Traveler & Explorer Biographies

80-Something Couple Proves the Road to Alaska Is Paved with Stories

What happens when you give two adventurous octogenarians a Class C motorhome, a loaded itinerary and 15,642 miles of North American wilderness? You get Ride With Us! 15,642 Miles, Seventy Nights Camping, a memoir by Sportyman (the husband's pseudonym) that’s equal parts travelogue, survival journal and a love letter to…

BookTribMay 21, 2025

Nonfiction Podcasts

Books & Looks Podcast: The Forgotten Women Who Made Mountain Climbing History

Books & Looks: Real Books for Real Readers was started as a literary podcast to supplement Blaine Desantis’ website, ViewsOnBooks.com, and expand into audio and video interviews with authors. With Books & Looks, Blaine’s goal is to focus on real books that real people will read. At least half of the books he…

Blaine DesantisFebruary 19, 2025

Nonfiction Podcasts

Books & Looks Podcast: Racing the Clock and Each Other: The Globe Trotting Journalists Who Defied an Era

Books & Looks: Real Books for Real Readers was started as a podcast to supplement Blaine Desantis’ website, ViewsOnBooks.com, and expand into audio interviews with authors. With Books & Looks, Blaine’s goal is to focus on real books that real people will read. At least half of the books he reviews are either…

Blaine DesantisOctober 4, 2023

Nonfiction Recommended

Bold Memoir Details Childfree Life Full of Travel, Adventures, Opportunity

Maria Coffey can fairly accurately be described as a nonconformist, pioneering, globe-trotting explorer and extreme expedition-leading kayaker who lives her life on her own terms, exuberantly to the fullest, then writes award-winning books about her voyages of discovery and spiritual quests. Having recently entered her eighth decade (which begins at…

Linda HitchcockJanuary 12, 2024

Nonfiction Recommended

The Poignant Recounting of a Childhood Marred by the Lebanese Civil War

“My mother came to pick me up from school one day, screaming ‘Eddy! Eddy!’ All the other mothers came running and shouting too. Their screams pierced my ears and vibrated in my ribcage … I was very afraid.” Edward Challita, five years old at the time, was deprived of his…

BookTribSeptember 5, 2023

Nonfiction Nonfiction - Featured

In the Face of a Terrifying Diagnosis, This Adventurer Refused to Back Down From the Challenge

Wayne Raffesberger remembered that quote from Mark Twain and uses it as a rallying cry for the way he would live his life, as told vividly in his memoir, Thank God I Got Polio: A Life of Adventure and the Adventure of Life. A DRIVE TO OVERCOME ADVERSITY While Raffesberger…

Jim AlkonSeptember 1, 2022