|  | Author: Joe Kane
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 801117
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 277
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 0394553314
Dewey Decimal Number: 918.110463
EAN: 9780394553313
ASIN: 0394553314
Publication Date: June 17, 1989
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Good condition, wear from reading and use. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact and has some creases. The spine has signs of wear and creases. This copy may include "From the library of" labels, stickers or stamps and be an ex-library copy.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Adventure literature classic January 25, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Adventure literature classic. National Geographic ranked it #57 in its top 100 Adventure Books of all-time.
A team of nine, mostly strangers, attempts to be the first to traverse the Amazon river--from its source in Peru down to the Atlantic--the longest river in the world. Joe Kane is invited as a journalist to document the journey, but who has no boating or adventure experience. Crisis among the team leadership leads to a breakdown and in the end things don't turn out as expected. Reads like a novel. New found love, personal conflicts, peasant revolutions, and the dangers of the river propel the story forward to the sea, "it's all downhill from here".
A Classic In Travel/Adventure Lit September 17, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If it isn't already, Joe Kane's RUNNING THE AMAZON will definitely become a real classic in travel and adventure lit. Among the many travel narratives out there, this is one of the best you will find.
Kane was invited along on a half-baked expedition to run the length of the Amazon river, from its' Andean source to it's broad end at the Atlantic Ocean. After hiking across the continental divide from the Pacific side of Peru (trekking alongside the Rio Colca gorge, the deepest outside of the Himalayas), the descent begins.
Along the way, the splintering expedition dodges falling rocks in cleft gorges, narcotrafficers, Maoist rebels, storms and other assorted hazards along the way. Kane's descriptions of the journey, and every stop along the way, are remarkably vivid, doing what every great travel book should do, but so few actually do.
An unforgettable account of an admirable trip; highly recommended.
-David Alston
no title November 12, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
What a wonderful, thrilling, adventure-packed, suspense-filled book! It has everything, even a love story. Well written, as the author shares all his feelings, hurts, thoughts. And vividly outlines his fellow members of the expedition. Much is learned, also, of Peru and Brazil.
 Multi-cultural travelers down an amazing wild river April 22, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am not a regular reader of outdoor adventure stories, but having just been in Peru, this one held my interest. Joe Kane brings the reader along on the adventure, not only describing the trials and triumphs on the river, but also the look of the land and graphic descriptions of the people of the Amazon.
I was amazed that Joe Kane ended up being one of the people who completed the whole trip, not that he didn't want to quit many times. Many excellent pictures are included thanks to Zbigniew Bzdak.
To learn more about the wonderous tropical biology of this region, I recommend the book "Tropical Nature" by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata.
Much more than a kayaking adventure! March 20, 2005
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I read "Running the Amazon" because my wife and I were participating in a cruise on the Amazon and an additional two days at the Explorama Lodge, all of our trip at the Peru end of the Amazon, basically in the Iquitos area. Also, my reading tendencies lean toward adventure descriptions, so "Running the Amazon" looked like a book I would finish.
It was so much more than an adventure book, although it certainly was that. - This is a personal description of the first expedition to begin in the snowfields of the Andes, at the continental divide, where the first trickle originates, all the way to the Atlantic - 4200 miles. I can imagine, well almost, how treacherous the white water must have been coming out of the Andes, based on how much water we saw flowing down the Amazon even at the junction of its two major tributaries in Peru where the river officially begins.
The majority of "Running the Amazon" takes place in Peru (even though in total miles the majority of the trip is in Brazil). I would estimate that 50% of the text is about the history of the area, mostly Peru, and the culture, past and present. Also, the author is pretty funny - intentionally or not - in how he describes the adventures of he and his colleagues. I have always wondered about the revolutionary group, Shining Path, and since the book is set in the late 1980s, a good description of the group and its history is provided.
Since Joe Kane is not a man who apparently had been a kayaker, or at least anything approaching a serious kayaker, prior to his journey, it makes his adventures more interesting to the average reader like myself, and this is true also for his descriptions of interpersonal difficulties among some of the expedition.
Because "Running the Amazon" is so well written, and so readable, I am going to read Mr. Kane's other book about the area, "Savages," which describes the difficulties of a group of Ecuadoran people with modern culture. I highly recommend "Running the Amazon."
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