Recommended Reading

Having been a marina live-aboard for over three years, I know how many would-be sailors dream of bluewater voyages. But with trip logistics and obligations in the way, even the most dialed boaters rarely leave port. Against the odds, with a combination of good fortune, bartending shifts, and more than a year of hard boat prep, Liz Clark cast off from Santa Barbara in her early 20s and she’s been sailing and surfing the world ever since. Over a decade and 20,000 nautical miles later, Captain Clark brings us Swell, a memoir named after her beloved 1966 Cal-40. It’s a life seemingly so charmed it scarcely seems real, but Clark shares both sunshine and grime, from remote tropical islands and a surf sisterhood to broken-down engines and relationships both damaging and generous. With enchanting illustrations and photos, Swell offers an open-hearted exploration of how to stay aloft from one safe anchorage to the next, navigating the unknown terrain in between.

Nicknamed the Swiss Machine, Ueli Steck was a two-time recipient of the Piolet d’Or (the “Oscar of mountaineering”) who set speed records on each of the three most difficult north faces of the Alps and summited Annapurna’s south face in 28 hours. For fun, he climbed all 82 4,000-meter peaks in the Alps within 62 days, paragliding and bicycling in between. When he died in 2017 at the age of 40 on a training climb, friends and fans the world over grieved the loss of their ever-grinning and ever-moving hero. To the media he had seemed an alpine god, born to winged greatness. But before the speed records and fame, he was a hard-working carpenter, the third son of a coppersmith father in the rural Emmental valley. His only book to be translated into English, Ueli Steck: My Life in Climbing, is an absorbing memoir of an adventurer far more determined than talented, who left an indelible bear-hug imprint on mountain culture. Afterword by Steve House.

The Stowaway starts in 1928 with 18-year-old Billy Gawronski, a first-generation New Yorker from a Polish Catholic family, jumping into the Hudson River at night as he tries to sneak aboard Admiral Richard Byrd’s ship. The Eleanor Bolle is bound for Antarctica and the South Pole—the most sought-after final frontier at the time, and certainly a hell of a lot more exciting than the Gawronski family upholstery business. The backdrop is Jazz Age America—think Rockefellers, flappers, and early years of The Explorers Club—when the U.S. careened forward with heady optimism. Using original Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times expedition footage and historical photos, documentary filmmaker Shapiro weaves a downright plucky true tale of polar fever. Beneath the romance, though, is a thoughtful take on an age-old question: Just what is it that emboldens some to knock down barriers in order to chase a dream? The Stowaway is a well-researched and entertaining coming-of-age story of a boy, a country, and an era of exploration.