Todd Balf, Author . Crown $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-609-60989-7
In 1854, Isaac Strain, an ambitious young U.S. Navy lieutenant, launched an expedition hoping to find a definitive route for a canal across the isthmus of Panama. For hundreds of years, the Darién isthmus had defied explorers; its unmapped...
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Todd Balf, Author . Crown $24 (306p) ISBN 978-0-307-23658-6
According to Balf, at the turn of the century the invention of the bicycle “democratized transport.” But as Balf also points out, despite the bicycle’s ability to break down society’s social structure, it couldn’t make...
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Todd Balf, Author Crown Publishers $24 (304p) ISBN 978-0-609-60625-4
In 1998 a team of world-class whitewater kayakers arrived in Tibet to confront a Himalayan river so remote and unexplored that they relied on satellite imagery to map out their planned descent. Somewhere along its uncharted stretch were magnificent...
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Todd Balf, Author, Dennis Boutsikaris, Read by Random House Audio Publishing Group $25.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-375-41626-2
Boutsikaris does a fine job of matching Balf's (a former editor of Outside magazine) comfortable, plainspoken style, ringing true in all instances except the few where he is called upon to simulate foreign accents, an area that is clearly not his...
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Todd Balf. Blackstone, $27.99 (306p) ISBN 979-8-8747-1417-8
Balf (The Last River) presents a vivid snapshot of competitive swimming in the 1920s through the stories of three star athletes (German American Johnny Weissmuller, native Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, and Japan’s Katsuo Takaishi) and their performance...
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