To the Last Breath, Francis Slakey
To the Last Breath, Francis Slakey
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To the Last Breath
A Memoir of Going to Extremes

Author: Francis Slakey

Narrator: Francis Slakey

Unabridged: 7 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 05/08/2012

Synopsis

Before Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had shut himself off from other people. His lectures were mechanical; his relationships were little more than ways to fill the evenings. But as his journey veered dangerously off course, everything about him began to change.A gripping adventure of the body and mind, To the Last Breath depicts the quest that leads Slakey around the globe, almost takes his life, challenges his fiercely held beliefs, and opens his heart. The scientist in Slakey explores the history of Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed Antarctica expedition, the technology of climbing, and the geophysics of waves. But it is the challenges he endures and the people he encounters—a Lama who gives him a mysterious amulet, a life-or-death choice atop Everest, an ambush at gunpoint in Indonesia, a head-on collision in the high desert—that culminate in a moving lesson about what it means to be human.

About Francis Slakey

Francis Slakey is the Upjohn Lecturer on Physics and Public Policy at Georgetown University and an Associate Director of Public Affairs at the American Physical Society, where his focus is the intersection of science and society. The founder and co-director of the Program on Science in the Public Interest, a Lemelson Associate of the Smithsonian Institution, and a MacArthur Scholar, Dr. Slakey has been featured by NPR, National Geographic, and others, and his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, and Scientific American.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Der-shing

I would have enjoyed this memoir a lot more if 1) it had been filed under the biography section in our library, and not the adventure/ climbing section 2) had it been more focused on Slakey's legitimately impressive global feats, and 3) if it wasn't written in the tone of a teenager's livejournal. I......more

Goodreads review by Ellis

Perhaps miscast as mountain woe? Oddly enough, since the cover is a guy climbing a mountain, I thought it would be about climbing mountains. At some point, although he's "stood on the summit of the highest mountain in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia, Antarctica, and North America," I had to thin......more

Goodreads review by La Petite Américaine

**Update** Once again, I'm left astounded by Goodreads reviewers. The shitty books get rave reviews and the outstanding ones get bad reviews because "this book wasn't what I expected"?? Normally I don't give a damn if someone doesn't like a good book, but come on. You're pissed off that a book with......more

Goodreads review by Matthew

I read an advanced copy of To the Last Breath. This is not my style of book whatsoever -- I rarely read non-fiction, what little non-fiction I do read is never memoir, and I tend to find adventure tales, not to mention personal transformation tales, a little boring -- but I read it in two sittings,......more

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