A Man's Life: Dispatches from Dangerous Places

Jenkins, widely-published travel writer and author (The Hard Way: Stories of Danger, Survival, and the Soul of Adventure), is always up for a challenge, wherever it may be. He's been almost everywhere, frequently at his peril, and these captivating essays take readers up the most forbidding mountains, through ice caves in Greenland, along India's ""road of blood,"" and into Afghani war zones, proving Jenkin's courage, conviction and humanity along the way. The haunting ""No Exit"" details a mission to find a lost pair of world-class women climbers, ""both of whom understood that for alpinists, death is just a mistake away."" High above the Sahara, he introduces ""the bard of the nascent art of aviation,"" Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and biking through Norway he finds hellish tunnels ""long, and black as blindness."" Jenkins' evocative prose will cause readers to shiver vicariously during impossible ascents and flinch at the inevitable injuries along the way: ""The world is one giant garden of cliffs, canyons, and cacti, where you'll discover that flesh is softer than stone, weaker than water, and highly vulnerable to velocity."" Fortunately for readers, however, the spirit thrives; Jenkins' musings on home, family and lost colleagues add warmth to his riveting tales of derring-do.