The New Age of Adventure : Ten Years of Great Writing

National Geographic Adventure has published the best work by today’s finest writers, and this tenth anniversary anthology assembles an elite corps of authors that includes Sebastian Junger, Peter Matthiessen, Philip Caputo, and two dozen others. These reporters have voyaged to the ends of the earth to bring back the decade’s most thrilling, eccentric, and extraordinary tales. But the pieces collected here do more than paint a portrait of the world’s most extreme and fascinating environments—they also explore important questions about adventure in the 21st century. These stories rocket readers across the roof of the world on the new high-speed railway in Tibet, describe the tension between Indian farmers and the sacred elephants besieging their villages, and introduce them to a shaman whom some believe can cure the most serious depressions. We meet the great Afghan warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud—said to have been the finest guerrilla fighter since Ho Chi Minh—encounter a yeti with legendary mountaineer Reinhold Messner, and much more. This is a wide-ranging collection for every road warrior and adventurer—armchair or otherwise—culled from the much acclaimed journal that in its first ten years has won millions of devoted readers and garnered more than a dozen prestigious prizes for excellence in journalism. Reporting from the edge. The lion in winter / Sebastian Junger Dangerous medicine / Tom Clynes Land of the lost / Laurance Gonzales What happened to Everett Ruess / David Roberts Off the face of the earth / Peter Lane Taylor The legend of Heavy D & the Boys / Robert Young Pelton Sexy beasts. Among the man eaters / Philip Caputo Stomping grounds / Paul Kvitna The whale warriors / Peter Heller Places of darkness / Kira Salak Emperors at the end of the earth / Peter Matthiessen Personal journeys. Coming of age at Band-i-Amin / Scott Anderson The prisoner of Hill 52 / Philip Caputo Colter's way / Sebastian Junger River jumps over the mountain / David Quammen Hell and Back / Kira Salak Storming the Islands of Fire and Ice / John Bowermaster The Moonbow Chronicles / Tim Cahill The outer limits : the vanishing breed / Gretel Ehrlich The lure of impossible places / Tim Cahill Out of thin air / David Roberts Thirteen ways of looking at a void / Mike Frankel Being the boatman / Charlie Graber The last Cairn / Chip Brown The man who walked through time / Michael Shnayerson. A portrait of the world's most extreme and fascinating environments and an exploration of important questions about adventure in the 21st century.