Searching for Reality through Adventure

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7 books

Life is a never-ending journey of learning, of revelation. It is built into human’s DNA to explore, to discover. Part of that journey is to reaffirm morals (as separate from defined morals of religions) and certainly pushing boundaries of existence, recovery, and stamina. In fiction one finds possibility. In non-fiction one finds manifest destiny exposed. The commonality is a desire to understand, to reveal, to expose truth. Truth is always stranger – and more intoxicating – that fiction, even as fiction may light the future path of reality.

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American to the Backbone

Christopher L Webber, 2011

This is a book about possibility when there was none. Born a slave, the desire within Pennington even as a teen, drove him to escape slavery and then experience the best and worst the world had to offer. Adversity, experience, intelligence, learning – all these hurdles were placed before him and, despite stumbles (some his, others put upon him) he prevailed. At a time in the world when slavery was a norm, here rose an explorer in the truest sense, determined to expand his vista.

Within Our Grasp

Childhood Malnutrition Worldwide and the Revolution Taking Place to End It

Sharman Apt Russell, 2021

Knowing something and then experiencing reality are different. This is the journey of an author determined to see, experience, for herself (and her husband, in tow) the reality of hunger in parts of Africa. As a journey of exploration it was brave. As a journey of exploration it was life-affirming (rather than depressing). As an exploration of hope, it was scientifically revealing and bred determination in those who have learned of her discoveries. All the best exploration leads to change.

American Courage

Remarkable True Stories Exhibiting the Bravery That Has Made Our Country Great

W. Herbert Warden, 2009

America is the land of opportunity precisely because those who came here, those that prevailed, and those that share those early dreams, all also share their DNA. Nowhere has there been a more apparent demonstration of exploration, to go beyond, than in American history in the past 400 years. The author did not re-write history, he captured the original letters and documents, allowing true accounts of boundless feats, fortitude, and bravery to expose the true nature of the foundation of America. The desire, clearly chronicled in these pages, is to survive because one pushes boundaries. That is, in essence, true exploration.

At the Edge of Space

The X-15 Flight Program

Milton O. Thompson, 2013

The bravery of explorers is often masked by a routine, driven by safety… a bravery that is allowed to reclassified as “daring-do” or “the right stuff.” Nothing could be further from the truth. In this work, largely technical but always accurate, the picture puzzle of why these men undertook the most dangerous and never-before-attempted fights to the edge of space at a time when it was unknown if the human body could survive weightlessness, reduced gravity, even thought. Technical marvels revealed never hide the tremendous, known and accepted, risks these men took even venturing so high – let alone at speeds never before attempted.

Sightseeing

A Space Panorama : 84 Photographs from the NASA Archives

Barbara Hitchcock, 1985

Arthur C. Clarke explains the need for this book of never-before-seen hand-held images taken in space, succinctly: “Only twice in the history of mankind has a new window opened on the universe, to reveal new worlds beyond all previous imagination…. As past history has shown, Nature is infinitely surprising; we can be sure that she has, as yet, revealed only a fraction of her wonders.” The purpose of the book was to depict the human interaction with those wonders and share them with the world, all of them for the first time in 1985. Armchair exploration it may be for readers, but that germ of curiosity and personal wonder is a first step to action.

River Without a Cause

An Expedition through the Past, Present and Future of Theodore Roosevelt's River of Doubt

Sam Moses, 2024

Exploration without learning, without end cause & effect, is like a tree falling in the forest. If no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound at all? Sam Moses explores the real reasons for Teddy Roosevelt’s expedition down a tributary of the Amazon, the finds, the trials, the uniqueness of the time and possibility and then, making sure the sound can forever be heard, repeats the adventure himself and then follows up the exploration tributaries to reveal the true enduring reason for the exploration in the first place. Exciting? Always. Factual? Certainly. Perception changing? Like all true exploration that’s a demanded outcome.

Mind in the Waters

A Book to Celebrate the Consciousness of Whales and Dolphins

Joan McIntyre, 1974

Every person I have ever shared this book with, or have allowed to read my copy, has immediately wanted to interface, share space with, communicate with whales and dolphins. An anthology of true scientific and observational research, the book takes the reader on a journey of wonderous discovery akin to the very first wanna-be settlers being shown a map of America. Can such a place really exist, can such creatures truly behave that way? How can our understanding, to date, be so wrong? This opening vista for exploration and new experience is shown as (honestly) vast.