Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know

By: Ranulph Fiennes

Narrated by: Ranulph Fiennes

Ranulph Fiennes has travelled to the most dangerous and inaccessible places on earth, almost died countless times, lost nearly half his fingers to frostbite, raised millions of pounds for charity, and been awarded a polar medal and an OBE. He has been an elite soldier, an athlete, a mountaineer, an explorer, a bestselling author, and nearly replaced Sean Connery as James Bond.

In his autobiography, he describes how he led expeditions all over the world and became the first person to travel to both poles on land. He tells of how he discovered the lost city of Ubar in Oman and attempted to walk solo and unsupported to the South Pole: the expedition that cost him several fingers, and very nearly his life. His most recent challenge was scaling the north face of the Eiger, one of the most awesome mountaineering challenges in the world. Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes OBE, 3rd Baronet, looks back on a life lived at the very limits of human endeavour.

©2007 Ranulph Fiennes (P)2007 Hodder and Stoughton Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Rip-roaringly readable." ( Guardian)

Excellent but...

Excellent book covering the career of an amazing British adventurer. My only problem was when purchasing I did not release quite how abridged it was. Felt very short or perhaps I was simply enjoying the narrative.

Hero!

Great book, brilliamtly narrated. Ran Fiennes is the world's top adventurer and definitely my hero!

Very abridged

Is this the right book for you? It will depend largely on how much detail you want or need.

This audiobook is two and a half hours of Sir Ranulph Fiennes providing an overview or summary of the key events of his life. His other books are between 12 and 16 hours long.

To give you some idea of just how this compares with his other works, I'm including the following example of the level of abridgement you can expect to see.

From "Fear":

"Older boys still fancied me, therefor I developed a permanent scowl and in the streets only looked down at the pavement. Then one day a boy named David Hart, who had joined my house at the same time I had and was also alienated from his peers that he so hated one particular bully that he was going to take up boxing, which was then an alternative to fencing or gymnastics so that he could be up his tormentor. He never did take up boxing, but he did give me the idea to do so. And from then on my constant feeling of shame, humiliation and derision began to diminish".

That same experience in "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know":

"Instead [of suicide], I decided to cultivate a perpetual scowl and joined the school boxing team."

Lovely short account of some crazy long adventures

The author speaks so casually of grueling trials and stretches of land most of us can only imagine. Good book that's stoked my interest in exploration and reading about similar feats

excellent adventures, far too abridged.

much too short, Author not a great reader of his own book. disappointed and bored by monotonous delivery.

too short waist of money

had a hard time keeping up with what was going on and the whole book was only 2 chapters

Far far far too Abridged

Any additional comments?

There are gigantic plot points skipped, you can't even call this a book. It's more like a sample of the book.