Books like In the land of white death by Valerian Ivanovich Alʹbanov

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.

Joshua Slocum, the first solo sailor to circumnavigate the globe, narrates his daring voyages on the 37‑ft sloop Spray, blending meticulous nautical observations with vivid, humorous storytelling.

Henry David Thoreau’s vivid account of Maine’s wilderness, exploring its landscapes, wildlife, and people while warning against commercial exploitation, captures a vital perspective on nature’s preservation.

xvii, 285 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : 22 cm

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s first‑hand diary of the 1914‑17 Imperial Trans‑Antarctic Expedition, detailing the Endurance’s crushing by ice, the crew’s nine‑month ordeal on drifting ice, and their daring survival against the polar wilderness.

Barry Holstun Lopez: “Arctic Dreams; Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape” ( 1986) This is an account of the author's exploration of the Western Arctic region, between Bering Strait and Davis Strait. It is an account both of the natural history of the Arctic, and equally of how the Arctic grips the human spirit and imagination. The chapters are rich in their descriptions of the Arctic –of the physical land itself, the native peoples that the author met, the Arctic animals and plants, both terrestrial and aquatic, the ice and the Arctic light that make the region so distinctly different from the temperate and tropical parts of Earth. But Lopez also gives us a sense of how the Arctic fascinates the mind and spirit – through his own personal experiences and through the history of the Arctic - both of the native peoples and the discovery expeditions.

Caroline Alexander chronicles Ernest Shackleton’s 1914–1917 Imperial Trans‑Antarctic Expedition, blending new primary documents with Frank Hurley’s unpublished photographs to portray the crew’s 20‑month ordeal and heroic survival.

A collection of extraordinary decisions that shape history and provide insight into the process of making difficult choices.

Examines "the saga of the [Richard Francis] Burton and [John Hanning] Speke expedition. To better understand their motivations and ultimate success, Dugard guides readers through the seven vital traits that Burton and Speke, as well as many of history's legendary explorers, called upon to see their impossible journeys through to the end: curiosity, hope, passion, courage, independence, self-discipline, and perserverence. In doing so, Dugard demonstrates that we are all explorers, and that these traits have a most practical application in everyday life"--Amazon.com.

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.

Frank Worsley, captain of Shackleton’s Endurance, narrates the ship’s wrecking in pack ice, the crew’s survival on drifting ice floes, and their daring 800‑mile boat voyage to South Georgia and inland rescue in Antarctica.

Fergus M. Bordewich uncovers the forgotten history of Washington, D.C., revealing how the nation’s capital emerged from swampy terrain, slave labor, and speculative corruption into the world’s power center.

A young girl discovers a dangerous obsession in Antarctica while on vacation with her uncle, leading her to seek a mythical opening called Symme's Hole.

"On encountering what he called "the Indies," the Jesuit Jose de Acosta wrote, "Having read what poets and philosophers write of the Torrid Zone, I persuaded myself that when I came to the Equator, I would not be able to endure the violent heat, but it turned out otherwise... What could I do then but laugh at Aristotle's Meteorology and his philosophy?" Acosta's experience echoes that of his fellow travelers to the New World, and it is this experience, with its profound effect on Western culture, that Anthony Grafton charts. Describing an era of exploration that went far beyond geographic bounds, this book shows how the evidence of the New World shook the foundations of the old, upsetting the authority of the ancient texts that had guided Europeans so far afield." "The intellectual shift mapped out here, a movement from book learning to empirical knowledge, did not take place easily or quickly, and Grafton presents it in all its drama and complexity. What he recounts is in effect a war of ideas fought, sometimes unwittingly by mariners, scientists, publishers, scholars, and rulers over one hundred fifty years. He shows us explorers from Cortes and Columbus to Scaliger and Munster, laden with ideas gathered from ancient and medieval texts, in their encounters with the world at large. In colorful vignettes, firsthand accounts, published debates, and copious illustrations, we see these men and their contemporaries trying to make sense of their discoveries as they sometimes confirm, sometimes contest, and finally displace traditional images and notions of the world beyond Europe." "The fundamental cultural revolution that Grafton documents still reverberates in our time. By taking us into this battle of books versus facts, a conflict that has shaped global views for centuries, Grafton allows us to re-experience and understand the Renaissance as it continues to this day."--BOOK JACKET.

Roland Huntford’s compelling dual biography chronicles the fierce South Pole race between Britain’s Scott and Norway’s Amundsen, revealing ambition, rivalry and the harsh realities of polar exploration.

Swedish explorer Andree's expedition to the Arctic failed when their hydrogen balloon ascended prematurely, causing the fatal deaths of the three crew members.