currents of the Pacific Ocean.

A young woman attempts to travel alone across the jungles of Papua New Guinea, encountering warlords and cannibal tribes in one of the wildest jungles on the planet.

Kira Salak is at it again, this time in Africa where she kayaks the Niger river, retracing the steps of Mungo Park's fatal expedition.

Jon Krakauer's tragic tale hooks you with one paragraph: "Straddling the top of the world, one foot in Tibet and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently at the vast sweep of earth below. ...Now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care. "

A modern re-creation of Henry Stanley's trip down the Congo river, author Jeffrey Tayler encounters a river that is still just as raw and untamed. It's the kind of trip during which you find yourself, even if you don't know where you are.

The author returns to Yemen to recover his writing journals, which were lost when he was ship wrecked in the Red Sea. A rare look inside this often forgotten country.

The learning curve is steep when your first real hike is the entire Appalachian Trail. Bill Bryson manages to survive, telling a hilarious story along the way.