Ranulph Fiennes Books in Order

Fiennes's first book follows the ambitious hovercraft journey up the Nile, where mechanical problems and politics proved nearly as troublesome as the river itself. It already shows his taste for difficult routes and stubborn follow-through.

In 1970 Fiennes led a hazardous expedition onto Norway's Jostedals glacier to survey the ice and test equipment. Research soon turns into a struggle with bad weather, steep descents, and rough water.

Fiennes heads into Canada's remote Nahanni country, a place famous for wild river travel and darker legends. The book mixes expedition narrative, difficult terrain, and the eerie history that gave the valley its name.

Drawing on his service in Oman and a later return visit, Fiennes writes about the Dhofar conflict and the harsh country where it played out. It is part military memoir, part travel book, and part portrait of a changing state.

This book tells the story of the 1976-77 British North Pole expedition, where broken ice, cold, and unstable conditions turned every mile into a fight. It is a raw account of failure, improvisation, and survival on drifting pack ice.

Fiennes's classic account of the Transglobe Expedition follows the first surface circumnavigation of the globe via both poles. It is huge in scale but strong on the everyday realities, breakdowns, planning, and sheer endurance.

Co-written with Ginny Fiennes, this charming book follows Bothie, the Jack Russell who joined the Transglobe Expedition and became the only dog to visit both poles. It adds warmth and comic relief to a very hard journey.

This earlier autobiography traces Fiennes from his South African childhood through army service and the expeditions that made his name. It has the feel of an old-fashioned adventure memoir, full of mishaps, risk, and forward motion.

Four former British soldiers are targeted by an elusive group of professional killers, and a shadowy band called the Feather Men begins hunting back. Fiennes builds a tense chase story from secrecy, vengeance, and desert war aftershocks.

This book follows the long search for Ubar, the lost city of Arabian legend. Fiennes blends desert travel, research, and modern exploration to show how myth, archaeology, and stubborn persistence came together in Oman.

Fiennes recounts the 1993 unsupported crossing of Antarctica with Mike Stroud, hauling heavy sledges across 1,500 miles of ice. It is a harsh, absorbing record of exhaustion, frostbite, hunger, and the mental grind of keeping moving.

After a savage attack leaves him injured and stripped of memory, Alex Goodman slowly pieces together who destroyed his family. His search for the truth pulls him deep into a violent criminal world and a long, personal campaign of revenge.

This is Fiennes's practical guide to building strength and endurance for ordinary life, not just extreme expeditions. He covers exercise, habits, and sustainable fitness in the same no-nonsense tone he brings to adventure writing.

Fiennes looks back on triumphs, failures, and near disasters, then draws out the lessons he thinks mattered most. Leadership, preparation, persistence, and recovery from setbacks are the thread that holds the book together.

Derek Jacobs survives Nazi brutality as a child and grows into a relentless hunter of war criminals. His trail runs from shattered Europe to Cambodia and the Arctic, turning the novel into a long chase powered by memory and vengeance.

Fiennes revisits Robert Falcon Scott's life and Antarctic expeditions with a clear aim, to challenge the harshest verdicts on Scott's competence. He mixes biography, expedition detail, and a strong defense of Scott's reputation.

A focused retelling of Scott and Amundsen's race to the South Pole, this book compares two very different leaders and methods. Fiennes brings sympathy, technical detail, and a strong sense of how weather and planning shaped the result.

In this live recording, Fiennes is in storyteller mode. He moves from the Nile to the poles with dry humor, close calls, and the kind of detail that makes the audience lean in.

Fiennes's full autobiography moves from South Africa and army life to polar crossings, desert journeys, and personal loss. The appeal is not polish but momentum, one stubborn, risky decision after another, told by the man who made them.

Fiennes turns from ice and desert to his own family tree, tracing soldiers, eccentrics, and adventurers across generations. It is part memoir, part social history, and full of the odd characters he clearly relishes.

Fiennes uses the word hero carefully, and this book explains why. Through portraits of explorers, rescuers, soldiers, and ordinary people under pressure, he asks what real courage looks like when the cost is high.

Part history, part memoir, this book explores the coldest places on Earth and the people determined to cross them. Fiennes mixes famous polar expeditions with his own hard experience of frostbite, sledging, and survival.

Fiennes retells Henry V's 1415 campaign and the Battle of Agincourt with a soldier's eye for terrain, fatigue, and command. He also threads in the long Anglo-French story, and the family links that drew him to the subject.

Part history, part memoir, this book explores the hottest places Fiennes has worked in and the people drawn to them. He writes about deserts, endurance, and how heat strips life down to water, timing, and survival.

This illustrated companion to Cold revisits Fiennes's polar career through photographs, maps, and diary material. It gives a vivid sense of the routes, weather, and sheer attrition behind some of his toughest journeys.

Using his own expeditions and other real-life examples, Fiennes examines what fear feels like and how people work through it. The book is less about bravado than about preparation, judgment, and staying functional under pressure.

Fiennes writes the foreword to this Antarctic travel memoir by Ginni Bazlinton. What begins as a late-life voyage becomes a vivid account of ice, wildlife, history, and one woman's growing obsession with the continent.

Fiennes provides the foreword to this anthology of stories, essays, and poems about Nepal. It offers many angles on the country's landscapes, literature, history, and people, from celebrated travelers to Nepali voices.

Fiennes contributes the foreword to this photography book on Antarctica. Through stark images and expedition notes, it captures the beauty, silence, and fragility of the southern ice.

Fiennes surveys elite military units from ancient Sparta to modern special forces, drawing on both history and his own service background. The focus is on training, tactics, daring missions, and the mindset demanded by high-risk operations.

Fiennes tells Ernest Shackleton's life with a close eye on the Endurance disaster and the leadership that followed. It is a biography written by someone who understands cold, hunger, and how much survival depends on judgment.

Fiennes looks back over decades of expedition life and turns hard lessons into practical advice. It is a brisk, plainspoken book about discipline, fear, planning well, and carrying on when things go badly.

Fiennes takes on T. E. Lawrence as soldier, strategist, and restless public figure. The book follows the Arab Revolt and the complicated private man behind the legend, with an explorer's sympathy for harsh country and hard choices.