Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life

by Jess Phoenix

Overview

"Jess Phoenix's work encompasses science and representation in such a delightful melding that it could only come from as spry and playful a soul as hers! Open this book and jump into the volcano!" —Patton Oswalt

Volcanologist and natural hazards expert Jess Phoenix has dedicated her life to scientific exploration. Her career path—hard earned in the still male-dominated world of science—has shoved her headlong into deep-sea submersibles, congressional races, glittering cocktail parties at Manhattan’s elite Explorers Club, and numerous pairs of Caterpillar work boots. It has also inspired her to devote her life to making science more inclusive and accessible.
 
Ms. Adventure follows Jess’s travels and escapades through jungles, glaciers, undersea lava flows, and the summit of the world’s largest volcano. We’re with her as she gathers flowing lava by hand in Hawai’i, tangles with horse thieves in Peru, confronts Mexican drug cartel members over a favorite rock hammer, and camps on an active volcano in Ecuador. This riveting, rollicking journey across oceans and continents is a blend of personal memoir, daring adventure, and scientific exploration. It is a testament to Phoenix’s belief that curiosity is everyone’s birthright, and that with tenacity and intrepidness, we can all be explorers of the natural world.



 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643262192
Publisher:	Timber Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	02/14/2023
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,027,671
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jess Phoenix is the executive director and co-founder of the environmental scientific research organization Blueprint Earth. For over 12 years, she has been a volcanologist, an extreme explorer, and a professional field scientist. She ran for United States Congress in California to unseat a climate science-denying incumbent, running a true grassroots campaign with positions based in evidence and fact. She is a Fellow in the Explorers Club and Royal Geographical Society, a featured scientist on the Discovery and Science Channels, and an invited TEDx speaker.
 

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
 
Acknowledgments

1. Welcome to the Club
2. Into the Valley of Death
3. Mauna Loa: The Long Mountain
4. Kīlauea: The Spewer
5. Lō‘ihi Seamount: The Tall Mountain
6. Nevado Salkantay: The Savage Mountain
7. Sierra Madre Occidental: The Mother Mountains
8. El Reventador: The Eruptor
9. The Explorers

Index

Editorial Reviews

08/24/2020

Volcanologist Phoenix debuts with an entertaining collection of career highlights capturing the thrills and perils of studying some of Earth’s most deadly mountains. She enthusiastically describes the “immense satisfaction in scrawling pages of information in rain, snow, and under the glaring sun, filling the lines of yellow hard-backed Rite in the Rain notebooks” with information about rock specimens that could reveal secrets about the earth’s beginnings. Pushing back against how the media sensationalizes her profession, Phoenix rages about “being stereotyped as a helpless female” when a reality TV crew accompanying her expedition to Ecuador’s El Reventador ask her to fake falling and then being rescued by a male team member. In Cusco, Peru, she takes an actual fall into a sewer, injuring her right leg before a dangerous high-altitude trek into the Andes’ Nevado Salkantay; an appendicitis attack nearly maroons her on Hawaii’s Mt. Kilauea. Occasionally Phoenix goes overboard with mundane detail (such as the dress she wears when first visiting Manhattan’s Explorers Club) but the sheer grit and tenacity displayed in her stories ensure their grip on the reader’s attention. Geology and adventure enthusiasts will have a blast. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

The sheer grit and tenacity displayed in Jess Phoenix’s stories ensure their grip on the reader’s attention. Geology and adventure enthusiasts will have a blast.” —Publishers Weekly

“Jess Phoenix’s journey has been tempered by volcanic fire, colored by international adventure, molded by a cast of champions and antagonists, and catalyzed by the revelatory nature of science itself. Her fantastical origin story—from a student of history to a polymathic, science-proselytizing rebel—is the very definition of atypical; a polemic against a life of comforting, forgettable ordinariness and a paean to the extraordinary combination of persistence and curiosity.” —Dr. Robin George Andrews, Volcanologist and Science Journalist
 
“Geography itself is the unlikely hero of this exuberant memoir. Whether she is peeking into the top of an active volcano or trying to outwit the heat of the desert, Jess Phoenix brings her best game: the cunning of a detective, the soul of a poet and the open mind of a true explorer. It is pure joy to see the world through her endlessly curious eyes and to read about it in her crystal-clear prose.” —Madeleine H. Blais, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing and author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist

“The best nonfiction reads like fiction, and that’s certainly true of Jess Phoenix’s Ms. Adventure… Phoenix is a skilled writer and gifted storyteller with a startlingly ability to weave telling details into her narrative.” —Mountain Times

“Not only will the inspiring spirit of the narrator captivate readers, but this book makes it clear why fields like volcanology matter today more than ever. Phoenix’s gritty adventures and love for scientific exploration are made fully accessible to all, no matter your scientific background.” —Shepherd Express

From the Publisher

01/01/2021

Phoenix, a volcanologist and geologist, relates her adventures from the time she first discovers geology as a history undergrad to her induction into the famed Explorers Club. Along the way, she conducts research on volcanoes and glacial movement in the rugged terrain and hot and cold temperatures of Hawaii, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico. There is plenty of emotional and physical hardship along the way. But it may be the revelations of filming for science reality television that are the most enlightening, and to avid viewers of the same, somewhat disheartening. At the very end, still driven by science, Phoenix finds herself drawn into the most hazardous environment of all: politics. This book does not cover her unsuccessful bid for Congress, and one senses that experience could be another book in the making. A self-proclaimed "science evangelist" and speaker, Phoenix is cofounder of Blueprint Earth, a nonprofit science research and education organization designed to support STEM education for girls, minorities, and disadvantaged youth. No doubt Phoenix aims to inspire young people drawn to science to follow in her dusty footsteps with this book as well. VERDICT Recommended for those interested in geology and geography, adventure travel readers, and those considering science careers.—Teresa R. Faust, Coll. of Central Florida, Ocala

Library Journal