Description: "Originally published, in slightly different form, in 2009 by Jonathan Cape, Great Britain"--T.p. verso.
Brief description: Sara Wheeler is the author of many books of biography and travel, including Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2011 and Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile. Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica was an international bestseller that The New York Times described as "gripping, emotional" and "compelling," and The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle was chosen as Book of the Year by Michael Palin and Will Self, among others. Wheeler lives in London.
Review Quotes:
"The Magnetic North offers a fascinating tour of a disappearing world. Sara Wheeler is an eloquent and intrepid guide." --Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe
"A wise, provoking and zestful chronicle, poetic, often tragic and always engaging. Wheeler, a prolific raconteur of distant places, has created the finest book on the Arctic since Hugh Brody's The Other Side of Eden . . . She has mapped a remarkable journey." --Rory MacLean, The Sunday Times (London) "The Magnetic North proved irresistibly attractive. I loved . . . Terra Incognita, and this was an equally coddling hoosh of personal travelogue, historical anecdotage and speculative thinking--all the better because Wheeler began her series of Arctic travels, if not a climate change sceptic, then unconvinced about its anthropic cause, and ended up unable to deny the meltwater on the ground." --Will Self, New Statesman "A book that deserves to stand alongside Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez's classic account of life above the tree line. Indeed, more than once I made the comparison in Wheeler's favour. She's funnier, and her writing, while brilliantly evocative, is never overblown." --Erica Wagner, The Times (London) "Fantastic . . . Readers are whisked away on an incredible, multifaceted tour of a region still unknown . . . This fact-filled narrative is nearly impossible to put down . . . By chronicling what the Arctic tells us about our past, Wheeler vividly reveals what it tells us about our collective future." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "With wry humor and extensive research, Wheeler captures a swiftly transforming region with which we all have a symbiotic relationship . . . Wheeler's sense of place, science, self and story is exceptional." --Holly Morris, The New York Times Book Review