cover image The Last Place: Scott and Amundsen: Their Race to the South Pole

The Last Place: Scott and Amundsen: Their Race to the South Pole

Roland Huntford, , read by Tim Pigott-Smith. . CSA Word, $31.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-934997-33-8

Huntford's chronicle of the rivalry between the United Kingdom's Robert Scott and Norway's Roald Amundsen to become the first explorer to reach the South Pole, poses a substantial challenge for adaptation into the audio format. The narrative presents events in a third-person expository fashion, offering precious few opportunities for dialogue among the real-life characters. American listeners may consider Tim Pigott-Smith's British accent distracting, while others might enjoy it as a relevant bit of flair. The story contains plenty of inherent drama, but the abridgment seems to veer off course in the concluding sections, as the long-term legacies of the two polar pioneers is rather rushed. A Modern Library paperback. (July)