
Last Breath
The Limits of Adventure
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Narrated by:
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Peter Stark
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By:
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Peter Stark
About this listen
Sudden, extreme deaths have always fascinated us - and now more than ever as athletes and travelers rise to the challenges of high-risk sports and journeys on the edge. In this spellbinding audiobook, veteran travel and outdoor sports writer Peter Stark reenacts the dramas of what happens inside our bodies, our minds, and our souls when we push ourselves to the absolute limits of human endurance.
Combining the adrenaline high of extreme sports with the startling facts of physiological reality, Stark narrates a series of outdoor adventure stories in which thrill can cross the line to mortal peril. Each death or brush with death is at once a suspense story, a cautionary tale, and a medical thriller.
Stark describes in unforgettable detail exactly what goes through the mind of a cross-country skier as his body temperature plummets - apathy at 91 degrees, stupor at 90. He puts us inside the body of a doomed kayaker tumbling helplessly underwater for two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes. He conjures up the physiology of a snowboarder frantically trying not to panic as he consumes the tiny pocket of air trapped around his face under thousands of pounds of snow.
These are among the dire situations that Stark transforms into harrowing accounts of how our bodies react to trauma, how reflexes and instinct compel us to fight back, and how, why, and when we let go of our will to live.
In an increasingly tamed and homogenized world, risk is not only a means of escape but a path to spirituality. As Peter Stark writes, "You must try to understand death intimately and prepare yourself for death in order to live a full and satisfying life."
In this fascinating, informative audio, Stark reveals exactly what we're getting ourselves into when we choose to live - and die - at the extremes of endurance.
©2001 Peter Stark (P)2001 Random House, Inc., Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, a Division of Random House, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Good duel biography of Tecumseh and Harrison
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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Critic reviews
"Stark packs enough historic and scientific information and page-turning suspense into each chapter to make them all fascinating and useful." (Amazon.com)
As an Outdoor Emergency Care (National Ski Patrol) Instructor, I was intriqued by the details of the injuries and ultimate death from these adventure accidents. Hypothermia for me please. The Inuits would wonder off onto the ice when they felt no longer able to contribute to their families. I can understand the wisdom in this after reading the description of a rather pleasant way to pass on to the next life. This seems a grizzly topic, but every outdoor adventurer is intimately aware of the dangers and consequenses of his or her miscalculations, and Last Breath describes fairly what must go through our minds as this life leaves our earthly limbs.
Frank and fair. A must for adventurers
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A Very Nice Surprise!
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He lets a couple live
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Utterly fascinating
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Excellent!
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Missing chapters
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Marvelously well told physiological tales
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Yes. Keep it up!
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Captivating and hard to put down!
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Interesting concept.....
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