At 17, she even became the first woman to obtain an official horse training license in Africa.īut her greatest claim to fame was yet to come. In the town of Nojoro, she developed an insatiable hunger for adventure-forming a vibrant daily routine of horse-riding, spear-hunting, and playing with a young Kipsigis warrior. Abandoned by her mother at the age of four, she moved from England to Kenya-where her horse trainer father set up his own farm.

Buy it here.When it comes to fascinating lives, Beryl Markham's is particularly novel-worthy. Vanhoenacker, a 747 pilot, has not lost his sense of awe, and his wise, deliberate book offers behind-the-scenes tidbits and philosophical musings on flight, beauty, and our planet. It's easy to forget what an astonishing, recent thing it is that we can freely traverse this planet's skies. Reading it feels like spending a rainy afternoon at the feet of your favorite great-aunt, regaled with anecdotes from an extremely well-lived life. She chronicles those years in this chatty memoir full of hijinks, close scrapes, and losses. Spreading My Wings by Diana Barnato Walker (1994)Ī fast-living English society girl and hobbyist pilot, Walker spent World War II ferrying warplanes around the U.K. I read this account of her journey when I was a teenager and was enraptured by the glamour (and eventual romance) of her adventure, though she doesn't sugarcoat her struggles, frustrations, and doubts. In 1985, Aebi's father gave her an ultimatum: Go to college or sail solo around the world. A spare but vivid glimpse of a singular woman.

Markham's iconic and exceptionally elegant memoir of growing up as the ultimate free-range child in Kenya culminates in her historic westbound flight across the Atlantic, the first-ever solo and nonstop against the wind. West With the Night by Beryl Markham (1942) Without wasting a word, he lays bare the hardships of merchant sailors, the dangers of piracy and of maritime accidents, and the formidable challenges of imposing order on the vast and borderless ocean. I'm a huge admirer of Langewiesche's aviation writing, too, but this book changed the way I understand the world. The Outlaw Sea by William Langewiesche (2004) Nichols expertly tells how the others were picked off by storms, wrecks, illness, loneliness, fatigue, idealism (oddly enough), and, in one case, the impossible, madness-inducing burden of deception. This is a riveting account of a 1968-69 round-the-world solo-sailing race, in which nine yachtsmen set out and only one finished. A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols (2001) Below, Shipstead recommends six other books about the sea or sky. In her novel Great Circle - an acclaimed best-seller now in paperback - Maggie Shipstead interwove the stories of a missing 1950s female aviator and a film actress hired to play her.

West with the wind beryl markham