Down the Great Unknown

You can’t make a list like this one and ignore John Wesley Powell, the one-armed geologist-explorer credited with the first descent of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

My beef with this man is that he was a grandiose (if not untalented) writer. He fudged the truth, conflating accounts of two trips into one. Important to a guide, he could be an overbearing leader. This book puts him on the page, warts and all, and puts you right there with him and his crew—moldy bacon, capsized boats, and thunderstorms included.

In this way, as through the canyon’s geological wonders… show more.

I loved River of Doubt, and this book about a grand misadventure down the Grand Canyon kept me just as transfixed.

Soon after the U.S. Civil War, one man’s yearning to explore produced so much hardship for himself and the men he brought with him. I like to read about tests of will and the struggle to survive, though reading about this adventure did not make me want to join them. It was more than enough just to feel like I was in those unwieldy, wooden canoes being battered by rapids and smashed against the rocks.

But in these… show more.