Bird Dream

Bird Dream

By Matt Higgins
$17.99
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“[Higgins’] action-packed book introduces a global coterie of remarkable characters who have dared life and limb. He describes escapades from sixties stunt parachuting to more contemporary BASE jumping, in which one takes flight off of selected worldwide buildings and geographical points to the experience of wingsuit flying—the maximum challenge. The author recounts the huge preparations, financial investments, psychological motivations, personal setbacks, and extraordinary aerial accomplishments that have gone into these extreme sports…An engrossing and exhaustively researched account of extremists who challenge failure and death on a regular basis. Highly recommended for ultimate jumpers in particular, sports enthusiasts in general, and all public libraries.”

Library Journal (starred review)

Human flight is one of the last great challenges on Earth. Not like how the Wright brothers flew, but how we fly in our dreams. This is the goal of the Wingsuit Landing Project: to soar through the sky at speeds up to one hundred miles per hour and to land without the aid of a parachute. This project is the creation of thirty-seven-year-old Jeb Corliss, Jr., a Southern Californian who seeks to emulate a mode of flight more like a flying squirrel than bird or plane.

Journalist Matt Higgins gained intimate access to Corliss, who, after years of BASE jumping and skydiving, set out to be the first person to be dropped 2,400 feet and land solely with the aid of a wingsuit. But somewhere in the UK, forty-two-year-old Gary Connery was plotting to beat Corliss at his own game. Along with an international group of wingsuit devotees, Corliss and Connery race to leap into the unknown as the world's foremost wingsuit pilots. This race will nearly cost one of the competitors his life.

A riveting, adrenaline-fueled narrative about a group of unforgettable characters who risk everything to achieve man's age-old dream of flying, Bird Dream takes listeners to the cutting edge of this new frontier—as well as the strange science and fearless history that have led us to this remarkable point in the human experience.