Explorations packs in hundreds of black and white and color illustrations as it captures great moments of discovery from the archives of the Royal Geographic Society. Any would-be explorer or geography and history fan will relish this gorgeous collection, packed with its visual documentation of some of the greatest moments in history.

I am absolutely confounded as to why this allegedly true story has never been memorialized on film. I'd bet my entire portfolio on its mega-box office success. True or not, this book is a gripping, stunning story, that, if conjured by ANY other modern day novelist, would surely be his/her defining epiphany. Fiennes is large, a mighty oak amongst wilting thistles. Clancy and LeCarre must demur when Fiennes raps his lectern. This soldier beat these staid pros in short order--about 300 pages. The other reviews have already told you too much. Just get it and be prepared. A MIND BLOWER!!!

I stayed up all night reading it. It's hard to believe it not fiction. The Feather Men are a loose organization ready to defend themselves and their comrades from enemies they may have made during their years of service with the SAS. Their most threatening asset it not their brawn but their brains. They are ever vigilent, mentally disciplined, and ingenious. Unfortunately a band of paid assasins are just as disciplined. The only thin thread in the book is how they finally get one up on the assasins, grab one clue in a million to one chance and set a trap, averting a fifth assasination. If it were an ordinary bunch of men I wouldn't believe it, but these are the Feather Men. Don't mess with them.

A few words on The Feather Men,I bought the book on an off chance and it was so gripping that I could not put it down.For a factual story it makes even the most far fetched fiction look run of the mill stuff.People like Ranulph Fiennes are truly a cut above the rest,a must read for any one who is interested in special services operations.

One day, on a book hunt at my local used book stores, I noticed an oversized photograph of a handsome man staring back at me from the top shelf. Turns out it wasn't a photograph, it was the cover of this book. A quick look at the book indicated that it was written by a british explorer, whom I had vaguely heard of. I decided to buy the book, as it's $2.00 price tag was very reasonable. The fact that it was an autographed first edition was an added bonus. I put it on my shelf, and thought little of it.

A few weeks later, I was looking for a book to take to help me to sleep. I grabbed this book off the unread book shelf. I was reading all night, following young Ranulph Fiennes as he attended Eton, fought in Oman, and pursued many historic expeditions. The book was written in an easy, conversational tone, and it was impossible to put down. It would have been worth buying at $100.00. I hope whomever decides to buy the book based on this review enjoys it as much as I did.

This book serves two purposes: 1) The recollections of an army officer and explorer; and 2) The redemption of said man.

Sir Ranulph, who is an actual Baronet, comes from one of the most illustrious families in Britain. Unfortunately, he initially inherited some of the worst personal traits which the British upperclass has to offer. He was sent to the right schools and eventually entered the adult world as a serviing British Army officer in one of the best regiments. Only after he was accepted into the elite British Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), did his true nature and worth appear.

Cashiered after an incredibly stupid "bit of fun," Sir Ran found his niche in life - explorer. It soon became apparent that he was a 19th Century British man trapped in the 20th Century, and the same conduct which had made Britain a world power was now a social embarrassment. As a member of the Royal Geographic Society, Sir Ran has gone on to conduct some of the most spectacular explorations in the world - and become a damned nice chap along the way. None better.

Sir Ran's recollections of his service and redemption in Oman are priceless. His military career was salvaged by an offer to serve as a "seconded" officer to the Sultan of Oman's Forces during the Dhofar Campaign of the 1970's. In this little known campaign, British "seconded" officers led Omani troops in successfully putting down a spreading Communist insurgency. Any officer or NCO who will be leading or advising indigenous troops should read this book. Sir Ran led, fed, sheltered, ate with and loved his Omanis - and they reciprocated. This is a sort of "Apocalypse Now" with a happy ending.

If you are looking for a personal journey along with high adventure, you can do no better that "Living Dangerously" by Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

Well don't read this book if you are into animal liberation or hate violence. It is a great fast paced book guaranteed to keep you reading. It will leave you in awe, fearful, and on the edge of your seat until the end.

After reading "The Feather Men," a man keeps pestering Sir Ranulph Fiennes to 'tell his story.' Finally, Fiennes agrees to meet.

The result is a fast-paced, international, from-top-to-bottom of society, violent, non-fiction thriller about a man avenging the deaths of his wife and daughter. This has all the elements of man against man, man against himself, and man against nature.

A man awakes in hospital beaten severely without his memory. As he searches for his memory, he happens to foil the robbery of a hooker. To show her appreciation, since he has no home, the hooker takes him in.

She introduces him to her associates. They are a Bible-studying, drug-dealing family in an English slum. He discovers he has a talent with numbers. He works for the associates and he ends up making them a lot of money and becoming part of their family. The family is an odd collection which even includes a former Irish terrorist. The family even runs a very successful drug rehab center. So, the man is dodging police and rival gangs.

As he regains his memory, he realizes that his wife and daughter were murdered. As more of his memory returns, he identifies the men who killed his wife and daughter.

But, the passion that drives him to revenge is being tempered by his newly-discovered love for the prostitute.

Yet, he decides that he still must follow his path of revenge. The family provides all the extra muscle he requires.

Then, he becomes the hunter.

But, the hero is not a superman. He does some things well. He is also fallible enough to be real.

And, after he becomes the hunter, he makes mistakes ... costly mistakes. He, the family, and the prostitute are then the counter-targets.

In the background is an amazing tapestry of BCCI and one of its major players who was involved in the murder of the man's family.

I highly recommend ...

WARNING: Sir Ranulph Fiennes seems to write books that only last a few days and may cause loss of sleep and may cause use of sick days.

After his contributions to Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1907-1909 Nimrod expedition, Australian scientist Dr. Douglas Mawson decided to put together his own expedition, one that placed more emphasis on science than any up to that time and many afterwards. Although his own experiences were by far the most gripping of the expedition, Mawson is careful to tell the entire story, with excerpts from other member's diaries and reports. His style is a little dry, compared to Shackleton's books, but the tale of the expedition is a compelling and interesting one. The book is very well illustrated with photographs, maps, and diagrams, and the cover is really handsome. Read this, but also read Lennard Bickel's "Mawson's Will" for more emphasis on Mawson's own terrifying adventure.

The epic of endurance laconically described by Mawson ranks with those of Scott and Shackleton as one of the greatest feats of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, yet is far less well known. Read this book and marvel at the man. Great pictures, missing from some earlier editions of the book, are included. Avoid the self-serving foreword by Ranulph Fiennes who cannot even get the name of Mawson's companion on the first expedition to the South Magnetic Pole right.

The idea that a group of people could give up years of their lives in the pursuit of something so obviously fanciful as a pole to pole circumnavigation boggles the mind. I started to read this book just to understand what made these people tick; I continued to read because the book is well written and a great adventure tale. I recommend it highly for anyone interested in modern adventure and/or polar exploration.

A fascinating epic with all the hardships and truths told. An honest account of human mental and physical strengths and weaknessness. At times it unecessarily draws you into the on going ego battle between Stroud and Fiennes.

Adverturers come in all shapes and sizes - of ego, that is! And this book is an excellent opportunity to see the diversity of people who succeed at extremely challenging outdoor pursuits. I thoroughly enjoyed this account from a relatively modest style of person, who took on and succeeded at a challenge, the difficulty of which left me aching and bleary eyed just thinking about it.

In an era where many traditional sports have taken on some kind of "extreme" variant, this book defines "extreme" in a way that makes other pursuits pale by comparison. I was gripped that it provided an interesting insight into what life is like when you take on the genuinely extreme challenge.

People that merely, say, base jump from a helicopter onto the top of a snow-covered mountain in order to snowboard from apex to base, are amateurs compared to these chaps. They - voluntarily! - walked across the Antarctic continent via the South Pole just because they thought they could. Of course, they did raise a legendary amount of money to benefit research into multiple sclerosis, but that is not central to the story told in this book.

Mike Stroud gives one side of the story, in a manner that reveals his concerns over his own fallibility, whilst at the same time providing a case study in how an apparently ordinary bloke does an extraordinary thing. He is clearly not the ego-on-two-legs-type that many imagine these guys would be - but the writing reeks of someone committed to his views and those views involving a huge amount of thought. So, despite a self-effacing style, he seems unlikely to lack belief in himself - despite acute and moving accounts of his struggles to retain focus on a harrowing and debilitating slog across the most incredibly inhospitable tract of terrain. I liked the fact that he did things well beyond ordinary, despite not being ten-foot-tall-and-bulletproof the way we imagine many of these guys to be!

The other side of the story is told by his trek partner, Ranulph Fiennes (Sir, actually, with a bunch of that English stuff about being a Baronet and all), in his book "Mind over Matter". In many respects of style and personality, he is most things that Mike Stroud is not, so anyone with a picture of the larger-than-life-ego-on-two-legs kind of adventurer might well here some bells ringing when they read this account.

The contradictions between the two accounts are not black and white, but, in the shades of grey, there was enough interest at the time of their publication to put them both into that elite class of public figures - where they were the subject of a newspaper cartoonist's pen. Another thing that I like about Stroud's account is that he highlighted this, rather than papering over it.

Frankly, I liked Fiennes' account of the trip as well, but it was more predictable in a curious sort of way. Possibly the most can be gained from Mike Stroud's book when Fiennes' acount is read also - classic stuff where neither is completely right or wrong, and that is probably less important in any case than gaining a picture of how you are seen by others, or how divergent your image of yourself can be from that harboured by close colleagues.

This book - and Fiennes' - may well give you an appetite for more along the same lines, if you don't have one already! Try reading "The Worst Journey in the World" by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, or "Home of the Blizzard" by Douglas Mawson.

I have not read the book, but the booklist review says he was in danger of being eaten by polar bears. I sure hope he did not write that in the book! There are no bears in the southern hemisphere, bears evolved in the northern hemisphere. Somebody better check their review!

Polar masochism! This is sick. Why would anyone want to walk across a frozen desert the size of europe? To prove they can suffer? What is gained by freezing parts of ones body and then cutting them off? Who wants crotch rot, kidney stones, piles, and freezing cold misery? This is gruesome to the point of making me wonder if this man needs psychiatric help for self mutilation.

Much more fun are the people who do this (crossing Antarctica) using parachute (wind) pulled sleds, or even dog teams. But this book is something else. I get upset just looking at the pictures of the naked, emaciated author, close ups of necrotic tissue...YUK!

This is the account of his journey across Antartica - on foot, pulling sleds - with Michael Stroud. In it Ranulph describes, not only his journey, but insights into the human mind. It is supported by extracts from the diaries of both men, as well as extracts from books of previous Antartic explorers. Some people feel the need to push themselves to extremes, others (like me) like to read about them, and this is an intelligently written, honest and interesting book.
There are absolutely no bears mentioned in it, and it is a pity that one reviewer felt the need to give it one star without ever having read it.