The Only Kayak
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The Only Kayak
Winner of the 2020 National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Classic! In this coming-of-middle-age memoir, Kim Heacox, writing in the tradition of Abbey, McPhee, and Thoreau, discovers an Alaska reborn from beneath a massive glacier, where flowers emerge from boulders, moose swim fjords, and bears cross crevasses with Homeric resolve. In such a place Heacox finds that people are reborn too, and their lives begin anew with incredible journeys, epiphanies, and successes. All in an America free of crass commercialism and overdevelopment. Braided through the larger story are tales of gold prospectors and the cabin they built sixty years ago; John Muir and his intrepid terrier, Stickeen; and a dynamic geology professor who teaches earth science "as if every day were a geological epoch." Nearly two million people come to Alaska every summer, some on large cruise ships, some in single kayaks--all in search of the last great wilderness, the Africa of America. It is exactly the America Heacox finds in this story of paradox, love, and loss.
Fearless
Like the instant classic The Last American Man, Fearless is the story of a remarkable individual who accepts no personal limits—including fear. Freya Hoffmeister, a forty-six-year-old former sky diver, gymnast, marksman, and Miss Germany contestant, left her twelve-year-old son behind to paddle alone and unsupported around Australia—a year-long adventure that virtually every expert guaranteed would get her killed. She planned not only to survive the 9,420-mile trip through huge, shark-infested seas, but to do it faster than the only other paddler who did it. As journalist and expert kayaker Joe Glickman details the voyage of this Teutonic force of nature, he captures interminable days on the water and nights camped out on deserted islands; hair-raising encounters with crocs and great white sharks; and the daring 300-mile open-ocean crossing that shaved three weeks off her trip. For 332 days Glickman followed Freya’s journey on her blog—along with a far-flung audience of awestruck, even lovesick, groupies—as she took on one terrifying ordeal after the next. In the end, he says, “her vanity and pigheadedness paled next to her nearly superhuman ability to master fear and persevere.”
On Celtic Tides
“Duff’s fascinating account of his twelve hundred-mile journey around the Irish coast . . . is a story of discovery, of courage and perseverance, and life.” —Irish Voice A sea kayak battles the freezing Irish waters as the morning sun rises out of the countryside. On the western horizon is the pinnacle of Skellig Michael—700 feet of vertical rock rising out of exploding seas. Somewhere on the isolated island are sixth-century monastic ruins where the light of civilization was kept burning during the Dark Ages by early Christian Irish monks. Puffins surface a few yards from the boat, as hundreds of gannets wheel overhead on six foot wing spans. The ocean rises violently and tosses paddler and boat as if they were discarded flotsam. This is just one day of Chris Duff’s incredible three-month journey. “I recommend you take a ride at wave level with Chris Duff as he fights his way through ferocious seas, then brings you closer to a truly enchanted isle.” —David Hays, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller My Old Man and the Sea “His attention to detail and the vividness of his descriptions place the reader in the kayak with him. We feel the heaviness of the dense fog, each violent wave, the aching muscles as he gingerly navigates the treacherous water, and the warmth of the morning sun as it beckons further travel. Best of all, he offers us a peek into the hearts of the Irish people.” —The Oakland Press “Here is a fine, old-fashioned travelogue. Duff sallies forth and returns with a magical story for those left behind.” —Kirkus Reviews