Into Thick Air

With plenty of sunscreen and a cold beer swaddled in his sleeping bag, writer and botanist Jim Malusa bicycled alone to the lowest point on each of six continents, a six-year series of "anti-expeditions” to the "anti-summits.” His journeys took him to Lake Eyre in the arid heart of Australia, along Moses' route to the Dead Sea, and from Moscow to the Caspian Sea. He pedaled across the Andes to Patagonia, around tiny Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, and from Tucson to Death Valley. With a scientist's eye, he vividly observes local landscapes and creatures. As a lone man, he is overfed by grandmothers, courted by ladies of the night in Volgograd, invited into a mosque by Africa's most feared tribe, chased by sandstorms and hurricanes - yet Malusa keeps riding. His reward: the deep silence of the world's great depressions. A large-hearted narrative of what happens when a friendly, perceptive American puts himself at the mercy of strange landscapes and their denizens, Into Thick Air presents one of the most talented new voices in contemporary travel writing.

Jim Malusa has reported on many assignments for The Discovery Channel, including travels to Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the Atacama Desert in Chile, caves in Alaska, and Three Gorges Dam in China. He has also written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including Natural History, the Las Vegas Sun, and the Arizona Daily Star. With a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Arizona, he conducts fieldwork on desert plants for the university and the National Park Service, when he is not traveling the world or writing about his adventures.