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    Limits of the Known
    Limits of the Known
    Limits of the Known
    Audiobook12 hours

    Limits of the Known

    Written by David Roberts

    Narrated by David Chandler

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A celebrated mountaineer and author searches for meaning in great adventures and explorations, past and present. David Roberts, "veteran mountain climber and chronicler of adventures" (Washington Post), has spent his career documenting voyages to the most extreme landscapes on earth. In Limits of the Known, he reflects on humanity's-and his own-relationship to extreme risk. Part memoir and part history, this book tries to make sense of why so many have committed their lives to the desperate pursuit of adventure. In the wake of his diagnosis with throat cancer, Roberts seeks answers with sharp new urgency. He explores his own lifelong commitment to adventuring, as well as the cultural contributions of explorers throughout history: What specific forms of courage and commitment did it take for Fridtjof Nansen to survive an eighteen-month journey from a record "farthest north" with no supplies and a single rifle during his polar expedition of 1893-96? What compelled Eric Shipton to return, five times, to the ridges of Mt. Everest, plotting the mountain's most treacherous territory years before Hillary and Tenzing's famous ascent? What drove Bill Stone to dive 3,000 feet underground into North America's deepest cave? What motivates the explorers we most admire, who are willing to embark on perilous journeys and push the limits of the human body? And what is the future of adventure in a world we have mapped and trodden from end to end?

    Editor's Note

    Short-listed for the 2019 PEN/ESPN Award…

    Spark your spirit of adventure with these gripping stories of dangerous expeditions, fearless explorers, and extraordinary outdoors feats throughout history. Krakauer fans, take note.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 20, 2018
    ISBN9781501990267
    Limits of the Known
    Author

    David Roberts

    David Roberts is a hugely talented and versatile artist and author. David began his career in fashion illustration, and his sharp eye for form and composition is showcased beautifully in his books with Andrea Beaty, which include Ada Twist, Scientist and Iggy Peck, Architect. His work ranges from feisty retellings of fairy tales created in collaboration with his sister, Lyn (Little Red, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel), to his brilliantly funny books with Julia Donaldson such as Tyrannosaurus Drip, The Troll and The Cook and the King. In 2006 he won the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Gold Award for his line drawings in Mouse Noses On Toast, and Little Red was shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. David’s sense of humour shines through in all his work, but especially his illustrations for The Bolds series by Julian Clary and the madcap Dirty Bertie books. Suffragette: The Battle for Equality was David’s first self-authored book and is an exquisitely illustrated history of the women’s suffrage movement, which has been a passion of David’s since his school days.

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    • 4/5
      There are people around that revel in climbing the tallest mountains, seeking out the wildest places and pushing their bodies to extremes. David Roberts was one of those people who was always seeking the next place, another mountain all because he could. He never considered himself a risk-taker though, more of a risk manager, as he knew the absolute limit of what he could achieve and never pushed himself over that line. His outlook on life all changed though with his diagnosis of throat cancer. Gone were the days of scaling the peaks and he had to take time out to be treated and to rest and recuperate.

      The sudden expanse of spare time that he had meant that he could consider whys and wherefores as to why he undertook adventures and also made him think about other people who have sought the perils of extreme travels. These days we are not cut off from civilisation, our technology can pinpoint our exact spot in the globe and we are only a phone call away from help should things become sticky. That said becoming too dependent on it can be lethal. It feels that there are no more blank spaces on the maps anymore; even 100 years ago there were parts of the North American continent that had never had humans walk or climb over them.

      Restricted because of his health, the journeys in this book are literal and historical. Not only does he reminisce on the highlights and the close calls that he had in his own adventures all of the globe, but he writes about adventures that he admires, such as Henry Worsley’s epic walk across Antarctica, Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen who managed to get closer to the North Pole than anyone else before him and British explorer Eric Shipton who was the first to see some of Alaska before it appeared on a map. There are modern adventures in here too, people who have turned away from the much-photographed and mapped surface and headed underground, deep deep underground to discover about those who push their limits right to the limit when cave diving.

      Roberts asks some interesting questions, about the need for humanity to seek the places that have never glimpsed directly by our eyes and what drives these people to do these things. He goes some way to answer them too, by considering his take on adventures and his attitude to risk even after losing climbing partners to falls. This is the first of his books that I have read. I really liked his writing style, detailed and yet concise and will definitely be reading some more of his books.