We hear a lot about glaciers, poles and the problems afflicting these places. But how many people can actually say they really know what they are talking about when they mention them? There are still those who confuse North Pole and South Pole. These are lands that live mostly in our imagination, or at most, in some National Geographic documentary.
However, there are several books telling captivating stories, with real and fictional characters, which will make us think that we have really lived in the coldest lands of the planet.
Here are 4 books on Antarctica (the South Pole, to be clear), the one where penguins live.
South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby
Despite the fact that she was a promising painter, Cooper Gosling finds herself watching her career sink. So, to escape from a tragedy that has recently hit her family, she decides to take part in the Antarctic Artists & Writers Program, a research program funded by the National Science Foundation that gives artists and writers the opportunity to work in Antarctica. Then she flies to the South Pole where she will meet a group of misfits who, just like her, think that this is the right place to be. However, a climate crisis denier scientist will arrive and will claim that the whole thing is just a hoax, putting their new home in danger and catapulting them into the middle of a colossal controversy.
Endurance. Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
This book is based on a true story and it tells the extraordinary experience of Enrnest Shackleton, one of the three explorers who participated in the race for the South Pole in the early twentieth century. In August 1914 he sailed from Plymouth, but just 80 miles from the destination, his ship remained stuck in the ice in the Weddell Sea. For 21 months he and his crew will remain prisoners of those icy lands and the most important mission will become to rescue all tthe 27 men who participated in the expedition. It is a travel report but also a story of incredible courage and spirit of resistance.
Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica by Sara Wheeler
Sara is the author of several travel books, but she is best known for her stories about the polar regions such as this and the next one The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic. The writer decides to go and live in Antarctica for seven months, among scientists and explorers, to see the mystical South Pole with her own eyes. In addition to vividly depicting the white landscapes that surround her, Sara captivatingly recounts myths and stories related to one of the most remote places on Earth, providing a realistic yet seductive picture of life beyond the Antarctic Circle.
How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior
A wealthy 85-year-old woman with a passion for wildlife documentaries, begins to wonder who will inherite her fortune when she is gone. She lives alone, no friends or family. She spends her days drinking tea, picking up trash on the beach, and looking for the glasses that she keeps losing all the time. One day, while watching a documentary on penguins in Antarctica, she decides to change her life and leave for the South Pole. Here she will force a team of people to save a little penguin, but she is probably the one who will be saved by a penguin that will warm Veronica’s icy heart.
