With all the real-life adventure stories on Antarctica, it seems difficult to imagine that a work of fiction could be as enthralling and as entertaining as the real thing. In most cases, truth is infinitely stranger and more interesting than fiction. The quality and lyrical tone of Arthur's writing sold me however. THe main character, MOrgan Lamont, has an obsession to recreate the tragic Scott expedition, and the author does an excellent job of imagining the obsession that all explorers/adventurers have. TRacing the character's life culminates with the actual recreation of the SCott expedition and an enthralling adventure story with a decided feminine touch to it. THe book's only weakness is the author's occasional diatribe on matters totally unrelated to the story, such as the Gulf War. THe book certainly adds to the Antarctic literature (fiction and non-fiction) and will be enjoyed by fans of serious literature and fans of the adventure and antarctic genres.

It has now been several years since I read this remarkable book. Every now and again a book reaches out to you from its place in the store. Each time you wander your favorite bookstore, your eyes and hands go to that certain book, and if you are lucky, you give in to an inexplicable urge to buy and read that magical volume. Antarctic Navigation was such a book for me. I could not put the book down from the moment I began to read it, and it has opened a new world to me. Arthur's compelling story, her wonderful characters, and her beautiful voice are unforgettable. I look forward to revisiting the book. But beyond that, I discovered a near mystical attraction to the Antarctic and have continued reading what I can about that mysterious place. Maybe its the busy, urban life that I lead that leaves me with a longing to experience, even vicariously, the grand solitude of the Antarctic, but whatever the explanation, I expect the interest to be lifelong.

One of the survivors of Scott's ill-fated South Pole expedition called it The Worst Journey in the World. In Antarctic Navigation, Elizabeth Arthur introduces us to a young woman obsessed with reproducing that journey as completely as possible. It is a journey to a harsh and seemingly alien landscape, "the highest, driest, coldest place on earth," yet home to unique wildlife and a wild beauty. Morgan Lamont tells her story from its very beginning, with her birth and the childhood that led to her consuming passion with Antarctica and Scott. These early chapters are heartbreaking and peopled with quirky, fascinating characters who later share her South Pole expedition. Along the way we're brought into many of Morgan's pursuits and opinions, from quantum mechanics to the remake of "The Thing." While much of the journey is exquisitely rendered, the author, like her protagonist, makes choices that make the trip longer and more difficult than it has to be (at nearly 800 pages). But the complex and flawed Morgan Lamont is well worth knowing, and the effort of the journey is amply rewarded.

A wonderful tale of heroism and incompetence. Scott and his men are refugees from the Victorian era, still clinging to what were, by 1911, slightly outdated notions of heroism. We are in the dying years of the Empire, the last days of the era before telecommunications and airplanes made this sort of adventure almost impossible. Scott is a brave, loyal leader of his men, but he is a poor leader for such an expedition - he is alternately too stubborn and too indecisive. Scott is the book's most sympathetic figure, but also the most stupid as he leads four brave men to their deaths. If the expedition had been led by Oates, Bainbridge's cold, ruthless villain, one feels it might have had a happier ending - yet who would care about the men who came second if they had survived and lived to be 80? Bainbridge gets into the heads of these men and charts their mental and physical voyages from hope to their inevitable destiny in snowy graves. It is often easy to forget that we are reading the words of a woman born in the 1930s rather than the actual words of Wilson, Scott and the other men. Her feel for the extraordinary beauty and violence of the Antarctic is one of the books many strengths. As in her Titanic book Bainbridge paints a convincing picture of those few eventful years between the death of Victoria and the start of World War 1, when the world was overtaking the Empire and Britain and her citizens were struggling to assert themselves in quite the way they had in the previous century.

This woman is one of my favorite writers. I have just finished her "Watson's Apology" and found it wonderful as well. But I always use a caveat with Ms. Bainbridge, as I do with Ian McEwan: she is an acquired taste. "The Birthday Boys" is no exception to the rule.

To begin with, as with many of Ms. Bainbridge's novels, this is based on true events. In this case the ill-fated Robert Falcon Scott expedition to the South Pole in 1912. Scott and four of his crew died on their way back from the Pole itself which had already been reached by the intrepid Roald Amundsen two weeks prior. What Bainbriddge does is invite herself and us into the minds of the five men who died, and each of the interior glimpses and monologues takes place on the event of each one's own birthday, and reviews various aspects of his life including how he is feeling that day. Scott, who died last we must suppose, is saved for last.

It is a bold and marvelous literary concoction of fact, fantasy, and intellectual probing coupled with an almost uncanny peek into the hearts and minds of the men who cannot, of course, be interviewed and what they truly thought can never be truly known. Yet I have accepted these portraits as actual "interviews." Each of the men is given a full literary treatment, a complete characterization. It takes a lot of courage to do what Bainbridge does (she does it in "Watson's Apology" as well): she tells us things she cannot possibly know for sure and leaves it at that. Many people try to do that today, they pretend they are writing history when in fact, they are writing fantasy. Bainbridge doesn't pretend to be doing anything but writing about people and what she thinks or imagines they might have been thinking at any one time. She is the best at this conceit that I have ever read.

I had the advantage of already having read Cherry-Garrard's rather lengthy tomb: The Worst Journey In The World, so I was aware of the characters, of who they really were and what their various jobs were. That my or may not be essential. I will have to let the reader figure that out. They may stand on their own as literary concoctions, fanciful imaginaries floating at the margins of consciousness, or, as in my own case, rock-solid portrayals of real people I had already read about extensively.

She's a bold writer, and, I think, it might require a bold reader to take this on. But it's wonderful if you just go with it and accept what's there.

Four Stars from me is the same as Five Stars. I always save that fifth star for something I have yet to see. So consider this a Big Pick from yours truly.

The Scott Expedition of 1912 is documented by dozens if not hundreds of books. So why would a writer bother to take on the topic as Historical Fiction? In this case she had much more in mind that merely sharing the hypothetical viewpoints of Scott and 4 others who narrate their experiences. She uses the narrators sequentially as opposed to having them recount their opinions of the same event. There is some redundancy in opinions, but I really liked the way the narrative was a continual thread, and not a series of viewpoints on a redundant topic.

Ms. Bainbridge uses this tragedy of Scott to illustrate a turning point in History, a change in the fundamental beliefs and manner of approaching problems. The Scott Expedition serves as an example of the great changes during the very early 20th Century. The fact that Scott and his men failed to be the first, and that they all died, is either tragic or negligent when the fact that this was his second time out to plant the flag at the pole is considered. Not only is he beaten to his goal, his philosophies are proved to be the reason for his failure.

As with mountaineering these other attempts at, "firsts" were the domain of, "Class", and not necessarily ability. Those who lead, like Officers who had bought their Commissions were not necessarily qualified, and were often inept at that which they attempted foolishly and were risking their death and that of their men.

"Courage", was what would see a task through. A leaking ship before even leaving its berth was just a preview to the lack of planning and leadership that killed them all. Scott would not use dogs it must be a march. In this he was almost Victorian in his thinking. But then he brought motorized machines that not only were useless and in total opposition to his other ideas, it was also an indicator of how indecisive he was. His men followed him blindly as millions of others would follow, leaping out of trenches in WWI and charging the enemy. Forget the machine gun, for this was how it had always, "been done".

Money could get you on the ship just as a fee could get you guided up Mount Everest in 1996. The results were in some cases the same. Optimism and the willingness to risk one's life were based not on known competence in the leader and the soundness of the plan, rather whether people liked one another. The fact that a Scott team member was effectively blind did not mean he should be excluded. The climber on Everest who became blind for a time as the result of a cornea operation that reacted poorly to the low pressure of Everest was an eerie parallel.

When the story is placed in its Historical context the work is very well done. If it is read without a thought to the time during which the expedition took place, I can see why some would be less than thrilled with the book. However when read in perspective it is a wonderful book.

Mrs Chippy's Last Expedition is an entertaining story of Ernest Shackletons journey to Antarctica as told from the perspective of the true-life on board cat who was named Mrs. Chippy. The story is told in journal form and will delight cat lovers with a keen view of the adventure as only a cat would see things. Caroline Alexander does an excellent job of capturing the intelligence and demeanor of cats as in this passage. "The dogs were barking like mad... i suspect they are bewildered much of the time by what goes on around them." Entertaining for both cat lovers and as an adjunct to any book on the true Shackleton adventure. I highly recommend Alfred Lansings account Endurance: Shackletons Incredible Voyage although Caroline Alexander herself also wrote a serious account after this Mrs Chippy cat diary version. Giving it 3 1/2 stars....4+ if you are a cat lover.

"Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition" is a playful window into the history and personalities of the 1908-09 Endurance expedition to Antarctica. Incredibly, the ship was crushed after 9 months trapped in the ice, but not a single man was lost. Mrs. Chippy (the cat who accompanied the crew of the Endurance to Antarctica) leads us on an examination, not just of history and brave explorers, but of day-to-day survival and interaction between men in dire circumstances. If you love cats and have a curiosity about Antarctic exploration, this is a great book to start your journey. One must, however, have patience with the 100-plus footnotes, as they are a slightly awkward part of the story that enable one to understand the big picture behind the journal of this extraordinary feline.

"Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition", though it is light and high-spirited, tells a vivid tale which stands in the same compelling league as Jon Krakauer's, "Into the Wild". Both left me in awe of nature and wringing my handkerchief by books' end.

I can't say enough good things about this book. However, I think it's obvious that any review of it must take into account that while the story takes place in actual historical context, the book's literary content, being the journal of a domesticated cat, is clearly fabricated. I find it humorous that several reviewers seem to have forgotten this and have criticized it for being somehow unrealistic.

The book is a journal of the Endurance's carpenter's cat, Mrs. Chippy (apparently, ships' carpenters are often nicknamed "Chips"). We learn that Mrs. Chippy took his responsibilities as an explorer, including keeping a stern watch to monitor the ship's progress, helping his mate in carpentry projects, and mousing, quite seriously. In fact, Chippy's concern for the maintenance of ship routine through the monotony of the shipwreck period surpasses that of virtually any other crew member.

If you've read any account of the Endurance Expedition already, you will quite likely enjoy this book for its thoughtful alternative perspective. It is not sappy in the least - Chippy's intelligent writing allows us to see him as he sees himself: as the 29th crew member on the expedition.

If you have to ask, "how did Chippy learn how to write?" or "when did he find the time?", you're not appreciating the books purpose - to entertain and provide a little insight into how an animal might have been more than slightly responsible for maintaining the crew's sanity.

Scott of the Antarctic belongs in any complete collection of books on Antarctic exploration. It has a wealth of good, basic information on Scott's Discovery and Terra Nova expeditions.

But, having said that, the prospective reader must be warned that the book is a love letter to Scott, and has been utterly eclipsed by Roland Huntford's The Last Place on Earth, a far more scholarly and accurate account of the race to the South Pole.

A true classic of the genre, "Scott.."chronicles the exploration of the world's last frontier: the great polar ice caps. The reader is emersed in the expedition as the pair of explorers plod endlessly in the tractless permafrost, unaware of the gaping crevaces hidden beneath the snow, but painfully aware of the howling winds that pelt their faces with stinging ice, and numbing cold. This very well written book is indeed a fitting tribute to those intrepid scientists who brave hostile regions to further man's knowledge of the globe.

Huxley gives the background information on why and how the South Pole expedition of 1910 -1913 became a disaster. The author gives valuable information to understand the history of this endeavor and why Scott was chosen as a leader beginning in the 1880s. She gives an excellent insight on preparations of the expedition and Scott's rivalry with Shackleton. The analysis on why Scott chose ponies and motor sledges as auxillary means of transport over dogs is excellent. The mixture of amateurism and masochism that led to failure shown by the immense feeling of pride to do everything -especially man-hauling the sledges- the hard way has not been explained as well in any other book I have read on the subject. In the foreword the author states that Scott only became a hero because he died and led his four companions into death. After reading the book one can only wonder how muchbecoming a hero might have been a motive that led to self-destruction after having only been second to the Pole after Amundsen's Norwegian expedition.

Historian David Yelverton takes a long overdue look at Scott's Discovery expedition, the first significant attempt to probe the interior of that great southern continent. He pays great attention to Scott's difficulties in securing funds, crew, supplies and so forth. And, of course, Yelverton writes at length on the Discovery herself, an leaky craft that would have never made it south were it not for the constant struggle at the pumps. There is also a good deal on the cooperative effort with the Germans (!) on making often difficult magnetic observations, one of the principal reasons for the expedition in the first place.

This book is an absolute must for anyone interested in the history of the Antartic continent, Scott and, to a lesser degree, Shackleton. It is, without question, the most complete review of the Discovery expedition.

Although Scott's disaster in 1912 overshadows the Discovery effort, it could be said (and this is the point of "Unveiled") that there was much more meaningful work accomplished during this 1901-03 expedition.

Most readers will find "Unveiled" ponderous a times, although that is to be expected in a work of this depth and precision. I was disappointed with the occasional childish snipes at Roland Huntford's monumental "Last Place on Earth," a book that is a sore point with Scott's many fans. It's too bad that writers on Antarctic exploration feel as if they have to be one side of the fence or the other. Scott accomplished more than most other polar explorers -- but he also made many, many blunders.

But, in the main, "Antartic Unveiled" is worth looking into.

Recent writings on Antarctic exploration have not been kind to Scott's leadership. If you're interested in a different look at the man (to some degree) and the first (Discovery) expedition try this book. The author gives one a sense of life on the expedition and takes one along through daily life on the ship, over the winter and on the sledging journies. Heavy on detail and a bit too focused on 'righting the wrongs' of Huntford, etc., the result seems an extremely well-researched view of the scientific goals and results of the expedition. (And, perhaps the author can be forgiven for the emphasis on righting wrongs--previous works have certainly emphasized contrary views.) I've long felt that viewing the turn-of-the-century expeditions through today's 'lens' is problematic. Scott and the others were English men of their time and subject to those values, just as we are products of our time. I recommend the work to those interested in a detailed view of that first expedition, how its course affected the Terra Nova expedition, and a different view of the explorers and the expedition--placed in their time.

This book is an account of the first crossing by foot of Antarctica by veteran adventurer Will Steger and his team. Steger is no adventurer in the British tradition of SCott, instead his crossing his meticulously planned and carried out. Very little out of the ordinary occurs. THe lesson in this book is that most adventure travel is boring, unless disaster strikes! Even a less than enthralling adventure however, would have been made better by a more gifted writer than STeger. His descriptions are stilted and the diary style entries only reinforce the boredom. If you want to know how to plan an expedition, read this book. Other wise there are far better adventure stories out there. Read The Last Place on Earth by Roland HUntford or Endurance by Alfred Lansing.

Despite what others might say, this book is about an adventure. Doing the unthinkable and something that no one has done before is by it's very nature an adventure. Others may have you believe that unless something catastrophic happens it is not an adventure, but usually bad things happen from lack of proper planning. Don't discount Steger as a true adventurer simply because he is smart! People who have done a fractional amount of the exploration Will Steger has should appreciate this book. However, if your idea of adventure is sliding a little closer to the fire in your stocking feet while you read about some blokes misfortune via improper planning then read another book.

Although Kavaler's style occasionally seems better suited to a romance novel than this pseudo-feminist adventure story, her accounts of the suffrage movement and polar exploration are gripping. I lost patience quickly with the protagonists' weaknesses for a "certain kind of man" (i.e., a macho jerk) but found the plot twists and period details mesmerizing.

I simply couldn't put this book down, but stayed up half the night to find out the ending.It has two interrelated plots, one taking place in modern times, the other in the early 20th century.The modern heroine tries to solve the mystery of what really happened on the Antarctic icecap during the golden age of polar exploration. It's as exciting as the Shackleton story. Did Viola Lambert, the feminist heroine, win the race to the South Pole against her lover, Byron Tremaine, the most famous polar explorer of the day? Why was that race and her very existence hidden for all these years? As a lawyer, I do a lot of research, and I admire and respect the author's accuracy and ability to bring another era to vivid life.,

After his contributions to Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1907-1909 Nimrod expedition, Australian scientist Dr. Douglas Mawson decided to put together his own expedition, one that placed more emphasis on science than any up to that time and many afterwards. Although his own experiences were by far the most gripping of the expedition, Mawson is careful to tell the entire story, with excerpts from other member's diaries and reports. His style is a little dry, compared to Shackleton's books, but the tale of the expedition is a compelling and interesting one. The book is very well illustrated with photographs, maps, and diagrams, and the cover is really handsome. Read this, but also read Lennard Bickel's "Mawson's Will" for more emphasis on Mawson's own terrifying adventure.

The epic of endurance laconically described by Mawson ranks with those of Scott and Shackleton as one of the greatest feats of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, yet is far less well known. Read this book and marvel at the man. Great pictures, missing from some earlier editions of the book, are included. Avoid the self-serving foreword by Ranulph Fiennes who cannot even get the name of Mawson's companion on the first expedition to the South Magnetic Pole right.

The Flem-Aths have done considerable research but their conclusion
that Antarctica was the site of Atlantis will prove wildly wrong. They
have relied too heavily on Charles Hapgood's maps and theories such as
the Piri Reis map which reveals and ice-free coastline on Antarctica
and on the doubtful theory of crust displacement. Even if Hapgood's
improbable belief that Antarctica lay 2,000 miles closer to the
equator 11,5000 years ago could be proven, Antarctica still could not
have supported a climate such as that found in Plato's description of
Atlantis -- only the central regions of the Americas could have
provided such riches in a then very cold world. Further, there is no
evidence of a superior civilization in Antarctica, but at the center
of the Americas, a land that creatively connects the great ocean
currents, there lie the most enigmatic relics of a great civilization
-- the almost perfectly spherical stone spheres of Costa Rica.

You've probably heard them all by now--Atlantis was really located in Africa, or in South America, or was actually the island of Thera . . . or some even more outlandish theory. Modern geological theories (assuming them to be correct, of course, which isn't necessarily the case) tells us that no large-sized land mass could ever have existed in the Atlantic Ocean. So where could a continent the size of Atlantis that was described as lying situated in the middle of the "world ocean" have gone? According to the authors, nowhere. It's still there, in plain sight. Atlantis is Antarctica!

If this is the first time that you've heard of this theory, you may be sceptical at first. But if you give this book a chance and approach it with an open mind, you'll quickly begin to see the logic behind the authors' theories--especially in the identity of such landmarks as the Pillars of Hercules and the World Ocean. Does an ancient, advanced civilization lie frozen beneath the Antarctic ice cap? We may never know (unless the current, bogus claims for global warming incredibly prove true and the ice cap melts, revealing what lies beneath it). But in the meantime, this book is fascinating reading and reflects true "thinking outside the box" about a topic that's been hashed and rehashed even since Ignatius Donnelly's book about Atlantis fist appeared in 1882.

If you have any interest at all in the topic of Atlantis, whether as history or merely a myth, you should read this book.

The authors' hypothesis, that the remains of Atlantis may be found beneath the ice of lesser Antarctica, is amazing but believable. They build on Charles H. Hapgood's work on earth crustal displacement and his study of ancient sea maps (which show the (ice-free) Antarctic coast long before its discovery in the eighteenth century); the amazing similarities in mythological accounts of floods and other disasters from around the world; the astonishing "outbreak" of agriculture in elevated areas; the account of Atlantis in Plato's Timaeus; and more. This book is an important accompaniment to the studies of Bauval, West et al on pre-pharoanic Egyptology, and those of Tompkins and Coe on the pre-Mayan civilisations. It is not a "new-age" or pseudo X-files book but a serious investigation of certain events and accounts. If you find a copy, buy it.

Susan Solomon has tried very hard in this well-written and documented new book to exonerate Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the leader of the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole in 1911-1912. In recent years Scott has been accused of everything from simple incompetence to real stupidity by critics of his leadership and organization, which Solomon, an NOAA scientist with a distinguished career and Antarctic experience, clearly finds unjustified. By extensively researching not only the original documentation - diaries of Scott and his men, the expedition's meteorological records, information from other Antarctic expeditions of the day such as Shackleton's 1908-1909 try for the pole and Amundsen's successful polar bid of 1911-1912 - but also modern meteorological data, now available for some years along the entirety of Scott's route to the pole (now the course for aircraft bound for the Amundsen-Scott Station), she has tried her level best to suggest that abnormally cold weather was the deciding factor in the loss of the five-man polar party. And indeed cold weather must have been a factor. The poor weather conditions not only would have debilitated the men and caused severe frostbite, the friction of cold snow would have made it almost impossible for the men to pull their sledges more than a few miles a day. Indeed Solomon has charted the progress of the polar party, comparing it with the two supporting parties that turned back short of the pole, and her information does demonstrate how badly slowed up Scott and his four companions were.

The trouble remains, however, that while poor weather clearly contributed to the loss of Captain Scott and his men, Scott's own mistakes and poor planning were also a factor, and to her great credit Solomon does not conceal them, just as Scott, an undeniably courageous and honest man, did not conceal them in his own writings. Scott's assiduous copying of Shackleton's mistakes in 1908-09 (the use of ponies, reliance on unproven motor transport), his own short cuts (spending time testing his motor sledges but not clothing, tents, or other gear), and his failures in leadership (taking five men instead of the planned four to the pole) were instrumental, I believe, in his failure to survive the trek. One also must question why, after the blizzard that trapped the men in their tent 11 miles from a depot of food and fuel, the two well men, Dr. Wilson and the redoubtable Lt. Bowers, did not leave Scott, who was crippled by frostbite, and go to the depot for supplies or even, in the finale extremity, leave Scott to die and save themselves, something Solomon herself seems to find as mysterious as others who have pondered the question, although she advances a possible explanation.

Overall this is a very good book, the first to take into account modern knowledge of Antarctic weather and apply it to Scott's tragic expedition. Although I don't feel that the author has entirely proved her thesis, it is a valuable and useful contribution to the controversy over Captain Scott's expedition.

I've always been more interested in Arctic exploration than the Antarctic -- it seems less two-dimensional, and far more colorful in terms of history. But this book really got my attention. Solomon isn't some armchair theorist, she is an Antarctic professional, and an expert on weather conditions there. Taking a close look at what happened to Scott's 1911-12 expedition, and contrasting it with his earlier journey (with Shackleton) plus Shackleton's 1908 attempt, and the rival Amundsen polar bid, she shakes out a lot of rumors, innuendos and plain nonsense about what Scott 'knew' versus what he 'ought to have known.'

Scott has always seemed a stiff-upper-lip bumbler to me, and to some extent he was, but what happened is not as simple as it appears. He made some educated guesses, and he also made some mistakes. Using motor sleds was a waste of time, considering the poor engine technology of the time. He allowed someone else to select some unsuitable Manchurian ponies. He didn't trust dogs, based on prior experiences. He didn't pay enough attention to suitable clothing and sleeping bags. But he did set up a workable logistical system for his polar attempt, that should have worked.

So what went wrong? The factors above, plus too great a level of fatigue for his team. Poor Bowers ended up walking 400 miles in snow, instead of skiing. They didn't know, as we do, what a menace dehydration at high altitudes would be. Scurvy was poorly understood, and they probably suffered marginally from this, too. And finally, they set out for the Pole a month too late, and got caught in an extremely cold spell that made sledding by manhauling almost impossible. Solomon proves every contention with solid data from the expedition's copious records and from modern survey work. In the end, Scott died -- with Wilson and Bowers keeping him company, in all probability -- because he contracted severe frostbite in -40 degree weather. The idea that he was trapped by a '10 day blizzard' just eleven miles short of a supply depot is disproved by Solomon: the katabatic winds don't blow from the south for more than two or three days, it now seems.

This is a well-written, highly documented piece of work, and is not in any sense an attempt to 'whitewash' Scott. Starting late, and hitting some extremely bad weather was all it took to kill him and his four brave companions.

This is a fascinating tale of high adventure in Antarctica that is well documented with all the scientific facts that a scientist or scholar would demand in a research paper. I chose to read it as a true story of a heroic struggle by a determined group of men who willingly followed Scott out of love and respect, despite terrible hardships. Besides the obvious hardship of the cold, the men also faced death by drowning, starvation, disease and were even threatened by Killer Whales trying to break through the ice to get to the men and the horses. A must read for the real or would be adventurer!