Polar Regions Books

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Alfred Lansing

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 392 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Just Incredible Account ,Absolutely Incredible 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This account of Shackelton's expedition to Antarctic is a read like no other. I could not put this book down,nor could I believe the constitution each person on the crew had to continue forth under such insurmountable odds. The author, Lansing has provided a compelling book. His research of events are smoothly seamed together captivating the reader. Even if ones interest usually doesn't lean toward the topic of explorer, I promise you this book will consume you. Its message is especially good for any of us who may be feeling "overwhelmed" by what our lives are tossing our way... you will be giving thanks at the comforts you have by comparison to this expeditions minimal articles to provide their continued existence. As another reviewer mentioned, buy the hard or soft-cover not paperback version as these include all of Hurley's photographs which are essential to this book-seeing is believing and you won't believe what this photographer captured. Enjoy, you will share the events of this book over and over with many.

Editorial Review:

The astonishing saga of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's survival for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctic seas, as "Time" magazine put it, "defined heroism". Alfred Lansing's scrupulously researched and brilliantly narrated book--with over 200,000 copies sold--has long been acknowledged as the definitive account of the "Endurance's" fateful trip. of photos and maps. Nationwide traveling museum exhibition.

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition

Caroline Alexander

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 161 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Melding superb research and the extraordinary expedition photography of Frank Hurley, The Endurance by Caroline Alexander is a stunning work of history, adventure, and art which chronicles "one of the greatest epics of survival in the annals of exploration." Setting sail as World War I broke out in Europe, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, led by renowned polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, hoped to become the first to cross the Antarctic continent. But their ship, Endurance, was trapped in the drifting pack ice, eventually to splinter, leaving the expedition stranded on floes--a situation that seemed "not merely desperate but impossible."

Most skillfully Alexander constructs the expedition's character through its personalities--the cast of veteran explorers, scientists, and crew--with aid from many previously unavailable journals and documents. We learn, for instance, that carpenter and shipwright Henry McNish, or "Chippy," was "neither sweet-tempered nor tolerant," and that Mrs. Chippy, his cat, was "full of character." Such firsthand descriptions, paired with 170 of Frank Hurley's intimate photographs, which are comprehensively assembled here for the first time, penetrate the hulls of the Endurance and these tough men. The account successfully reveals the seldom-seen domestic world of expedition life--the singsongs, feasts, lectures, camaraderie--so that when the hardships set in, we know these people beyond the stereotypical guise of mere explorers and long for their safety.

Alexander reveals Shackleton as an inspiring optimist, "a leader who put his men first." Throughout the grueling ordeal, Shackleton and his men show what endurance and greatness are all about. The Endurance is a most intimate portrait of an expedition and of survival. Readers will possess a newfound respect for these daring souls, know better their unthinkable toil and half-forgotten realm of glory. --Byron Ricks

Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean: A Guide to Fifty Extraordinary Adventures for the Seasoned Traveler

Don Mankin, Shannon Stowell

Amazon Price: $12.89 List Price: $18.95 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks By: National Geographic Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $8.86

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

True, the free-wandering ’60s are long gone: you sold your backpack years ago, raised a family, enjoyed a fruitful career. Finally, it’s time to indulge your wanderlust—and rediscover the incredible fun and excitement of traveling off the beaten path.

Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean offers dozens of travel options with the mature traveler in mind. Both an inspiring collection of experiences and a practical how-to guide, the book details 50 of the world’s best adventures, as selected in a survey by the Adventure Trade Travel Association (ATTA) for people over 40. In-depth narratives convey the rich allure of 25 destinations—with first-person descriptions, lively anecdotes, and subjects of special interest—while concise third-person descriptions highlight the remaining 25 amazing adventures. Both formats show why the experts chose each locale and lay out all the wheres, whys, and hows you need to pick the trips most suited to your time and interest.

The most active possibilities include eight days in interior Antarctica, hiking Peru’s Inca Trail, and canoeing the lush backwaters of India. For those with more spirit than stamina, irresistible adventures still beckon: explore history, culture, and scenery in Tunisia…visit the jungle tribes of Papua New Guinea...tour Scotland’s rugged Outer Hebrides for a taste of island life. With an attractive price and expert credentials, Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean delivers inspiration, information, and fantastic ideas to put adventure-hungry boomers back on the road.

Magic Tree House Research Guide #16: Polar Bears and the Arctic: A Nonfiction Companion to Polar Bears Past Bedtime (Magic Tree House Rsrch Gdes(R))

Mary Pope Osborne, Natalie Pope Boyce

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Polar Bears are GRRRRRReat 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This research guide was purchased for my classroom. In the first week I had it available, six students were on the waiting list to check it out. Once again Mr. and Mrs. Osborne have provided a teacher/student friendly support book for a Magic Tree House book.

IMPORTANT POLARbook TO HAVE! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

IF YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH POLARbears or just LOVE ANIMALS LIKE WE DO THIS IS NOT A BOOK TO PASS UP! IT'S AFFORDABLE & PACKED WITH ALL YOU WOULD WANT EXCEPT FOR MORE COLOR PICTURES... THERE R NEVER ENOUGH FOR ANIMAL WARRIORS LIKE WE ARE! (IF U LEARN ABOUT THEM YOU'LL LOVE EM & IF YOU LOVE EM YOU'LL WANNA SAVE THEM!) RIP STEVE IRWIN...

Editorial Review:

WHY IS THE arctic so cold? How do polar bears cross thin ice? How did people learn to survive in that harsh climate? Find out the answers to these questions and more in Magic Tree House Research Guide: Polar Bears and the Arctic, Jack and Annie's guide to the arctic. This is the nonfiction companion to Polar Bears past Bedtime.

The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska's Arctic Wilderness

James Campbell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Hundreds of hardy people have tried to carve a living in the Alaskan bush, but few have succeeded as consistently as Heimo Korth. Originally from Wisconsin, Heimo traveled to the Arctic wilderness in his feverous twenties. Now, more than three decades later, Heimo lives with his wife and two daughters approximately 200 miles from civilization -- a sustainable, nomadic life bounded by the migrating caribou, the dangers of swollen rivers, and by the very exigencies of daily existence.

In The Final Frontiersman, Heimo's cousin James Campbell chronicles the Korth family's amazing experience, their adventures, and the tragedy that continues to shape their lives. With a deft voice and in spectacular, at times unimaginable detail, Campbell invites us into Heimo's heartland and home. The Korths wait patiently for a small plane to deliver their provisions, listen to distant chatter on the radio, and go sledding at 44° below zero -- all the while cultivating their hard-learned survival skills that stand between them and a terrible fate.

Awe-inspiring and memorable, The Final Frontiersman reads like a rustic version of the American Dream and reveals for the first time a life undreamed by most of us: amid encroaching environmental pressures, apart from the herd, and alone in a stunning wilderness that for now, at least, remains the final frontier.

The Antarctic: From the Circle to the Pole

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

serenely gorgeous 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I had to go to the post office to pick up my package and couldn't wait until I got home to open it. I opened it right there in the post office, "This is beautiful," I said out loud. The layout is so perfect for the pictures - it opens lengthwise. Other people standing in line all had to take a peek and loved it too.

Editorial Review:

Antarctica is a place of extremes that remains largely unknown and infinitely fascinating. Stuart Klipper has travelled to the Antarctic six times in twenty years to photograph an astounding body of work. This volume offers a sweeping look at this majestic continent, which has lately become central to global climate change concerns. Shot in panoramic format - the only way to encompass a landscape that seems to stretch on forever - Klipper's work captures major features and surprising details: ships suspended in the frozen sea, glowing blue icebergs, vistas of endless snow, and troops of penguins. This volume's substantial size, panoramic shape, and unique vertical-opening case emphasize the grandeur of these austere and lovely photographs from the bottom of the world.

Antarctica (Country Guide)

Jeff Rubin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Just looking at the hauntingly sculpted blues, vast horizon-touching Shelves, and towering behemoths of Antarctica's ice formations makes the traveler know why she wants to go there and why she needs a good guidebook. Lonely Planet has once again done its homework. In addition to a thorough and succinct history section, useful overviews of Antarctic tour companies, information about how to plan your trip, detailed maps, and interesting facts about the places you'll visit, this book includes a 32-page color wildlife guide that introduces you to Chinstrap penguins, elephant seals, and eight types of whales.

LP has sought out the experts on Antarctic issues to write about science, environmental, and exploration issues. Shaded boxes offer in-depth highlights about topics such as traveling by zodiac (the small inflatable boats used by tour companies--ideal for cruising among "bergy bits"), Antarctic fiction, glaciology, and icebergs: "The Antarctic ice sheet is the iceberg 'factory' of the Southern Ocean. The total volume of ice calved from the ice sheet each year is about 2300 cubic km, and it has been estimated that there are about 300,000 icebergs in the Southern Ocean at any one time."

This book offers sage advice and is not afraid of the stark and sometimes dangerous realities of traveling to such a harsh and foreboding land: "If you fall overboard, you will die. Although this may not be true in every single case, it is almost certain, for human survival in the -1.8°C water of the Southern Ocean is calculated in minutes. Since drowning is thought by some to be preferable to freezing to death, one bit of only half-cynical advice for those who fall overboard is to swim as hard as you can for the bottom."

The Worst Journey in the World (Penguin Classics)

Apsley Cherry-Garrard

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

In this case, Worst Journey is no conceit 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

It's been more than ten years since I read Cherry-Garrard's account of Scott's journey to Antarctica, but I can still feel the lung-searing cold and hear the hellish, monstrous wind coming out of the center of the continent into which the journey was headed. I have never read of anything more terrible than this expedition including Shackleton's truncated Antarctic nightmare and Lewis and Clark's astonishing and dangerous overland haul from St. Louis to the Pacific.

This particular expedition was one terrible misadventure after another almost from the very start when there is a storm at sea right out of the gate as the ship carrying everyone and everything from Tierra del Fuego is swamped and so much food, materiel, and livestock are lost overboard. From there the bad luck never seems to stop. The very fact that these men continued on under circumstances that would have discouraged and then defeated most human beings is almost past credibility. In particular I remember the constant breaking down of the diesel-engined snow cats, the terrible fate of the Asian ponies, the leopard seals, and the long dark impossible trip that Garrard and one other member of the expedition take in the dead of the Antarctic winter to the Emperor Penguin breeding grounds to retrieve a few precious eggs for science. In winter. In the dark. Wearing 1911 woolen clothes, eating preseved 1911 food, and using 1911 (non-)technology. It took 1911 men to do it. I cannot imagine anyone from our time doing this with that equipment. At times I simply had to stop reading and wonder just how much more hardship human beings could stand. I've never felt so physically uncomfortable, so drained and so worried (as a mere reader!) as I was ploughing through this book which was a feat (the writing of it) in itself.

This is a story about a long-vanished era where grit and determination were measured on a different scale from what we see today. An absolute must for any lover of true adventure. It truly was the worst journey in the world against which any subsequent mission of its kind - including extra-terrestrial - must be judged.

Editorial Review:

The Worst Journey in the World recounts Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard—the youngest member of Scott’s team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious Winter Journey—draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of his compatriots to create a stirring and detailed account of Scott’s legendary expedition. Cherry himself would be among the search party that discovered the corpses of Scott and his men, who had long since perished from starvation and brutal cold. It is through Cherry’s insightful narrative and keen descriptions that Scott and the other members of the expedition are fully memorialized.

Antarctica Cruising Guide

Peter Carey, Craig Franklin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

This book is a must!! 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 19 people found this review helpful.

I met the authors on a recent cruise to Antarctica and could not wait to purchase the book. During the cruise, they gave insightful and interesting talks about the continent. Once they told us about the book I was first in line in Ushuaia, Argentina at the only bookstore where it was available as I was still away and the book was not available at Amazon.com yet. This book is a must for anyone thinking of going or is going to Antacrtica. It is a beautiful book and I went and saw a lot of the places in the book. It reads easily as there is plenty of information on the wildlife and various places to see, but there is not too much information to overwhelm you. It is also very compact and can easily be brought on a trip. My only regret is that I didn't have it before I went to Antarctica.

Editorial Review:

For many people, an Antarctic cruise is the dream of a lifetime. This is the definitive field guide to Antarctica for visitors travelling by luxury liner, adventure cruise or private boat. The authors are recognised world experts in Antarctic travel, wildlife and conservation, and the book is illustrated throughout with outstanding colour photographs.

Included are descriptions of the 26 most popular visitor sites on the Antarctic Peninsula, and the natural history of over 30 species of birds and mammals. Special attention is paid to explaining the threats to Antarctic conservation, including global warming, and there are tips on how visitors can minimise their own impact and help preserve this unique continent.

Measuring 5 x 7 inches, this beautiful little book fits neatly into a parka pocket and is fully illustrated with over 200 colour photographs, and 7 maps.

Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica.

Martin R. de la Pena, Maurice Rumboll

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

South America, though home to about one-third of the world's bird species and twice as many endemic families of birds as any other continent, has the world's sparsest population of birdwatchers. Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica illustrates and describes all the known species--more than 1,000 of them--in a vast swath of this underexplored birder's paradise, from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, southern Brazil, and Uruguay to parts of Antarctica. Just some of the birds it covers are teals, tinamous, chachalacas, conebills, cuckoos, macaws, parakeets, parrots, penguins, nightjars, hummingbirds, ovenbirds, tyrants, and tanagers. The habitats range from torrid rainforests and cloudforests to grasslands, the world's driest desert, second highest mountain range, and ice caps.

The 97 color plates depict each species' male in breeding plumage, with the female and young often shown as well. On the facing page are concise textual descriptions of each species, highlighting not only salient physical features and behavioral patterns but the calls or songs of each. Casual birders and ornithologists contemplating a journey to the region, or simply interested in a one-volume overview of its bird life, will not want to miss this book.