Adventurist: My Life in Danger

Robert Pelton can change the way readers think about travel, as proven by the success of his wildly popular travel book, The World's Most Dangerous Places (required reading at the CIA), and his recent, indispensable guide, Come Back Alive. Now, with "The Adventurist", "the icon for extreme trial" (ZineZone) has written the defining book for the adventure generation.Weaving together up-to-the-minute dispatches of mayhem in exotic locales and survival against formidable odds with memories of the pivotal events that shaped Pelton's obsessive spirit, "The Adventurist" spans six continents and four decades of hard-core living. Along the way, readers meet his many friends, from the Taliban in Afghanistan to hitmen in the Philippines; learn what it feels like to survive a plane crash in Borneo and a terrorist bombing in Africa; find out what it takes to dance with headhunters in Sarawak or crew with pirates on the Sulu Sea; and discover how Pelton honed his legendary survival skills at "the toughest boys school in North America". Most important, this breakneck autobiography allows readers to participate in Pelton's mission -- understanding the hearts and minds of the people he meets. A funny and joyous book by a man passionate to learn about the stranger and wilder places in the world, "The Adventurist" takes readers places they might never willingly go.

Review :
"Walking laboriously through minefields to the Taliban's forward line, I pause to catch my breath. The impact of former shells on the gray ground has created white, round scars. But violence is not the strongest impression. Here in the thin mountain air, the world seems tired. Wispy clouds float against a light blue sky. Worn, goat-pocked mountains echo not with bleating but with the deeper thunder of explosions. The Talibs' most forward position is a ridge littered with large shell casings, unexploded rockets, dug-up anti-tank mines, and thousands of 12.7 mm machine gun shells. Around me is an assortment of heavy and light weapons and I am cautioned not to stand up for too long or step off the path. 'Mines...Snipers' the young, black-turbaned mullah reminds me in sparse English. Overhead I can hear bullets whizzing and whistling, short twirps and whines of sound. It's hard to explain how blase you get about bullets, like flies that can kill you." --From The Adventurist So begins the autobiography of the man dubbed "Dangerman" "(Toronto Globe and Mail); "tourist with an attitude" "(Outside magazine); and "the patron saint of adventure travelers" "(ZineZone.com). But The Adventurist is more than a book about eluding death, it's a book about challenging life--the defining book for the adventure generation.