As Told at the Explorers Club

October 1, 2003
Published on the eve of the Explorers Club centennial, this collection of stories and articles derives from the club's past publications. It's a wide array, covering every continent and charting adventure travel's course over the past 60-odd years. Plimpton divides the book geographically, with the bulk of the pieces falling into Africa, Arctic, Asia and the continental U.S. (places like Alaska, the Atlantic Ocean and Australia are represented with only one or two essays each). Although the selections vary in quality, they all convey a sense of immediacy; their first-person narratives offer the pleasure of campfire stories. Among the gems: Col. C. Suydam Cutting's recollection of cheetah hunting in South India, Anne Keenleyside's exploration of cannibalism in the Arctic and E. W. Deming's retelling of Sitting Bull's mystifying death in North Dakota. This fine book is the first volume in the Explorers Club Classic Series.