Antarctica Reading List

Alfred Lansing

Alfred Lansing’s best selling book tells the extraordinary tale of survival and recounts the epic stories of the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It’s the gripping account of Shackleton’s legendary perseverance, his leadership and the attempts to bring his entire crew home safely after losing his ship in the ice; an unforgettable story that redefines our understanding of the word ‘courage’.

Lennard Bickel

Mawson’s Will is the dramatic story of what Sir Edmund Hillary calls “the most outstanding solo journey ever recorded in Antarctic history.” For weeks in Antarctica, Douglas Mawson faced some of the most daunting conditions ever known to man: blistering wind, snow, and cold; loss of his companion, his dogs and supplies, the skin on his hands and the soles of his feet; thirst, starvation, disease, snowblindness – and he survived.

Richard Byrd

When Admiral Richard E. Byrd set out on his second Antarctic expedition in 1934, he was already an international hero for having piloted the first flights over the North and South Poles. His plan for this latest adventure was to spend six months alone near the bottom of the world, gathering weather data and indulging his desire “to taste peace and quiet long enough to know how good they really are.” But early on things went terribly wrong.

F. A. Worsley

The astounding and inspiring true story behind one of the great survival stories of all time.

Frank A. Worsley was the captain of the H.M.S. Endurance, the ship used by the legendary explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in his 1914-16 expedition to the Antarctic. On its way to the Antarctic continent the Endurance became trapped and then crushed by ice, and the ship’s party of twenty-eight drifted on an ice floe for five months. Finally reaching an uninhabited island, Shackleton, Worsley, and four others sailed eight hundred miles in a small boat to the island of South Georgia, an astounding feat of navigation and courage.

Ranulph Fiennes

A noted adventurer describes his ninety-seven-day, two-man, unsupported journey across the icy wilderness of Antarctica, offering a vivid narrative of the physical and mental challenges of the epic journey.

Roland Huntford

In this brilliant dual biography, the award-winning writer Roland Huntford re-examines every detail of the great race to the South Pole between Britain’s Robert Scott and Norway’s Roald Amundsen. Scott, who dies along with four of his men only eleven miles from his next cache of supplies, became Britain’s beloved failure, while Amundsen, who not only beat Scott to the Pole but returned alive, was largely forgotten.

Roland Huntford

The acclaimed biographer of Robert Falcon Scott masterfully chronicles the life of one of the last great Edwardian heroes, Ernest Shackleton, from his Anglo-Irish childhood through the race for the South Pole to his last expedition to the North Pole.

Douglas Mawson

Sir Douglas Mawson records his historic expedition to explore uncharted land in Antarctica. Pitted against formidable natural forces, he and his team faced unrelenting winds with speeds of up to two hundred miles per hour as well as freezing temperatures and day-long blizzards. They traversed the previously unexplored King George V Land directly south of Australia and collected geological samples and magnetic readings. After accident and illness led to the death of his two teammates, a starving and frostbitten Mawson finished one hundred miles of the return journey alone.

Charles Neider

Writer and Antarctic explorer Neider tells of his third trip to the frozen continent, describing the international stations there and the goals they are working toward. Neider also tours the Antarctic landscape, observing the geography and wildlife and evoking it in detail. Devoting scrutiny to the international treaties that protect the continent politically and environmentally, Neider reveals how important those treaties are.

Joan Boothe

This fascinating book recounts mankind’s dramatic history from Magellan through the first years of the twenty-first century in the part of the Antarctic regions below South America and the Atlantic Ocean.

Aspley Cherry-Garrard

The Worst Journey in the World recounts Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard—the youngest member of Scott’s team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious Winter Journey—draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of his compatriots to create a stirring and detailed account of Scott’s legendary expedition. Cherry himself would be among the search party that discovered the corpses of Scott and his men, who had long since perished from starvation and brutal cold.

Angie Butler

The Quest for Frank Wild tells the gripping story of the final years of Frank Wild, one of the greatest British Edwardian Polar explorers of all time. He supposedly died in penury, unable to come to terms with Ernest Shackleton’s death and forgotten by his fellowmen in the small mining town of Klerksdorp, near Johannesburg. The little that was known of his later life in South Africa has been maligned by hearsay and sensational journalism and most tragically of all, no-one knew where he was buried. An outstanding man lost in life and in death.

David Campbell

A splendid, prize-winning portrait of Antarctica. Campbell’s vivid essays on fossils, glaciers, history and wildlife of the Antarctic Peninsula are an excellent introduction. It is shared in a way that will captivate the reader before they experience Antarctica with their own eyes.

Ron Naveen

Though this book is out of print and can be difficult to track down, the thoroughly researched spiral bound guide book, with its descriptions, maps and wonderful aerial photographs of visitor sites, is the one book you will want to have with you as you travel to the peninsula.

Tony Soper

This comprehensive guide provides full coverage of identification, breeding, feeding and the best locations to observe the varied species. Dafila Scott’s illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to naturalist Tony Soper’s detailed and researched text.

George Watson

Detailed species accounts with a synopsis of each of the families and a page dedicated to each species covering identification, flight (where relevant) and habits, voice and display, food, reproduction, arrival, eggs, hatching, fledging and departure, molt, predation and mortality, ectoparasites, habitat and distribution.

Frans Lanting

Penguin is a celebration of the nature and beauty of penguins as expressed through the exquisite images and unique personal stories of master photographer and naturalist Frans Lanting.

James Lowen

Antarctic Wildlife is the definitive identification guide to the birds and marine mammals of the Antarctic Peninsula, Drake Passage, and Beagle Channel. This easy-to-use photographic field guide enables visitors to this unique region of the world–newcomer and seasoned traveler alike–to identify with confidence the penguins, whales, seals, seabirds, and other stunning wildlife they encounter on their journey. Full-color photographs show typical views of each species of bird or marine mammal, together with the terrestrial plants likely to be seen. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, give tips on where to look, and highlight interesting facts. This one-of-a-kind guide also includes introductory chapters that cover the wildlife of each Antarctic environment by season, as well as information on tourism and Antarctic cruising that will help visitors get the most from their trip.

Sally Poncet & Kim Crosbie

This book features hundreds of color photographs of the diverse wildlife and breathtaking scenery on South Georgia. It includes extensive and up-to-date coverage of all wildlife groups–from albatrosses and petrels to seals and penguins–as well as color maps and detailed information for the 23 key visitor sites.

Ian Strange

Isolated in the south Atlantic between South America and the Antartic Peninsula, the Falkland archipelago is one of the last unspoiled areas in the world and a region of wild beauty. Its very remoteness also makes the fauna and flora of these 420 islands unique.  This book is a fully illustrated identification guide concerned largely with the 107 bird and 39 mammal species of the region, but also including selected fish, invertebrates and plants.