Books like The cruelest miles by Gay Salisbury

After graduating college, journalist Jon Krakauer traces the true story of Christopher McCandless, a young adventurer who abandoned possessions, took the name Alexander Supertramp, and ventured into Alaska’s wilderness, where he met his untimely death.

The Great Influenza: A World at Risk

David Grann’s investigative narrative unravels the mystery of British explorer Percy Fawcett’s 1925 disappearance while he sought the legendary Lost City of Z beneath the Amazon’s dense jungle.

Two divers risk everything to solve a World War II mystery in the depths of the Atlantic.

An engaging exploration of the 1854 London cholera outbreak and how Dr. John Snow’s mapping of the epidemic transformed public health, urban planning, and the science of disease transmission.

With bold adventure and biographical insight, Candice Millard recounts Theodore Roosevelt’s perilous 1913–14 descent of an uncharted Amazon tributary, exposing the harsh jungle, violent rapids, and personal trials that reshaped a nation’s map.

Louis Zamperini’s extraordinary journey from Olympic gold‑medalist to a World War II bombardier, through a Pacific plane crash, 47 days adrift, and harrowing imprisonment by the Japanese, is a gripping tale of survival and resilience.

Henry Worsley, a decorated British special forces officer and Shackleton admirer, embarked on a perilous solo trek across Antarctica in 2015, driven by a lifelong obsession with polar exploration.

Details.

A gripping nonfiction narrative of the 19th‑century Jeannette expedition to the North Pole, detailing the shipwreck, survival efforts, and the roles of cartographer August Petermann, shipowner James Gordon Bennett, and captain George W. De Long.

Balto, a heroic sled dog, braves blizzards to deliver lifesaving diphtheria medicine to Nome, Alaska, in 1925 – a true story of courage, partnership, and perseverance for young readers.

In this account, a journalist traces the course of yellow fever, stopping in 1878 Memphis to "vividly [evoke] the Faulkner-meets-'Dawn of the Dead' horrors,"*-and moving on to today's strain of the killer virus.Over the course of history, yellow fever has paralyzed governments, halted commerce, quarantined cities, moved the U.S. capital, and altered the outcome of wars. During a single summer in Memphis alone, it cost more lives than the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, and the Johnstown flood combined.In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country-and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With "arresting tales of heroism,"** it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.