Antarctica

Non-fiction: Peter Hillary & John E. Elder: In the Ghost Country – a Lifetime spent on the Edge (Free Press, 2003) What a rarity: A novel kind of an Antarctica book. What starts as the usual sports narrative of accomplishment typical of modern-day accounts of expeditions attempting to reach the Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Lynne Cox: Swimming to Antarctica (2004, Harcourt) A professional autobiography of the long-distance swimmer Lynne Cox, this is really a quite engaging book about swimming in various, increasingly inhospitable environments. The connection to Antarctica is only a part of the book. She swims to the continent from a mile Continue Reading

Documentary film: Davis Guggenheim: An Inconvenient Truth (U.S.A. 2006) A documentary about Al Gore’s slideshow about global warming, this is a good propaganda movie hammering its points in very well. given the subject, its not surprising that Gore talks a bit about Antarctica and the melting of the icecap, and Continue Reading

Documentary film: Werner Herzog: The Wild Blue Yonder (U.K. U.S.A. France, Germany, 2005) Herzog’s semi-documentary science fiction fable contains a lot of footage shot underwater beneath the Antarctic ice. It’s really quite interesting, especially in terms of the colors.

Non-fiction: Peter Matthiessen: End of the Earth (National Geographic Society, 2003) This is the worst Antarctica book I’ve read so far. Its crimes include pointlessness and a lack of content, but far worse is its surprising ability to resist reading. Whether I’m tired or feeling sharp, after reading half a Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Roland Huntford: Shackleton (Abacus 1996, orig. 1985) One of Roland Huntford’s three massive biographies of the explorers of the Heroic Age, I left this for the last because Shackleton is so fashionable these days, I’ve gone through his story three times so far already, once in Shackleton’s own account, Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Christer Boucht: Lähdin Etelämantereelle (Kirjayhtymä, 1993) This is the first Antarctica book I read in Finnish. Although the author is a Finn, it’s originally been published in Swedish. It’s about a 78-year old guy who goes on one of the Adventure Network trips to Antarctica in the late Eighties. Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Charles Swithinbank: Vodka on Ice (Book Guild, 2002) I’ve come across surprisingly few accounts of life in Antarctica written by scientists working there, especially since its supposed to be “the continent of science”. This is only the second one, the first being John C. Behrendt’s classic and undeservedly little Continue Reading

Fiction film: John Carpenter: the Thing (U.S.A. 1982) This is perhaps the single most classic Antarctica movie, so it was a high time I saw it also. Antarctic literature has often mentioned it as a special favorite at U.S. stations on the seventh continent, and it certainly deserves its reputation. Continue Reading

Non-fiction: Gretchen Legler: On the Ice (Milkweed, 2005) Does it say something about the point I’ve reached with this Antarctica stuff that I’m now reading lesbian Antarctic literature? I had some negative preconceptions about this book, but actually it’s quite good. It’s another of those books generated by the American Continue Reading