Seven Rivers is story of the Nile, Danube, Niger, Mississippi, Ganges, Yangtze and the Thames. It is a story of imperial frontiers, alluvial gold, kidnappings, slavery, anticolonialism and creation myths. It is about those who’ve lived and died on these rivers and their endless capacity for invention: their lotus pools and hanging gardens, their gigantic canal systems and elaborate fishing rituals, their absolute powers and their sly rebellions. At its heart are the empire-builders of the Chinese dynasties, Romans and Hindus and their river gods, the Habsburgs and Ottomans, Mughal emperors, the people of the Niger from Mali’s golden age to today, struggles of life and death on the Mississippi, and the dethroning of the British on the rivers of their unruly imperial subjects.

This is the story of us, in seven rivers.

‘The British divers are all heroes’ Clive Cussler
‘A case study in courage’ Ron Howard, Oscar-winning director of Apollo 13
________

Thailand, July 2018. Twelve boys and their football coach vanish into Tham Luang caves just as the monsoon rains hit. A mile from the surface they are trapped by rising flood waters. All attempts to reach them fail.

As hope for their survival fades a retired British firefighter tinkering with homemade cave-diving kit gets a call.

Rick Stanton and his dive partner race to the other side of the world.
The boys have been missing for days.
Each hour, their chance of escape shrinks.
Rick must swim, crawl and squeeze through treacherously tight submerged tunnels hunting for them.

But that is not the impossible part.

Because if by some miracle they’re alive then somehow he must bring the boys back out again . . .

He doesn’t know it yet but all his life he’s been training for this very moment . . .

________

‘The riveting, behind-the-scenes story. Captivating’ SUNDAY POST

‘A definitive view of the rescue. You probably won’t read a better-written book about diving this year. I just had to get to the end’ DIVER MAGAZINE

‘Diver Rick Stanton relives the rescue of the century’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Remarkable . . . the chronicle of a man from a humble background who worked devilishly hard . . . and was willing to go anywhere to help people in the most dire cave disasters’ WALL STREET JOURNAL

THE RESCUE WATCHED BY THE WORLD

‘The Thai cave rescue was phenomenally dangerous, and the work of true heroes’ iNews

‘[The rescue] was fantastic, it really was . . .’ HRH Prince William

‘If it was me stuck anywhere, the one person I would want to come and rescue me is Rick Stanton’ Alex Daw, Watch Commander, West Midlands Fire Service

‘One of the great stories of our time’ Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Oscar-winning co-director of Free Solo

‘Rick Stanton is not the most domesticated of men’ Sunday Telegraph

Shortlisted for the Richard Jeffries Award

The story of one woman’s passion for glaciers

As one of the world’s leading glaciologists, Professor Jemma Wadham has devoted her career to the glaciers that cover one-tenth of the Earth’s land surface. Today, however, these ‘ice rivers’ are in peril. High up in the Alps, Andes and Himalaya, once-indomitable glaciers are retreating; in Antarctica, meanwhile, thinning ice sheets are releasing meltwater to sensitive marine foodwebs, and may be unlocking vast quantities of methane stored deep beneath them. The potential consequences for humanity are almost unfathomable.

Jemma’s first encounter with a glacier, as a student, sparked her love of these icy landscapes. There is nowhere on Earth she feels more alive. Whether abseiling down crevasses, skidooing across frozen fjords, exploring ice caverns, or dodging polar bears – for a glaciologist, it’s all in a day’s work.

Prompted by an illness that took her to the brink of death and back, in Ice Rivers Jemma recalls twenty-five years of expeditions around the globe, revealing why the glaciers mean so much to her – and what they should mean to us. As she guides us from the Alps to the Andes, the importance of the ice to crucial ecosystems and human livelihoods becomes clear – our lives are entwined with these coldest places on the planet. This is a memoir like no other: an eye-witness account by a top scientist at the frontline of the climate crisis, and an impassioned love letter to the glaciers that are her obsession.

‘A thrilling story of courage, survival and science. It’s an extraordinary, visceral and vivid read’ Geographical Magazine
________

Three hundred years ago no one knew the true shape of the world.

It wasn’t a sphere – but did it bulge at the equator or was it pointed at the poles? Until we found out no map could ever be truly accurate. So a team of scientists was sent to South America – to measure one full degree of latitude.

But South America was a land of erupting volcanoes, sodden rainforests, earthquakes, deadly diseases, tropical storms and violent unrest. And the misfit scientists had an unfortunate tendency to squander funds, fight duels, stumble into mutinies or die horribly.

The tale of their ten-year odyssey of exploration, discovery, flirtations with failure and ultimate triumph becomes in Nicholas Crane’s hands the greatest scientific adventure story ever told.
________

‘Pace, rigour and attention to enticing detail . . . Crane has a rare knack for showing people things without them having to get out of their chair’ Joe Smith, director of The Royal Geographic society

Jemma’s first encounter with a glacier, as a student, sparked her love of these icy landscapes. There is nowhere on Earth she feels more alive. Whether abseiling down crevasses, skidooing across frozen fjords, exploring ice caverns, or dodging polar bears – for a glaciologist, it’s all in a day’s work.

Prompted by an illness that took her to the brink of death and back, in Ice Rivers Jemma recalls twenty-five years of expeditions around the globe, revealing why the glaciers mean so much to her – and what they should mean to us. As she guides us from the Alps to the Andes, the importance of the ice to crucial ecosystems and human livelihoods becomes clear – our lives are entwined with these coldest places on the planet. This is a memoir like no other: an eye-witness account by a top scientist at the frontline of the climate crisis, and an impassioned love letter to the glaciers that are her obsession.