Polar Dream, by Helen Thayer

Polar Dream: The Heroic Saga of the First Solo Journey by a Woman and Her Dog to the Pole, by Helen Thayer
Simon & Schuster, 1993
252 pages, plus acknowledgements. No index. 8 pages of color photos

Description
Seldom has there been a story as enthralling or inspiring as Polar Dream - the real life adventure of Helen Thayer's courageous journey to the magnetic North Pole.

In 1988-at the age of 50-Helen Thayer became the first woman to ski solo to the Pole, her only companion a big, black husky she'd named Charlie. Polar Dream is the vivid first-prson account of this grueling 27-day odyssey, during which Helen and Charlie trekked 345 miles through the desolation and dangers of the Arctic. There they braved brutal subzero temperatures, gale-force storms, treacherous ice floes and, toward the end of the journey, near starvation as well as the greatest danger of all - marauding polar bears.

But Polar Dream is more than a tale of heroic determination in a hostile world of ice. It is also a testament to the intense bond of love and trust that developed between Helen and Charlie, a dog wise in the ways of Arctic survival. Several times, Charlie risked his own life to protect Helen from huge, hungry bears. And he learned to become just as skillful at begging for Helen's food and, eventually, winning his way into her tent-and her heart.

Helen writes of the incredible beauty of the Arctic and of her hopes, fears and deep feelings of isolation. Her book is an amazing account of courage and endurance in the face of unrelenting hardship, and a touching tale of loyalty and love between human and animal that will not soon be forgotten.

Born in New Zealand, Helen Thayer is a professional mountain guide and a former discus thrower, sled racer and US National Luge Champion (1975.) She was the recipient of the American Mountain Foundation Outstanding Achievement award in 1988 and in 1990, she served as the American leader of the first international US/Soviet arctic women's expedition. She has also climbed the highest mountains in North America, South America, and the former Soviet Union.

In May 1982 she and her 65-year old husband Bill became the first - and oldest - married couple to reach the magnetic North Pole on foot, unresupplied.

When they're not fending off polar bears, fighting frostbite, or climbing mountains, Helen, Bill and Charlie make their home in Snohomish, Washington.

One Woman's Army, by Janis Karpinski with Steven Strasser

One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story, by Janis Karpinski with Steven Strasser
Miramax Books, 2005
242 pages. No index. 8 pages of color photos

Description
When Janos Karpinski first saw the photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, she felt the walls of her Baghdad office closing in on her. She recognized that the soldiers shown grinning over the naked, cowering Iraqi detainees served under her command. Military justice had already had swept up the seven MPs charged in the abuse case - and Karpinski soon learned that the system was about to turn on her.

Here is the inside story of the first female general ever to comman troops in a combat zone, and of how the scandal destroyed her career. It traces the rise of a groundbreaking woman from the Republican suburbs of New Jersey to a commanding position in a man's army.

Karpinski earned her general's insignia as a master parachutist, recipient of the Bronze Star in the first Gulf WAr,, and as the leader chosen for a special mission to train Arab women as a fighting force in the Middle East.

In Iraq, Karpinski and her 3,400 US soldiers faced the biggest challenge of all: rebuilding a civilian prison system left in shambles by SAddam Hussein. She describes the ordeal of serving in a violent landscape populated by US commanders flailing at a growing insurgency, and by the specter of the captive Saddam, who showed surprise at meeting a female general and refused to believe that Karpinski could be in charge of his incarceration. In the end, Karpinski accepts her share of responsibility for the abuses, but raises a larger question: why was she the most prominent target of the investigations?

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The photos
2. Saddam's torture palace
3. Adventurse with George
4. This woman's army
5. Playing with little guns
6. It's okay, I can suffer
7. Fort Bragg: Headquarters of machismo
8. Janis of Arabia
9. The Weekend Warrior
10. Gulf War I
11. Our very own chocolate chips
12. Get me an airplane, I'm going to Iraq
13. The Road to Baghdad
14. These are prisoners, Janis
15. The Incarceration cowboys
16. Actionable intelligence
17. Taking the Gloves off

Amelia Earhart, by Kathleen C. Winters

Amelia Earhart: The Turbulent Life of an American Icon, by Kathleen C. Winters
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
216 pages plus references, bibliography and index
Library: B EARHA,A

Description
When Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during an attempted around-the-world flight, she was at the height of her fame: Adored by the public, she counted celebrities and politicians among her many friends and was idolized by women across the globe. She remains a fondly remembered object of fascination today, as her mysterious disappearance continues to inspire fevered speculation and regular attempts to locate her crash site.

This nuanced and often surprising biography by acclaimed aviation historian Kathleen C. winters moves beyong the caricature of the spunky, preternaturally gifted pilot to give us a more complex portrait of Earhart.

Drawing on a wealth of interviews, flight records, and other extensive new evidence, this book traces Amelia's unconventional childhood as the daughter of a spendthrift railroad lawyer and recounts her growing passion for aviation, her rocky first flights, and the remarkable series of events that transformed her into a household name almost overnight.

It shows us a spirited adventuress and flawed heroine who was frequently reckless and lacked basic navigation skills, but who was also a canny manipulator of mass media. Even as other spectacular pilots went unnoticed by the public, Earhart and her husband - the publisher and impresario George Putnam-worked to establish her as an international celebrity, devising ever-more daring stants that culminated in her infamous last flight. Sympathetic yet unsentimental, and filled with gripping accounts of Earhart's exploits, this biography helps us to see a global icon with fresh eyes.

Bold Spirit, by Linda Lawrence Hunt

Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America, by Linda Lawrence Hunt
University of Idaho Press, 2003
260 pages, plus Notes, Bibliography and Index. B&W photos and illustrations scattered thoughout the book
Library: 973.87092 HUN


Description
Desperate. Determined. Unwaveringly confident. In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant named Helga Estby dares to cross 3500 miles of the American continent to win a $10,000 wager. On foot.

A mother of eight living children, she attempts to save her family's homestead in Eastern Washington after after the 1893 depression had ravaged the American economy. Fearing homelessness and family poverty, Helga responds to a wager from a mysterious sponsor, casts off the cultural corsets of Victorian femininity, and gambles her family's future by striking out with her eldest daughter, Clara, to try to be the first women to travel unescorted across the country: independent, audacious, alert, and armed with a Smith-and-Wesson revolver.

Leaving with only five dollars each and dressed in full-length skirts, they follow the railroads east as newspapers chronicle their adventures. Using wits, savvy, and guns to survive snowstorms, hunger, mountain lions, and the occasional thief, they visit Indian reservations, Western boomtowns, governors, mining towns, remote ranchers, politicians, and even President-elect William McKinley.

Accomplishing what was assumed impossible for women, they arrive in New York heralded by the city's popular newspapers for their astonishing achievement. But deep disappointment, betrayal, and heartbreaking news from home cause the remarkable story to become silenced among their family and friends.

Almost a century later, author Linda Hunt recreates Helga Estby's story in Bold Spirit: her culture and time, her abiding love of America, her resilient faith, and her challenge to Victorian constraints as she lived on the transitional edge of a new century of possibilities and of changing beliefs about women.

For many modern readers, enduring questions remain about what happens when stories go unspoken among us and what keeps family stories alive. Helga's is a rag-rug history, woven from discarded remnants and submerged details, a once-forgotten saga that sheds insight into women's history, and demonstrates the tenacious spirit of the human will.

Table of Contents
Foreword by Sue Armitage
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. On Foot to New York
2. Motherhood on a Minnesota Prairie
3. The Crucible Years
4. Surprises in Spokane Falls
5. Frontier Vices and the Move to Mica Creek
6. Financial Fears and a Family Death
7. The Wager
8. Undaunted by Rain, Sleet and Snow
9. Hot, Hungry and Hopeful
10. Night Terrors
11. "New Women's" Actions and Old Victorian Attitudes
12. An Electrifying Presidential Election
13. Earning their Own Way
14. A Rush to the Finish
15. The Impossible Happens
16. Heartbreak at the Mica Creek Homestead
17. Homeward Bound
18. Lost and Found
A reflection on the silencing of family stories
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Beyond the Limits: A Woman's Triumph on Everest, by Stacy Allison

Beyond the Limits: A Woman's Triumph on Everest, by Stacy Allison with Peter Carlin
Little, Brown and Compaby, 1993
282 pages plus 8 pages of b&w photos, no index

Description
At 29,028 feet, Mount Everest is the world's highest, most challenging mountain, looming in our imagination as a monument to the impossible; for every three climbers who reach its elusive summit, one dies trying. But for one moment in 1988, Stacy Allison stood alone on this mythic peak - the only spot on Earth where she couldn't climb any higher. At that moment, Allison became the first American woman ever to reach the summit of Everest.

Stacy Allison is America's premier female climber, a woman on many triumphs, both on the mountain and off. Beyond the Limits is the tale of her journey upward. It is a thrilling account about breaking through the barriers of a traditional male domain, and a moving personal story about the struggle out of the trap of domestic violence - of how she summoned the same spirit and courage that brought her to the top of the world to finally walk out of her abusive marriage. It is, ultimately, her testimony to the power of a vision and a purpose in the midst of despair and uncertainty.

In Beyond the Limits, Stacy Allison provides a rare close-up of the elite mountain-climbing world: the idieosyncratic dedicated individuals who make up the international climbing community; the political and strategic maneuvering before and during an expedition, the grueling training and single-minded ambition; and the constant danger and pressing threat of death.

Stacy describes how life feels at 29,028 feet, when cells don't regenerate and the body literally begins to waste away; what she thinks about while clinging to the side of a granite face by her fingers or when an avalanche comes crashing down on top of her; what it's like to look death in the face but refuse to give up.

Beyond the Limits is a sispenseful, triumphant adventure story, a spirited tribute to the determination of one woman, and an uplifting primer for anyone who has ever faced a mountain - physical or metaphorical - and reached for its summit.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Blown Away
2. Heaven on Earth
3. The Top of America
4. Chasing Dreams
5. Death and Survival
6. The Road to Base Camp
7. Stranded Hopes
8. Because I'm Here
9. Building the Route
10. Nowhere Else to Climb
11. Chasing the Goddess
12. Anything is Possible

Manifesto

This blog will feature book information on "Avengerous" women - athletes, explorers, businesswomen...all who excel (or at least try to excel) at what they do - being the best they can be.