"When a Georgetown physics professor saw his existence becoming mundane, he actually did something about it. This exciting, moving memoir documents his quest to climb the highest mountains and surf every ocean on earth" ( Entertainment Weekly"Must List"). Before Francis Slakey decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had shut himself off from other people. His lectures were mechanical; his relationships were little more than ways to fill the evenings. But as his journey veered dangerously off course, everything about him began to change. Now in paperback, To the Last Breathis a gripping adventure of the body and mind that depicts the quest that leads Slakey around the globe, almost takes his life, challenges his fiercely held beliefs, and opens his heart. The scientist in Slakey explores the history of Robert Falcon Scott's doomed Antarctica expedition, the technology of climbing, and the geophysics of waves. But it is the challenges Slakey endures and the people he encountersa Lama who gives him a mysterious amulet, a life-or-death choice atop Everest, an ambush at gunpoint in Indonesia, a head-on collision in the high desertthat culminate in a moving lesson about what it means to be human.