100 books like The Heart of the World

By Ian Baker,

Here are 100 books that The Heart of the World fans have personally recommended if you like The Heart of the World. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Vast Unknown: America's First Ascent of Everest

David Zurick Author Of Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya

From my list on the Himalaya for people who don’t climb mountains.

Why am I passionate about this?

I embarked as a teenager on an overland journey from Europe to Nepal, and have made a career out of returning to the Himalaya as often as possible. My research and photographic expeditions to the mountains over the many decades have led me into some of the most exquisite landscapes and cultures on the planet. In all cases, I seek to combine the physical experiences with aesthetic and spiritual ones, and the books I tend to read about the region also move me in those directions.

David's book list on the Himalaya for people who don’t climb mountains

David Zurick Why did David love this book?

I’ve read a slew of books about climbing the big Himalayan summits and this is one of the best. It chronicles the first ascent of Mount Everest by an American team and in doing so provides a thrilling account of the climb itself, of the natural majesty of the mountain, and of the eccentric personalities of the team’s members.

By Broughton Coburn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Vast Unknown as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the midst of the Cold War, against the backdrop of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the space race with the Soviet Union, and the Vietnam War, a band of iconoclastic American mountaineers set off for Mount Everest, aiming to restore America's confidence and optimism. Their objective was to reach the summit while conducting scientific research, but which route would they take? Might the Chinese have reached the top ahead of them? And what about another American team, led by the grandson of a President, that nearly bagged the peak in a bootleg attempt a year earlier?

THE VAST UNKNOWN:…


Book cover of Himalaya

David Zurick Author Of Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya

From my list on the Himalaya for people who don’t climb mountains.

Why am I passionate about this?

I embarked as a teenager on an overland journey from Europe to Nepal, and have made a career out of returning to the Himalaya as often as possible. My research and photographic expeditions to the mountains over the many decades have led me into some of the most exquisite landscapes and cultures on the planet. In all cases, I seek to combine the physical experiences with aesthetic and spiritual ones, and the books I tend to read about the region also move me in those directions.

David's book list on the Himalaya for people who don’t climb mountains

David Zurick Why did David love this book?

If you are looking for more than the usual travel images and want to buy only one photography book about the Himalaya, then this is your book. The author is a world-acclaimed photographer and the imagery in this book is absolutely stunning. It’s a very large book, with the photographs presented in two-page spreads that beautifully capture the detail and atmosphere of the scenes.

By Eric Valli, Anne de Sales,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Himalaya as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This stunning collection of Valli's most beautiful photographs from his time in the Himalaya presents the region's spectacular scenery: steep and narrow pathways, lonely high valleys, dramatic passes at 16,000 feet above sea level, and remote villages seemingly untouched by modernity.


Book cover of Himalaya: A Human History

David Zurick Author Of Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya

From my list on the Himalaya for people who don’t climb mountains.

Why am I passionate about this?

I embarked as a teenager on an overland journey from Europe to Nepal, and have made a career out of returning to the Himalaya as often as possible. My research and photographic expeditions to the mountains over the many decades have led me into some of the most exquisite landscapes and cultures on the planet. In all cases, I seek to combine the physical experiences with aesthetic and spiritual ones, and the books I tend to read about the region also move me in those directions.

David's book list on the Himalaya for people who don’t climb mountains

David Zurick Why did David love this book?

Sometimes I’m looking for a book that contains it all—history, geology, nature, culture, and adventure, and this one comes very close to succeeding. It’s a dense book, filled with facts, but readable nonetheless. It also does what many accounts fail to do, which is to personalize the historical events by bringing to life the characters involved. It works as both a sit-down narrative and a reference volume for the library.

By Ed Douglas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Himalaya as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2021 / BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK AWARDS SPECIAL JURY MENTION 2020
This is the first major history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains.

Spanning millennia, from its earliest inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest, Himalaya is a soaring account of resilience and conquest, discovery and plunder, oppression and enlightenment at the 'roof of the world'.

From all around the globe, the unique and astonishing geography of the Himalaya has attracted those in search of spiritual and literal elevation: pilgrims, adventurers and mountaineers…


Book cover of Arresting God in Kathmandu

David Zurick Author Of Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya

From my list on the Himalaya for people who don’t climb mountains.

Why am I passionate about this?

I embarked as a teenager on an overland journey from Europe to Nepal, and have made a career out of returning to the Himalaya as often as possible. My research and photographic expeditions to the mountains over the many decades have led me into some of the most exquisite landscapes and cultures on the planet. In all cases, I seek to combine the physical experiences with aesthetic and spiritual ones, and the books I tend to read about the region also move me in those directions.

David's book list on the Himalaya for people who don’t climb mountains

David Zurick Why did David love this book?

Most of the books written about the Himalaya region are nonfiction. The author of this volume, a writer of Nepalese origin living in the USA, holds the gold-standard for fiction. His book is a collection of short stories set in contemporary Kathmandu that explores the tensions of modern life in a caste-bound traditional society. These are intimate, carefully-wrought, explorations into family, relationships, and the messy business of being an ordinary person in an extraordinary kind of place.

By Samrat Upadhyay,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Arresting God in Kathmandu as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From “a major new talent” come short stories set in modern Nepal, about arranged marriages, forbidden desires, and the universal yearning for human connection (Amitav Ghosh).
 
Set in a city where gods are omnipresent, privacy is elusive, and family defines identity, these are stories of men and women caught between their own needs and the demands of their society and culture. Psychologically rich and astonishingly acute, with “a masterful narrative style” (Ian MacMillan), Arresting God in Kathmandu introduces a potent new voice in contemporary fiction.
 
“Upadhyay brings to readers the flavor of Nepal and its culture in this impressive collection…


Book cover of Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer and the African Adventure the Victorian World by Storm

Bonnie J. Fladung Author Of When Eagles Roar: The Amazing Journey of an African Wildlife Adventurer

From my list on obsession with African wildlife and adventure.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an author specializing in nature, travel, and adventure writing. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many of the places featured in my books – including Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I even to travelled to Morocco to study the art of storytelling with the last of the great storytellers. I’ve always been intrigued by stories that tell a personal journey about overcoming obstacles, especially if the story takes the reader to exotic places. So no wonder I jumped at the opportunity to co-author a book with a game ranger and conservationist in Africa that combines historical perspectives, larger-than-life characters, and dangerous experiences with wildlife. 

Bonnie's book list on obsession with African wildlife and adventure

Bonnie J. Fladung Why did Bonnie love this book?

I love nonfiction adventure books that immerse you in the details of an adventure while providing enough background information to understand the historical, cultural, and scientific perspectives of an era. In the mid-19th century, Paul du Chaillu spent years in Western Africa tracking down the njena, the mythical beast. This book makes for interesting reading as the author weaves the true-life adventure story of the discovery of the gorilla with Darwin’s evolutionary debate, and the challenges a Victorian-era scientist faced to prove his credibility. 

By Monte Reel,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Between Man and Beast as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1856, Paul Du Chaillu ventured into the African jungle in search of a mythic beast, the gorilla. After wild encounters with vicious cannibals, deadly snakes, and tribal kings, Du Chaillu emerged with 20 preserved gorilla skins—two of which were stuffed and brought on tour—and walked smack dab into the biggest scientific debate of the time: Darwin's theory of evolution. Quickly, Du Chaillu's trophies went from objects of wonder to key pieces in an all-out intellectual war. With a wide range of characters, including Abraham Lincoln, Arthur Conan Doyle, P.T Barnum, Thackeray, and of course, Charles Darwin, this is a…


Book cover of Unravelling the Franklin Mystery 5: Inuit Testimony

Ken McGoogan Author Of Searching for Franklin: New Answers to the Great Arctic Mystery

From my list on lost Franklin Expedition.

Why am I passionate about this?

I did not set out to write six books about Arctic exploration. By the mid-1990s, while working full-time as a journalist, I had published three novels. I proposed to become a celebrated novelist. But then, during a three-month stint at the University of Cambridge, I discovered Arctic explorer John Rae–and that he had been denied his rightful recognition by Charles Dickens and other leading Victorians. I researched Rae’s story, marked his greatness in the Arctic, and celebrated him in Fatal Passage. It took me two decades and five more Arctic books to solve the great mystery while also publishing ten books on other subjects. Call me a compulsive scribbler. 

Ken's book list on lost Franklin Expedition

Ken McGoogan Why did Ken love this book?

First published in 1991, this book draws on Inuit oral history to challenge the “standard reconstruction” of how the Franklin expedition played out, presenting a more complex narrative. A master mariner, Woodman not only repeatedly searched King William Island for relics and bones but was the first to do an in-depth analysis of the unpublished Inuit testimony gathered by Charles Francis Hall with the help of Tookoolito. 

Woodman deduced that after the abandonment, some of Franklin’s men returned to the ice-locked vessels. Intensely focused and detailed, this book speaks to aspiring experts–and, for me, drew attention to the need for a broad, accessible survey of Arctic exploration highlighting the Indigenous contribution.  

By David C. Woodman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Unravelling the Franklin Mystery 5 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

David Woodman's classic reconstruction of the mysterious events surrounding the tragic Franklin expedition has taken on new importance in light of the recent discovery of the HMS Erebus wreck, the ship Sir John Franklin sailed on during his doomed 1845 quest to find the Northwest Passage to Asia. First published in 1991, Unravelling the Franklin Mystery boldly challenged standard interpretations and offered a new and compelling alternative. Among the many who have tried to discover the truth behind the Franklin disaster, Woodman was the first to recognize the profound importance of Inuit oral testimony and to analyze it in depth.…


Book cover of The Discovery of Slowness

Carl Honoré Author Of In Praise of Slow: Challenging the Cult of Speed

From my list on slowness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Writer, broadcaster, speaker. I used to be stuck in fast forward, rushing through life instead of living it. I finally realised I needed to slow down when I started speed reading bedtime stories to my son: my version of Snow White had just three dwarves in it! I went on to slow down – and became, in the words of CBC Radio, “the world's leading evangelist for the Slow Movement.”

Carl's book list on slowness

Carl Honoré Why did Carl love this book?

A gripping novel based on the life and death of John Franklin, a 19th century Arctic explorer. Franklin was by nature slow, and therefore out of step with the times. At school, other kids teased him for never having a ready comeback. Later, slowness became his superpower, a source of deep thinking, care, and wisdom. Franklin was an early avatar of the Slow movement!

By Sten Nadolny,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Discovery of Slowness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Framing the life of the nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin, this novel explores not only the adventures of his career, but also enters a world where the quality of life is considered in "slow motion", where ordinary experience becomes wholly new and unexpected.


Book cover of The Journals of Lewis and Clark

Mark Derr Author Of Dog's Best Friend: Annals of the Dog-Human Relationship

From my list on travels with dogs.

Why am I passionate about this?

Mark Derr is an independent scholar and author of three books on dogs, a biography of Davy Crockett, and a social and environmental history of Florida, as well as a co-author with photographer Cameron Davidson of Over Florida. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American, Audubon, Smithsonian, Natural History, The New York Times, and other publications. His poems have appeared in Kansas Quarterly, Partisan Review, and other journals. He has had a lifelong relationship with dogs.  Having known and mourned a number of outstanding dogs, he has told friends, "They are always with me in my thoughts, and I miss them very much." He and his wife currently share their domicile with a Jack Russell Terrier and a Miami Beach street cat.

Mark's book list on travels with dogs

Mark Derr Why did Mark love this book?

Arguably, people and dogs—initially in the guise of wolves—have been wandering the world together since they first met on the trail of the big game they were both hunting. Dogs were generally more amicable, low-maintenance traveling companions, serving as camp guards, hunters, bed warmers, social secretaries, and occasional sneak thieves.  

A prototype for traveling dog in American letters is Seaman, a young Newfoundland Meriwether Lewis obtained to accompany the corps of discovery on its westward explorations. Seaman and his exploits dot the pages of The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1814), a great resource and compelling read for anyone hoping to understand the history of the American West. 

By John Bakeless,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Journals of Lewis and Clark as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An in-depth look at Lewis and Clark's historic expedition through the explorers' journals-America's "first report on the West" (Bernard DeVoto).
In 1803, the great expanse of the Louisiana Purchase was an empty canvas. Keenly aware that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward-and that a "Voyage of Discovery" would be necessary to determine the nature of the frontier-President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide Sacajawea, and thirty-two men, Lewis mapped rivers, traced the…


Book cover of True North: A Journey Into Unexplored Wilderness

Lawrence Millman Author Of At the End of the World: A True Story of Murder in the Arctic

From my list on the North.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve had a passion for northern places ever since I was a kid. I prefer locales that boast plenty of nature and not very many human beings. I’ve been to Greenland 15 times, but only once to Paris and never to Rome (Rome in New York State once). The more remote the locale, the better. Which is why I’ve only once been to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, but several times to almost never visited villages in East Greenland.

Lawrence's book list on the North

Lawrence Millman Why did Lawrence love this book?

It’s a richly lyrical, indeed Thoreauvian account of life in Labrador in the late 1920s. Among other things, the author and his life go on a long trek in the dead of winter and experience a remarkably different way of life – and mostly a rewarding one – from their previous way of life down south. I might add that the now-deceased author was a dear friend of mine.

By Elliott Merrick,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked True North as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The enthralling memoir of a 1930s couple whose passion for nature led them on a winter’s-long hunting trek through one of the most remote regions of Canada
 
While many people dream of abandoning civilization and heading into the wilderness, few manage to actually do it. One exception was twenty-four-year-old Elliott Merrick, who in 1929 left his advertising job in New Jersey and moved to Labrador, one of Canada’s most remote regions.
 
True North tells the captivating story of one of the high points of Merrick’s years there: a hunting trip he and his wife, Kay, made with trapper John Michelin…


Book cover of Prince Henry 'The Navigator': A Life

David Abulafia Author Of The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans

From my list on global history before the modern era.

Why am I passionate about this?

We live in an increasingly connected world. But human beings have always made connections with one another across space, and the space I find especially exciting is water - whether the narrow space of seas such as the Mediterranean and the Baltic, or the broader and wilder spaces of the great oceans. These are spaces that link distant countries and continents, across which people have brought objects, ideas and religions as well as themselves - a history of migrants, merchants, mercenaries, missionaries, and many others that can be recovered from shipwrecks, travellers' tales, cargo manifests, and many other sources, a history, ultimately, of the origins of our globalized world.

David's book list on global history before the modern era

David Abulafia Why did David love this book?

This is a rich and revisionist account of a figure long celebrated in Portugal as a national hero and the founder of what became the worldwide Portuguese Empire; but Russell reveals a flawed figure consumed by ambitions that resulted in the establishment of a trade in black slaves from West Africa, alongside successful colonisation of uninhabited islands such as Madeira and the Azores.

By Peter Russell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Prince Henry 'The Navigator' as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Henry the Navigator, fifteenth-century Portuguese prince and explorer, is a legendary, almost mythical figure in late medieval history. Considered along with Columbus to be one of the progenitors of modernity, Prince Henry challenged the scientific assumptions of his age and was responsible for liberating Europeans from geographical restraints that had bound them since the Roman Empire's collapse. In this enthralling account of Henry's life-the first biography of "The Navigator" in more than a century-Peter Russell reaps the harvest of a lifelong study of Prince Henry. Making full use of documentary evidence only recently available, Russell reevaluates Henry and his role…


Book cover of The Vast Unknown: America's First Ascent of Everest
Book cover of Himalaya
Book cover of Himalaya: A Human History

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Interested in explorers, the Himalayas, and the arctic?

Explorers 111 books
The Himalayas 36 books
The Arctic 73 books