Non-fiction: Alexa Thomson: Antarctica on a Plate (Random House Australia, 2003)
Many different kinds of people go to Antarctica. Scientists, adventurers and the people who keep the infrastructure running. Often, this last category produces the best books. Alexa Thomson writes about her experiences as a cook at an Antarctic tent camp providing support for a semi-improvised airfield.
It’s a fun, fluffy book about Thomson’s subjective experience of Antarctica. Some of the best stuff involves her experiences at the neighboring Russian and Indian bases. She writes about being a woman in the macho Antarctic environment very well. The stuff about disrupting Indian porn routines is especially telling.