Antarctica: An Intimate Portrait of a Mysterious Continent

Science writer Walker (Snowball Earth) offers a cross-disciplinary tour of Antarctica—its geology, biology, climate, and history—along with an illuminating picture of the lives of the scientists who temporarily live on the forbidding continent. Writing in a fluid style, Walker surveys the fascinating sea life in the frigid waters, such as spiders one thousand times bigger than their land-bound cousins, and fish that literally have antifreeze in their veins. In addition to the biologists, Antarctica’s scientific community includes meteor-hunting geologists, climatologists studying the ancient ice to trace the oscillations in Earth’s climate, and astronomers who brave the winter to benefit from the clarity of the Antarctic skies. A highlight is Walker’s chronicle of the rhythms of an Antarctic winter and the coping strategies the winter crews employ to survive the harsh otherworldly environment. For example, the tone for the new winter is set when the crew sits down to watch the science-fiction classic The Thing, set at the South Pole, and in the dead of winter the brave attempt to join the 300 Club, which requires that they sit in a sauna until the temperature is 200F and then run, naked no less, into the -100F air, however briefly. This all-in-one survey successfully captures the frozen continent. 2 maps. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management. (Jan.)