Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins (Paperback)

Gavin Francis (author)

£12.99

Paperback 272 Pages / Published: 07/11/2013

In stock online

Usually despatched within 24 hours

View other formats and editions

Synopsis

* WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2013 * *Shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Biography Prize* * Shortlisted for the 2013 RSL Ondaatje Prize * * Shortlisted for Banff Adventure Travel Prize * * Shortlisted for Saltire Book of the Year Award * Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the base-camp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter. Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and very little human history, but also a rare oppurtunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in the Antarctic. Following the penguins throughout the year -- from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness -- Gavin Francis explores a world of great beauty conjured from the simplest elements, the hardship of living at 50 DegreesC below zero and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring.

Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9780099565963
Number of pages: 272
Weight: 266 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 20 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

"A finely written account of an extreme experience of the Antarctic, worthy to stand beside some of the great travel narratives in the English language." * RSL Ondaatje Prize Judges *
"Empire Antarctica is the embodiment of everything I admire in travel writing -- a great journey, intense isolation, wide reading, vivid writing, scientific research, and something in the nature of an old-fashioned ordeal. That Gavin Francis is a medical doctor, with an important role to play in the darkness and cold at the ends of the earth, is a bonus. I loved this book." -- Paul Theroux
"One of the best travel titles I have read in a long time. Thoughtful, lyrical, extremely well written, it's a triumph." -- Giles Foden * Conde Nast Traveller *
"A beautiful, profound and highly readable account of a remarkable personal adventure. Francis's pacing is deft, his prose vivid, his research worn lightly. This is probably as close as most of us will ever get to experiencing a modern polar winter. Empire Antarctica is surely destined to become a standard, not so much of travel as of staying very still." -- Ed O'Loughlin * Daily Telegraph *
"Francis' best writing (and it is excellent)... is Robert Macfarlane on ice. This writing achieves the `quilted quality' of silence, and through it we are brought to a new landscape of words." -- Katherine MacInnes * Literary Review *