Some people prefer to read novels but I've always enjoyed biographies. It seems to me that enough things happen in real life that are amazing, and stir the imagination sufficiently to inspire. My son Pete and I read the classic accounts of famous adventurers together; Shackleton, Shipton, Tilman, Herzog, Slocum, Cherry-Garrard, Lindbergh and Mawson. Some were written shortly after the particular events occurred, many of them were written years later. The ones that we particularly enjoyed showed incredible personal courage through epic hardship, "close calls" and frequently "one man against...