'To those who went to the War straight from school and survived it, the problem of what to do afterwards was peculiarly difficult.' For H.W. 'Bill' Tilman, the solution lay in Africa: in gold prospecting, mountaineering and a 3,000-mile bicycle ride across the continent. Tilman was one of the greatest adventurers of his time, a pioneering climber and sailor who held exploration above all else. He made first ascents throughout the Himalaya, attempted Mount Everest, and sailed into the Arctic Circle. For Tilman, the goal was always to explore, to see new places, to discover rather than conquer. First published in 1937, Snow on the Equator chronicles Tilman's early adventures; his transition from East African coffee planter to famed mountaineer. After World War I, Tilman left for Africa, where he grew coffee, prospected for gold and met Eric Shipton, the two beginning their famed mountaineering partnership, traversing Mount Kenya and climbing Kilimanjaro and Ruwenzori. Tilman eventually left Africa in typically adventurous style via a 3,000-mile solo bicycle ride across the continent—all recounted here in splendidly funny style. Tilman is one of the greatest of all travel writers. His books are well-informed and keenly observed, concerned with places and people as much as summits and achievements. They are full of humour and anecdotes and are frequently hilarious. He is part of the great British tradition of comic writing and there is nobody else quite like him.

Widely considered a jewel of contemporary travel literature, Equator is Thurston Clarke’s magnificent, witty account of his solo journey along the earth’s torrid midsection—a grueling twenty-five-thousand-mile odyssey that spanned three years and as many continents. His was a perilous trek across an almost surreal landscape—where a first-class hotel appeared smack in the middle of a leper colony and a one-time Pacific island paradise stood as a hideous, bomb-blasted testament to nuclear folly. Along the way Clarke encountered the world’s heaviest rat, the earth’s highest volcano, and the king of a Micronesian island, wearing flip-flops and a novelty T-shirt. Throughout, Clarke’s unflagging sense of humor and wonder make Equator a classic of its kind.

Defines the equator and indicates how plants, animals, and humans learn to survive in this extreme environment.

Offers a compelling chronicle of the great ice ages.