One hundred years of record breakers and boundary busters are chronicled in this collection of great travel and true adventure writing, from Tom Wolfe's description of Chuck Yeager's historic flight to Jon Krakauer's ill-advised ascent up the Devil's Thumb. What a pleasure it is to read, in the middle of the Texas summer heat, an excerpt from Robert Falcon Scott's diary of his chilly expedition to the North Pole and then, for a change of climate and scene, an account of Eric Hansen's barefoot walk across the rain forests of Borneo. Roberts (True Summit) has assembled a wonderful collection of excerpts from mostly first-person narratives of adventure travel and exploration from the beginning of the century until today. Each selection is preceded by a short introductory passage written by well-known writers and adventurers (Jon Krakauer and Eric Newby) as well as the lesser known: Joshua Slocum (sailing around the world alone) or H.W. Tilman (descending Nanda Devi). At times the narratives focus on the challenge of the individual vs. nature, at others on the difficulty of teamwork when the struggle becomes overwhelming. All in all, this is a great treasure-trove of daunting human courage, frailty, and persistence in the face of the unknown. It is impressive that these skilled adventurers also happen to be excellent writers. Definitely recommended.DOlga B. Wise, Compaq Computer Corp., Austin, TX Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. This anthology introduces a new imprint allying Norton with Outside magazine. Editor Roberts selects 41 pieces from mountaineering, trekking, navigating, spelunking, and assorted disaster-survival accounts of the twentieth century, writes an introductory critique, then sends the reader off to vertiginous peaks, heaving seas, baking sands, or steaming jungles. Other than Robert F. Scott's journal or Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff , few of the sources will be familiar to most readers, which endows the text with a sense of novelty that meshes with many an excerpt's tones of humor, anxiety, and relief--or grief. A further attraction is the styles of writers who, though explorers first, are revealed to be stylists as well. Some write self-ironically in what Roberts calls the comic "Bunglers Abroad" motif; others compose self-critically, divining their attraction to remote and dangerous places; still others narrate straight their entrances and extrications from difficult spots. A mesmerizing display of the pull adventure exerts, this initial edition successfully inaugurates this imprint. Gilbert Taylor Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved [A] splendid new anthology of exploration literature. -- Newsweek , Malcolm Jones David Roberts is the author (with Conrad Anker) of The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest , among other books.