Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

By Christopher McDougall

When an ultra-running friend gave me the Born to Run audiobook, I thought, Not another running book! Running is trendy, and it seems that new (and often boring) running books pop up like mushrooms. Apart from Dean Karnazes’s excellent Ultramarathon Man, there is only just so much you can read about running without overdosing. And I have nothing against running; it saved my life. I ran my first marathon at 16 and my first ultra at 17 before focusing on mountaineering and world expeditions. I’ve been an extreme endurance athlete my entire life and I’m still a competitive ultra-cyclist in my fifties. But I hate to admit that I didn’t listen to the audiobook. Years later, when I published Dancing with Death, I noticed that Born to Run was always at the top of the many categories in which my book competed, including Extreme Sport, Central American Travel, and Inspirational books. So I started listening to the audiobook.

Oh my. I was hooked! I wanted to slap myself for having dismissed such a brilliant memoir. I even bought the paperback to refer to. Masterfully written by Christopher McDougall, Born to Run takes you for a ride as you enter into not only the world of ultra-runners and endurance athletes but also the beautiful culture of the Tarahumara.

You don’t need to be a runner or running fan to engage with the emotional voyage in this book. Guided by the author’s sensitivity, you’ll journey into the life and culture of one of the last traditional Indigenous communities. Enlightening and inspirational, Born to Run is a MUST READ for all those who appreciate that real-life stories can be much better than any fiction. It’s real, it’s amazing, it’s beautiful. Read it!

Review by Jean-Philippe Soulé

If you like this book, you will also enjoy Dancing with Death and I, Tarzan: Against All Odds.

The Pale-Faced Lie: A True Story

By David Crow

A gripping memoir about a true life based on a lie.

Sometimes real-life stories have more fascinating plots than any fiction, but the narration of factual events alone, even with expertly crafted prose, is often not enough to captivate the reader. This is where many memoirs fail. A successful memoir has to engage the reader emotionally; it should make you feel what the narrator is feeling—you should experience their experience fully. It must be narrated from the heart. This is where the powerful truth of The Pale-Faced Lie excels.

David Crow’s harrowing memoir of the abuse, violence, and deceit that he and his siblings experienced at the hands of their father is riveting (although a neglectful mother with mental illness and a stepmother with a mean streak also had an impact). But what’s more compelling is the depth of Crow’s resilience, his drive to thrive, and his unwavering conviction that forgiveness is the way out of the death grip of a traumatic childhood he wasn’t able to control.

Each page I read linked me deeper into Crow’s life. His writing is so vivid and infused with feeling that I felt like I was living every moment of his early years with him. I often cried, as it felt like he was describing my own life in an entirely different setting, but I laughed even more at his exploits as a kid—he may have been even more mischievous than I was during my bad-boy years. Growing up, Crow pulls out every trick in (and out of) the book to find his freedom from home. He and his younger brother Sam make the perfect bad-boy team. But deep inside, bad boys they are not. They’re just lost boys, without any guidance or purpose, trying to feel alive outside of the family nightmare they are stuck in. By the end of the book, I felt we could have been brothers.

But why is it that some of the toughest childhoods make the best life stories?

Surviving child abuse will always leave behind some trauma, often for life. Some kids will never overcome it. Others feed on that pain and the feeling of worthlessness to grow stronger, vowing to overcome any odds to succeed and never be like their parents. They triumph by living entirely different lives. It is in the toughest moments that we forge the strength and determination to lead our own lives. But we can never forget the past. It’s part of us, of who we are, who we have become, and it often comes back to haunt us for decades. Living in the past can destroy lives, but David Crow shows us the way to find peace.

The Pale-Faced Lie is an incredible story about the resilience of a young boy and his siblings growing up in a poor family rife with violence, abuse, and neglect. A gripping memoir about a true life based on a lie.

Review by Jean-Philippe Soulé

If you like this book, you will also enjoy I, Tarzan: Against All Odds.

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story

By Douglas Preston

Here’s another famous writer joining an expensive sponsored expedition in the name of science. I often feel that real adventurers don’t get enough of the spotlight; instead, we’re served dull (and often fake) epic adventures just because they’re backed by huge funds and a celebrity.

I probably wouldn’t have read The Lost City of the Monkey God if it weren’t for my Canadian friend and cartographer Derek Parent, who was a consultant on the book and advisor for my own expedition. He highly recommended I read it, and I’m so pleased I did.

Of course, you’d expect beautiful prose from acclaimed writer Douglas Preston. What I didn’t expect was that he would take me on an emotional voyage and make me re-live the nine months I spent exploring the Honduran jungle of La Moskitia sixteen years before him as part of a three-year expedition I narrated in my award-winning adventure-travel memoir Dancing with Death.

The author isn’t only good with words, he has a genuine explorer-adventurer spirit that infuses his writing. Where I describe the beauty of the local Pech culture, Preston’s tale will give you goosebumps about all the dangers of the rainforest they inhabit. A superbly crafted narration, more gripping and epic than Indiana Jones and Lara Croft’s adventures combined, for this is all real. In an era when we thought there was no exploration and discovery left to be experienced, The Lost City of the Monkey God proves us wrong.

Preston will make you live as if you were an explorer on the team, discovering one of the last world wonders from an ancient civilization and suffering all its consequences. Exploration and Adventure, Ancient Culture, Science, Endless Dangers, and a masterly crafted tale make this an epic read you won’t be able to put down. Be warned, though: If you ever thought about visiting the Honduran jungle, this book might make even the most optimistic adventurer think twice. Yet you can’t travel to any tropical destination without reading it. An essential MUST READ! I think that The Lost City of the Monkey God and Dancing with Death were meant to be read as a pair

Review by Jean-Philippe Soulé

If you like this book, you will also enjoy Dancing with Death and I, Tarzan: Against All Odds.

Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

By Joe Simpson

There is no traveling without getting lost. There is no adventure without taking risks. There is no mountaineering without danger.

Until the early twentieth century, expeditions were mostly driven by the discovery of the last unreached regions of the planet, particularly the North and South Poles. This led to incredible sea adventures along the lines of Shackleton’s expeditions. After the entire planet was mapped and claimed, adventurers raced toward unclimbed mountaintops. Mountaineering adventures became the modern-day explorations: Annapurna, Everest, K2, and all the mountains and climbing routes that remained to be named and conquered. Many expeditions had their tragic moments, but very few were penned by those who had made it through their harrowing experiences. Joe Simpson is one such survivor, taking you on a journey of discovery far beyond the stunning mountains of the Peruvian Andes.

You will live every moment as if you were the one left for dead with broken bones and no way out of the bottom of that crevice. The physical pain will resonate in all your cells. You will fight your greatest fear, touch the void, and face your own mortality, discovering the phenomenal power of the human spirit within you. When you understand what it means to be alive, you will transform. More than a mountaineering book, Touching the Void is an epitaph to life. Joe Simpson died on that mountain, for he was reborn a new man. A gut-wrenching inspirational read not only for adventurers.

Review by Jean-Philippe Soulé

If you like this book, you will also enjoy Dancing with Death and I, Tarzan: Against All Odds.

Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration

By David Roberts

If you like books about epic expeditions, along the lines of Shackleton's Endurance, when the grand explorers of the early twentieth century had yet to reach the most remote regions of the world—books filled with more danger than fiction authors could imagine for a plot—tales of endless grit and survival—then you’ll love Alone on the Ice.

Combining his mountaineering expertise with his writing talent, author David Roberts brings you along with Douglas Mawson and his entire crew on the most incredible polar expedition, a complex story that involves sub-stories about other explorers and expeditions. (Mawson was a crew member on one of Shackleton’s early expeditions who almost reached the South Pole.) Unpacking the details takes a little time, but once you get acquainted with all these incredible people, you won’t put the book down. We modern adventure-seekers have a lot to learn from these pioneers.

Review by Jean-Philippe Soulé

If you like this book, you will also enjoy Dancing with Death and I, Tarzan: Against All Odds.

Annapurna: The First Conquest of an 8,000-Meter Peak

By Maurice Herzog

Without Annapurna, I would have never climbed a mountain. It not only inspired my childhood but all the mountaineers who followed in author Maurice Herzog’s footsteps. Herzog was also a captain of the 27th BCA during World War II, the mountain battalion where I served as a Special Forces Mountain Commando in the 1980s—but that’s not why I picked this book. I can’t think of a better way to describe it than to quote my own memoir, I, Tarzan: Against All Odds:

“It was a time before the modern mountaineering climbs masterfully described by Jon Krakauer and Joe Simpson. It was a time when Heinrich Harrer’s books were not yet translated into French. It was a time when large-scale commercial climbing had not yet become the norm. It was a time when mountaineering defined the essence of adventure. I couldn’t stop reading about it [mountaineering]. Even though I never had the chance to climb, I was climbing daily in my imaginary world.”

Annapurna isn’t only about mountaineering and grand adventures. It’s a beautiful book about the human spirit and life and death. It’s a story that transcends time without ever aging. Annapurna was one of the first mountaineering books (along with Roger Frison-Roche’s First on the Rope) that inspired my entire life, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Review by Jean-Philippe Soulé

If you like this book, you will also enjoy Dancing with Death and I, Tarzan: Against All Odds.

Into Thin Air

By Jon Krakauer

I long hesitated to include Into Thin Air in a list of recommended Adventure books. Not that it doesn’t fit in—it’s one of my favorites. All adventurers will eat up any of Krakauer’s tales. But Into Thin Air remains on top of the sales charts and doesn’t need any additional publicity and I hesitated with the author’s equally excellent Into the Wild.

But for many, Everest still represents the ultimate adventure. As a kid, I dreamed of climbing Everest, but that dream faded when the top of the world became a commercial venue for rich people who maybe should never attempt the climb in the first place. I set my eyes instead on travels and expeditions to lesser-known places, far from the spotlight, where adventure kept its true meaning. Not to say that climbing Everest isn’t an adventure anymore. It still is, but a commercial one.

Into Thin Air is a perfect example of how money can sponsor wrong decisions. And in many adventures, wrong decisions can be fatal. Even if you’ve never climbed a mountain, and don’t have the desire to, Krakauer is a narration wizard whose words will grip you from the start. You know people will die, and the suspense of who will die when and how is more chilling than any fiction novel, for it’s all too real.

Review by Jean-Philippe Soulé

If you like this book, you will also enjoy Dancing with Death and I, Tarzan: Against All Odds.