One man’s journey in the footsteps of a great explorer into the heart of Africa.
As a young man, Warwick Cairns met the then elderly explorer Wilfred Thesiger and the two men struck up an unlikely friendship. Invited to visit him at his African home, Cairns decides to make a bit of an adventure of it and do some of the journey on foot.
When he himself was a young man, Thesiger led an expedition to explore the course of the Awash river in Ethiopia. Every westerner that had gone before him had been killed by local tribesmen. Needless to say, he survived.
Alternating chapters chart Warwick’s journey with that of Thesiger creating a captivating dual narrative that is part travel book, part biography, part autobiography, part history with fair doses of philosophy and humour thrown in for good measure.
In Praise of Savagery is a highly original book that defies classification but is always effortlessly readable.

In Praise of Savagery

Biographies & Memoirs

Cairns, Warwick

Historical

The Friday Project

Afraid of flying? Forty percent of Americans are. Yet you'd have to fly every day for the next 26,000 years to assure yourself of dying in a crash. A leisurely canoe ride is more than 100 times deadlier.
Think city streets are unsafe? You're more likely to come to harm in your own home, where every year you stand a 1 in 650 chance of being injured by your bed, mattress, or pillows―and each year 800 Americans die in accidents involving soft furnishings.
We live in a world governed by fear, where packets of peanuts "may contain nuts" and children must be ever on the alert to "stranger danger." And yet, life expectancy has never been higher. Crime rates have plunged. Even unintentional injuries are down. So if we're so safe, why are we so afraid?
How to Live Dangerously is a hilarious, straight-talking look at the things that terrify us. It considers life's real risks, not to mention the often ridiculous methods we've contrived to keep ourselves "safe." It encourages you to ignore fearmongers and embrace a new kind of freedom, in which we all worry a little less―and live a whole lot more.

How to Live Dangerously: The Hazards of Helmets, the Benefits of Bacteria, and the Risks of Living Too Safe

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

St. Martin's: Griffin

Readers will find out: Why an old Wellington boot is as important an instrument of spacial awareness as was ever invented? Why the size of a space shuttle's fuel tanks has more to do with the proportions of a horse's rump than rocket science? and, Why how tired your ox gets? How much water it takes to drown you, and how much you can hold in one hand while doing something else are all essential principles that explain how man has balanced and judged his world since the dawn of time. In part a case for the continued use of traditional British measures, this book also celebrates the richness and commonality of systems from around the world, and how they were formed by the one guiding principle of measurement no one ever mentions: that most of us have better things to think about.

About the Size of it

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Pan.

About The Size Of It

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Macmillan

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Books by Cairns, Warwick