Here are 42 books that Throwim Way Leg fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve been traveling since age seventeen when I boarded a plane and headed to Europe on my own. Over the next three years I lived in London, took weekend jaunts across the continent, and became completely bitten by the travel bug. Since then, I’ve traveled to more than 95 countries. I’ve lost and gained friends and lovers and made a radical career change so that I could afford my travel addiction. Like my readers, I am an ordinary person. Through travel I’ve learned courage and risk-taking and succeeded at things I didn’t know I could do. My goal in writing is to inspire others to take off and explore the world.
I think of myself as an adventurous traveler, but Dervla Murphy travels in a way that I would never even consider.
So, it’s a pleasure to sit in a comfortable chair and read about places I’ll never visit and people who I’d love to meet, but never will. Murphy writes so vividly I feel as though I am right beside her as she fends off wolves, struggles to drag a bicycle uphill through mountain snow, and shares tea with nomads.
This was her first book and every book that follows is equally compelling.
Braving hunger, heat exhaustion, unbearable terrain and cultures largely untouched by civilization, Dervla Murphy chronicles her determined trip through nine countries, through snow and ice in the mountains and miles of barren land in the scorching desert. Full Tilt is a highly individual account by a celebrated travel writer based on the daily diary Murphy kept while riding through Yugoslavia, Persia, Afghanistan, over the Himalayas to Pakistan and into India. Murphy's charm and gracious sensitivity as a writer and a traveler reveals not only civilizations of exotic people and places but the wonder of a woman alone on an extraordinary…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I started solo travelling as soon as I left school, and since then I’ve spent many years doing so. I came of age while cycling, kayaking, hiking and skiing across distant lands. The bittersweetness of being alone on the road has become a source of constant fascination for me. The on-again-off-again loneliness creates a state of mind where you’re that much more willing to throw yourself in at the deep end, to meet strangers, and to look, listen and learn. At its very best, solo travel writing seamlessly encompasses two journeys: the physical journey in a foreign land, and the psychological journey within the author.
I must have read dozens of books on China but Colin Thubron’s elegiac account comfortably takes the crown. Behind the Wall captures a unique moment in China’s history when foreigners were first allowed to travel around the country but the nation was yet to be influenced by the outside world. Having learnt to speak Mandarin in advance of travelling, the author probes deep into the rural areas and distant desert outposts of a closed communist empire still recovering from the ravages of the Cultural Revolution.
A powerful unforgettable journey through China with one of our greatest travel writers.
'An achievement of great and lasting brilliance' Patrick Leigh Fermor
Having learned Mandarin, and travelling alone by foot, bicycle and train, Colin Thubron set off on a 10,000 mile journey from Beijing to the borders of Burma. He travelled through the wind-swept wastes of the Gobi desert and finished at the far end of the Great Wall.
What Thubron reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome demand, and an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the…
I started solo travelling as soon as I left school, and since then I’ve spent many years doing so. I came of age while cycling, kayaking, hiking and skiing across distant lands. The bittersweetness of being alone on the road has become a source of constant fascination for me. The on-again-off-again loneliness creates a state of mind where you’re that much more willing to throw yourself in at the deep end, to meet strangers, and to look, listen and learn. At its very best, solo travel writing seamlessly encompasses two journeys: the physical journey in a foreign land, and the psychological journey within the author.
This journey is simultaneously a descent into fear and chaos and an ascent into manhood. An excitable young man on his first solo journey deliberately throwing himself way out of his depth in the Orinoco basin. Allen’s aim to learn how to survive in the jungle from the indigenous peoples who’ve thrived there for centuries is a pattern he came to repeat throughout his career and one that many explorers should learn from. Things take a turn when he overhears a plot on his life and he makes a solo one-month escape from the jungle with only the clothes on his back.
This is Benedict Allen's first book - a tale of triumphs, mishaps, dangers and sheer bloody-minded endurance but, at another level, an exploration of the Amazon's dark themes of allurement and exploitation. At the age of 22, inspired by a youthful aspiration to be an explorer, Allen set out to travel from the mouth of the Orinoco to the mouth of the Amazon. But as he stumbled through the Amazonian jungle, he was soon confronted by the harsh reality of his isolation in the midst of potentially perilous territory. Mercifully, the experience of living in the rainforest among indigenous Indians…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
I was a child of empire myself, which can have uncomfortable associations. In my case, this came with a sense of guilt as I grew up in apartheid South Africa, and while still a young man, I felt compelled to leave. Thus disconnected, I became a wanderer in Asia and the Far East, developing an enduring love of India. Africa drew me back as a foreign correspondent when the independence of Zimbabwe appeared to herald a new age of hope. I returned to report too from my homeland after Nelson Mandela’s release. At bottom, my interests – and I’m never sure where they will go next – have always been unpredictable.
Even among this indomitable breed of women, Mary stands out for her daring. She came to Africa almost a century after Anne Barnard with a keen interest in natural history and the eye of an early anthropologist while traveling in places synonymous with dangerous disease – from Sierra Leone to Angola, Congo, and Niger.
She was barely less bold as a standard bearer for African culture, challenging perceptions about the colonial mission before dying as nobly as she had lived, nursing Boer prisoners of war at the Cape in 1900.
Upon her sudden freedom from family obligations, a sheltered Victorian spinster traded her stifling middle-class existence for an incredible expedition in the Congo. Mary Kingsley traversed uncharted regions of West Africa alone, on foot, collecting specimens of local fauna and trading with natives--a remarkable feat in any era, but particularly for a woman of the 1890s. After hacking her way through jungles, being fired upon by hostile tribesmen and attacked by wild animals, Kingsley emerged with no complaint more serious than a pair of tired feet. She undertook her exploits in the traditional garb of her era but lived as…
I have a passion for proving women can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone they want! I’ve lived in, worked in, and explored more than 20 countries, traveling by foot, train, truck, bus, boat, camel, donkey cart, and motorcycle. I’m an award-winning creative nonfiction writer and a former National Motorcycle Instructor. My writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Far Eastern Economic Review, Travelers’ Tales, and more. I'm a Hedgebrook Writers’ Colony alumna and hold a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University and a master’s degree in creative nonfiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College.Untethered: A Woman’s Search for Self on the Edge of India—A Travel Memoiris my first book.
A story about a white, 24-year-old woman traveling alone in a country where some still practice cannibalism begs to be read. Kira Salak sets out solo in a dugout canoe in Papua New Guinea simply to prove a woman can go anywhere and do anything she wants. In her narrative, she describes the people and wildlife she encounters vividly. I learned a thing or two about hippopotami and concluded I don’t want to run into any in the wild. While she explores her inner thoughts, family life, and what compelled her to do such a thing, it is her physical journey that propelled me to keep reading. I wanted to know what happened next!
Following the route taken by British explorer Ivan Champion in 1927, and amid breathtaking landscapes and wildlife, Salak traveled across this remote Pacific island-often called the last frontier of adventure travel--by dugout canoe and on foot. Along the way, she stayed in a village where cannibalism was still practiced behind the backs of the missionaries, met the leader of the OPM--the separatist guerrilla movement opposing the Indonesian occupation of Western New Guinea--and undertook an epic trek through the jungle.
The New York Times said "Kira Salak is tough, a real-life Lara Croft." And Edward Marriott, proclaimed Four Corners to be…
A lot of the books I write are about science or history, and Mr Darwin just happened to be about both: it was a history of science, as science was in 1859. People say the world changed after Darwin published, The Origin of Species in 1859, but Origin was a symptom not a cause. My book is a history of science that looks at how the world was changing (and shrinking) in the year 1859, as new specimens, new materials, new technologies, and new ideas came into play.
I have to deal, from time to time, with nervous would-be experts who have an abject fear of hybrid species in the sanctuary where I am a volunteer. One of the main lessons you take away from this ecological history is that hybrids drive a great deal of evolution, and trying to wipe out the hybrids is, in fact, an attempt to interfere with nature.
Looking at Europe as an evolutionary melting pot, we see that time and again, species migrated into the continent and were transformed, whether the immigrants were humans, elephants, or plane trees. Like all of Flannery’s books, Europe is food for thought, something to savour.
'Vivid, thrilling, a delight ... Tim Flannery is a palaeontologist and ecologist of global standing, and this is a compelling and authoritative narrative of the evolution of Europe's flora and fauna, from the formation of the continent to its near future ... an exciting book, full of wonder' James McConnachie, Sunday Times
A place of exceptional diversity, rapid change, and high energy, Europe has literally been at the crossroads of the world ever since the interaction of Asia, North America and Africa formed the tropical island archipelago that would become the continent of today.
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
I am Sumit Lodhia, a Professor of Accounting at the University of South Australia who has a primary research interest in sustainability accounting and reporting. Sustainable development is something that I am very passionate about, and I consider myself lucky enough to research in this area and to teach a course on this subject matter to third year undergraduate accounting students. I am a former resident of the beautiful Fiji Islands, and my lived experiences here and in my current country of residence, Australia, have shaped my worldview that focuses on equity, transparency, democracy, morality, and compassion.
I found this book a significant contribution to the climate change debate at a time when the scientific consensus on climate change was not easily accepted by all. Written by an Australian, I found that this book provided a scientific explanation of climate change in very simple terms.
This was actually one of the first books that I read on climate change, and it opened my eyes to the seriousness of climate change and the scientific basis that provided evidence of climate change as a fundamental issue impacting future human survival on this planet.
Terrifying and inspiring, The Weather Makers is a page-turning epic that brings the most elusive and powerful of natural phenomena within our grasp.
Internationally acclaimed writer, scientist and explorer, Tim Flannery takes us on a journey through history and around the globe as he describes the wondrous diversity of the world's ecosystems and explains how 'the great aerial ocean' unites us. Along the way, we meet polar bears and golden toads, and travel from ocean depths to mountaintops, via desert, swamp and rainforest. Flannery reveals how the earth's climate has changed, across millennia and decades, and how the slightest imbalance…
If you’re curious about the world, you can find secret doors that open onto sudden vistas. For me, exploring the lives and origins of the caracaras unveiled an astonishing story about life on Earth—and though the books in my list are mostly nonfiction, they all explore real worlds as absorbing as any fantasy.
Matthiessen is best known for The Snow Leopard, but I think this book, written fifteen years earlier, exceeds it. As part of an anthropological expedition to the highlands of New Guinea, he was among the first westerners to describe the lives of the indigenous Papuan farmers who lived there—and he dares to imagine them from the inside, with his trademark understated lyricism. It's an extraordinary book, full of beauty and drama, and though it isn’t a journey to the distant past, it often feels like it: this was a place where neighboring villages fought ritualized wars against one another every week or so. The last line alone is worth the price of admission.
A remarkable firsthand view of a lost culture in all its simplicity and violence by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927 to 2014), author of the National Book Award–winning The Snow Leopard and the novel In Paradise.
In the Baliem Valley in central New Guinea live the Kurelu, a Stone Age tribe that survived into the twentieth century. Peter Matthiessen visited the Kurelu with the Harvard-Peabody Expedition in 1961 and wrote Under the Mountain Wall as an account not of the expedition, but of the great warrior Weaklekek, the swineherd Tukum, U-mue and his family, and the boy Weake, killed in…
I grew up just north of Chicago, took courses at the University of Madrid (La Complutense), and graduated from Marquette University. I speak 5 languages and have written for such diverse reviews as The Journal of the American Revolution and Atlantic Coastal Kayaker. Nothing has possessed me like my father’s Navigation Case. Besides learning how this young college graduate helped pioneer the nascent aviation industry training in 11 different types of aircraft, I take pride in the astonishing role he played in American history. He was a combat pilot in the first-ever demonstration of air superiority over an enemy, leading to the greatest campaign victory in the history of the US Air Force.
Stone, writing in the 1880s, describes the unexplored mystery, foreboding tropical weather, and long-ignored people of New Guinea. Since its “discovery” by European explorers, the New Guinea climate was known to be inhospitable to westerners. This book began to inform me of the world into which my father was sent as an Army Air Corps pilot. Even as late as 1944 he flew with emergency survival maps with vast swathes of the country completely blank, marked “Unexplored.”
With so many competitors in the field, it seems strange that, until the last few years, no one should have succeeded in journeying more than fifteen miles inland; and though this distance has now been much exceeded, a vast area still remains unexplored.
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Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I grew up just north of Chicago, took courses at the University of Madrid (La Complutense), and graduated from Marquette University. I speak 5 languages and have written for such diverse reviews as The Journal of the American Revolution and Atlantic Coastal Kayaker. Nothing has possessed me like my father’s Navigation Case. Besides learning how this young college graduate helped pioneer the nascent aviation industry training in 11 different types of aircraft, I take pride in the astonishing role he played in American history. He was a combat pilot in the first-ever demonstration of air superiority over an enemy, leading to the greatest campaign victory in the history of the US Air Force.
This book gave me a basic understanding of the New Guinea war into which my father was sent. It gave me the framework with which I could piece together the timeline of my father’s service. It gave me an idea of the progress of the war and a context for all of his military orders, his stacks of correspondence, and all of his photos, long stored away in his Navigation Case.
In March 1942, General Douglas MacArthur faced an enemy who, in the space of a few months, captured Malaya, Burma, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, and, from their base at Raubaul in New Britain, threaten Australia. Upon his retreat to Australia, MacArthur hoped to find enough men and matérielfor a quick offensive against the Japanese. Instead, he had available to him only a small and shattered air force, inadequate naval support, and an army made up almost entirely of untried reservists.
Here is one of history’s most controversial commanders battling…
