Biography

At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior-Palmer discovered a website devoted to "the world's longest, toughest horse race"--an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of twenty-five wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. As she boarded a plane to East Asia, she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her. Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, a course that re-creates the horse messenger system developed by Genghis Khan, and many fail to finish.

In the tradition of Anthony Bourdain and Linda Greenlaw, a long haul mover's rollicking account of life out on the Big Slab.

Did you know that as a young teen, Sally Ride was a nationally ranked amateur tennis player?  Want to know if Stephen Hawking binge-watched TV as a child?  Would you believe that Manya Sklodowska (that's Marie Curie, by the way) once hung all of a relative's furniture from the ceiling as a practical joke?  The latest installment of this popular series focuses on scientists, including Neil deGrasse Tyson, Temple Grandin, Nikola Tesla, and many more!