Ninety Degrees North

In the mid-19th century, the North Pole was a mystery. Explorers who tried to penetrate the icy wastes failed or died. After Sir John Franklin disappeared with all his men in 1845, serious efforts began to be made to find the true Northernmost point. This is a vivid and witty history of the disasters that ensued.

The author of Barrow’s Boys offers a fascinating look at the exploration of the Arctic in the nineteenth century. Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, the Seattle Times, Publishers Weekly, and Time In the nineteenth century, theories about the North Pole ran rampant. Was it an open sea? Was it a portal to new worlds within the globe? Or was it just a wilderness of ice? When Sir John Franklin disappeared in the Arctic in 1845, explorers decided it was time to find out. In scintillating detail, Ninety Degrees North tells of the vying governments (including the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Austria-Hungary) and fantastic eccentrics (from Swedish balloonists to Italian aristocrats) who, despite their heroic failures, often achieved massive celebrity as they battled shipwreck, starvation, and sickness to reach the top of the world. Drawing on unpublished archives and long-forgotten journals, Fergus Fleming recounts this riveting saga of humankind’s search for the ultimate goal with consummate craftsmanship and wit. “Barely a page goes by without the loss of a crew member or a body part . . . Fleming [is] a marvelous teller of tales—and a superb thumbnail biographer.” —The Observer “A fable of men driven to extremes by the lust for knowledge as epic as a Greek myth.” —Time

Tiring of the company of junkies and burn-outs, Thomas Skelton goes home to Key West to take up a more wholesome life. But things fester in America's utter South. And Skelton's plans to become a skiff guide in the shining blue subtropical waters place him on a collision course with Nichol Dance, who has risen to the crest of the profession by dint of infallible instincts and a reputation for homicide. Out of their deadly rivalry, Thomas McGuane has constructed a novel with the impetus of a thriller and the heartbroken humor that is his distinct contribution to American prose. "Full of surprises and rewards and an exhilaration one feels only rarely." Newsweek on Ninety-Two in the Shade.

A “dramatic and masterful” account of early alpine explorers and the challenges they faced to scale the summits (Anthony Brandt, National Geographic Adventure). In a riveting narrative of daredevils and eccentrics, Fergus Fleming gives us the breathtaking story of some of history’s greatest explorers as they conquer the soaring peaks of the Alps. Fleming recounts the incredible exploits of the men whose centuries-old fear of the mountain range turned quickly to curiosity, then to obsession, as they explored Europe’s frozen wilderness. In the late eighteenth century, French and Swiss scientists became interested in the Alps as a research destination, but in the 1850s the focus changed: the icy mountains now offered an all-out competition for British climbers who wanted to conquer ever higher and more impossible heights, and explorers fought each other on the peaks and in the press, entertaining a vast public smitten with their bravery, delighted by their personal animosities, and horrified by the disasters that befell them. “Fleming attacks his theme with verve, mining entertainment from eccentric Alpinists, sensational ascents and grisly accidents.” —Food and Travel Magazine

IS THERE A MAP OF 12,000 YEAR-OLD CITIES, OR A MAYAN STYLE CALENDAR OF THE END OF DAYS In the most CONTROVERSIAL BOOK OF ALL TIME? YES, THERE IS! NOW you, too, will know...THE ULTIMATE ANSWER! The Mayan Calendar called it Blackened Earth; the ancient texts called it...Armageddon! So many have died...the brutal murders in France, the torture of a young Testari mother, has it been for nothing after 6000 years? The sacrifices have been too great; too many of the great minds have been lost while the true Guardians of Knowledge have protected the ultimate truth. Will they succeed before the Nahasha find them?

On 17 April 2007, Sharifah Mazlina became Malaysia's first woman to reach the North Pole and effectively became the first Asian woman to reach both North and South Poles. This 9 1/2 day expedition covered a distance of 110km form the last degree (89 degree N) till the North Pole. This is the account of her second journey into the ice.

Describes a series of nineteenth-century British expeditions into Africa, the Arctic, and Antarctica, chronicling the adventures of explorers who ventured into some of the most perilous unknown regions of the world.