Blind Corners - Geoff Tabin

I picked up this adventure book in a great used bookstore in Kenai.  It's a brief memoir by an amazing man who not only conquered the Seven Summits but is also an eye surgeon.  It was written while he was early in his medical career, after graduating from Yale (undergrad) and Harvard (doctorate) and attending Oxford - whew!  He chose the title to advocate for taking risks by pursuing your dreams and testing your limits.  It was inspiring and at the same time intimidating.  At times he seemed reckless but his belief in his abilities and willingness to challenge himself has served him well.

He currently heads a philanthropic project to eliminate preventable blindness in the poor of the world and visits Nepal each year to perform cataract surgery on what is now thousands of people. 

He would be a fascinating person to meet, I plan to listen to his TED talk.

p.s.  He also is responsible for "inventing" bungee jumping!

Published:  1993   Read: June 2018  Genre: Adventure

Deep - James Nestor

I have a great best friend with varied interests and she has led me to topics I never would have discovered on my own.  This book, about deep water freediving, is her most recent share.

I was fascinated from the first chapter where the author described his first encounter with competitive freediving.  The physical limits of the human body are tested and pushed to the limit to achieve a condition that hearkens back to our ancient sea roots.

I enjoyed learning how practitioners learn to hold their breath for several minutes while diving and the physical changes that happen that allow them to go deeper and longer underwater.  Great read.

Published:  2015  Read: December 2015  Genre: Science, non-fiction

978-0-544-48407-8