The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Last Breath: The Limits of Adventure, Peter Stark

Last Breath: The Limits of Adventure

Peter Stark

"Forget the edge of your seat. Last Breath takes you to the edge of your life, for a pulse-pounding glimpse into the Great Beyond. There are many ways to risk your life in the out-of-doors, and Stark has captured them in exquisite and harrowing detail."
-JIM ROBBINS
Author of A Symphony in the Brain

An enthralling blend of adventure and science, Last Breath re-creates in heart-stopping detail what happens to our bodies and our minds in the perilous last moments of life when an extreme adventure goes awry.

Combining the adrenaline high of extreme sports with the startling facts of physiological reality, veteran travel and outdoor sports writer Peter Stark narrates a series of adventure stories in which thrill can cross the line to mortal peril. Each death or brush with death is at once a suspense story, a cautionary tale, and a medical thriller. Will they survive, or will they succumb? Readers will shiver with a man lost in the snowy woods, suffering from hypothermia and tearing off his clothes as he's burning up from the cold; they will hallucinate with a young woman stranded at the top of Annapurna as she experiences a cerebral edema; and while a kayaker tumbles helplessly underwater for two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, readers, too, will gasp for their last breath.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Ballantine Group
  • Publish Date: Oct 1st, 2002
  • Pages: 300
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.08in - 5.54in - 0.71in - 0.84lb
  • EAN: 9780345441515
  • Categories: EssaysEmergency MedicineOutdoor Skills

More books to explore

Book Cover for: Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, Laurence Gonzales
Book Cover for: The National Outdoor Leadership School's Wilderness Guide: The Classic Handbook, Revised and Updated, Mark Harvey
Book Cover for: Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster, Jon Krakauer
Book Cover for: Knots & Ropes for Climbers, Duane Raleigh
Book Cover for: Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North, Blair Braverman
Book Cover for: The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life, Mark Synnott
Book Cover for: A Dog's Devotion: True Adventures of a K9 Search and Rescue Team, Suzanne Elshult
Book Cover for: The Book of Nature Connection: 70 Sensory Activities for All Ages, Jacob Rodenburg
Book Cover for: Glacier Travel & Crevasse Rescue, Andy Selters
Book Cover for: Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, The Mountaineers

About the Author

Peter Stark is a contributor to Outside, Smithsonian, and The New Yorker magazines. His article for Outside, "As Freezing Persons Recollect the Snow"-- the inspiration for this book-- was cited as a notable essay in Best American Essays (1997). He has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and has published a collection of essays, Driving to Greenland. He is also the editor of an anthology of writing about the Arctic, Ring of Ice. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

More books by Peter Stark

Book Cover for: Astoria: Astor and Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Tale of Ambition and Survival on the Early American Frontier, Peter Stark
Book Cover for: The Last Empty Places: A Journey Through Blank Spots on the American Map, Peter Stark
Book Cover for: Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison's Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation, Peter Stark
Book Cover for: Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America's Founding Father, Peter Stark
Book Cover for: The Competent Leader: 19 Critical Skills Any Manager or Supervisor Must Know, Jane Flaherty
Book Cover for: White Bushman, Peter Stark
Book Cover for: Driving to Greenland: Arctic Travel, Northern Sport, and Other Ventures Into the Heart of Winter, Peter Stark

Praise for this book

"Un-put-downable stories of outdoor catastrophe and death, carefully and vividly told; they make us, unexpectedly, happy to be alive."
--Ian Frazier


"STARK'S MASTERFUL PACING AND USE OF DETAILS KEEP THE READER'S STOMACH TURNED IN SUSPENSE."
-Booklist

"A FASCINATING BLEND OF STORYTELLING AND SCIENCE."
-New York Daily News