Product Description

In this elegant and exciting collection Andrew Todhunter, himself an extreme sportsman and the author of the critically acclaimed Fall of the Phantom Lord, takes readers along as men and women push themselves to their limits in the world’s riskiest sports.

In several of these essays Todhunter writes from personal experience, joining his subjects as they free fall from cliffs, wriggle through narrow underground crevices, and dive deep beneath the ice of a frozen lake. In these adrenaline-laced accounts of extreme sportsmanship, Todhunter captures not only the thrill of conquest but the deep pleasure of being someplace few others have gone as well.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1755294 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-06
• Released on: 2001-11-06
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.99" h x .52" w x 5.17" l, .48 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Booklist
Atlantic Monthly columnist Todhunter has compiled his articles on outdoor adventures and extreme sports into a stunning collection. Though these stories are from real life, they read like short fiction, vignettes of incredible characters and their even more incredible pastimes. The first story, for instance, describes a climb with an accomplished alpinist. What's amazing about this account is not so much the climb itself, nor the fact that Todhunter makes the trek himself, but, instead, the host's moving reflections on the falling death of his protege and friend several years earlier. Todhunter weaves the excitement of what the adventurers do with the poignancy of who they are--whether it's a 50-year-old father climbing a mountain, a 28-year-old utility worker scuba diving under 18 inches of ice, or a middle-aged woman crawling through California caves. A real gem of adventure work. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews
Top-draw extreme sports writing from Todhunter (Fall of the Phantom Lord, 1998), unadorned and vital and appealingly decorous.This collection of magazine pieces, mostly drawn from The Atlantic Monthly, showcases Todhunter's talents as a chronicler of extreme sports-some of which he partakes of himself. Although the author now has a family to bevel his more flamboyantly dangerous sporting appetites, that doesn't deter him from a short, roped free fall off a cliff or hairy icefall ascents-but he draws the line at storm kayaking in the Pacific off northern California. He writes without bravado, without false modesty or striking poses. He is simply fascinated (bewitched, maybe) by dangerous sports, by what motivates people to engage in them. But there are no clear answers to the question of his own motivation, and just disturbing intuitions: about the aesthetics of danger, or regarding his convictions that some climbs are "worth dying for," that "the wisdom of timidity reeks so powerfully of death." There is a passion for the genuine, whether that is winter climbing in the Scottish Highlands, which still feels a grizzled affair best done in hobnailed boots, or if a chainsaw is worth the price: "that what relieves us of our labor removes us from our lives. We grow more frail and dim-witted with each invention that outstrips us." The best piece of all concerns an activity made of magic rather than stark terror. It happens on-make that in-a frozen lake: Todhunter and a friend are ice diving and have inflated their suits so the buoyancy allows them to stand on the under-surface of the ice. They are tethered to tenders by a long rope a good distance away from the entry hole. The tenders start to pull: "The lines go taut and we begin to move, gaining speed. Howling through our regulators, we ski upside down across the ice."Todhunter at times misplaces his fear, though his artful talent for describing the telling moments in extreme sports, as well as their often-otherworldly settings, is everywhere. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
"Front and center in this philosophical and exhilarating collection... is the humanity motivating every incredible action."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Top-draw extreme sports writing from Todhunter, unadorned and vital and appealingly decorous."
--Kirkus Reviews