To the Last Breath is a memoir by Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey that recounts his exploits of climbing the highest peak on each continent and surfing every ocean. On the surface this is an adventure tale, and Slakey does a great job of recounting some of his experiences. You can feel the tension as he is climbing Mount Everest in a blizzard and encounters several climbers whose lives hang in the balance. In Morocco, while being driven over treacherous mountain passes by a crazy driver, Hassan, (who insists that he is the best driver in Morocco) his car nearly plunges off of a cliff. In Indonesia, after climbing Pucak Jaya in the jungles of New Guinea, he is ambushed at gunpoint while driving through a large gold mine, but the soldiers eventually let him through. He discovers he has dodged a bullet, when he finds out that a few hundred yards from this very spot a group of American school teachers was ambushed with several of them killed and wounded. This memoir, however, is more than just an adventure tale. Slakey’s exploits are told with the purpose of showing how these experiences changed his life. At a fairly young age he determined he would never buy a house, get married, or have children. He then became a rather cold, guarded individual with few if any close, personal relationships or ties to anything. By the end of the memoir, he has experienced many extreme adventures, but even more remarkable are the changes within himself and his outlook on life.