Antarctica

This stunning coffee table book takes readers on a journey around Antarctica. The book is divided into East Antarctica, West Antarctica, Islands, and wildlife. Each section has a short introduction and then the rest is filled with large photographs. The photos are all in color and are absolutely stunning. Antarctica has been on my bucket list for a long time and this book just made me want to go even more. Each photo is captioned and I appreciated when it would note which locations are tourist destinations. I highly enjoyed the animal photos, especially the pictures of penguins just chilling on the man-made structures. This book is the perfect gift for the world traveler or nature lover in your life. Thank you to Netgalley and Amber Books for the ARC.

This book is perfect to read the week when temperatures are trying to reach close to 40 degrees Celsius.
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It’s a beautiful book, full of gorgeous photos of glaciers and icebergs, penguins and seals, and a few man-made structures. Antarctica is truly beautiful in a majestic and harsh way, but yet even that expanse of frozen land and ice is incredibly fragile.

As the ice shelves are breaking and melting (and, having read by how much each melting enormous ice shelf would raise the sea level, I scramble to double-check the elevation of my house), endangering not only what deceptively seems to be a permanent stark-white ice-cold absolutely fascinating world, it’s jarringly sad to see the little thoughtless things we, humans, do to nature very casually.

“Rusty old fuel barrels are a problem in the Antarctic as they leak toxic chemicals into the ice and the ocean. There are an estimated 300,000 tonnes (295,000 tons) of rubbish in Antarctica, some of it more than a century old, and most of it produced by the research stations on the continent. Some of it cannot be seen or recovered as it’s buried under the ice.”

Our planet is a beautiful place, despite our sustained efforts. I hope we will manage to not completely destroy it.

5 stars.
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Thanks to NetGalley and Amber Books Ltd. for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m afraid of not doing justice to this marvelous book. We’ve all seen photos of Antarctica as well as its wildlife and scientific bases that have taken root there (photos of their hundreds of thousands of empty, rusting fuel barrels are devastating, coming in the midst of the most beautiful landscapes and seascapes one could imagine). The book “divides” the continent in half and draws distinctions between the two territories with plenty of detail about geological and wildlife differences and the specific geography of each.
I cannot over-praise this beautiful book!

Antarctica is a continent of wonder. Full of thick ice and home to colonies of penguins, seals, and seabirds. This book is different from others on its subject as it delivers interesting trivia via the captioning of spectacular photos. There may be a photo of a weirdly shaped iceberg and right beside it is a short explanation as to how it was formed. The photos cover equal parts of the continent (not just from an expedition or from one territory).

Even as an Antarctic Science student, I still learned some interesting things:

-8 churches
-boats can sail into a volcanic crater
-tide cracks in the pack ice
-blue eyed shags

And appreciated spectacular photographs of:
-the different iceberg types (check out the pancakes)
-the Ross Ice Shelf aka the Barrier
-volcanoes
-human-made structures/bases
-wildlife! (my favourite is the crabeater seal)

There were a few casual comments on the effects of climate change but it was not OTT. It was more “did you know” than a biased account.

Overall, I think the selection and coverage of the photographs were incredible. It was easy to read (appropriate to all levels). I was quite impressed.

Thanks to NetGalley and Amber Books Ltd for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

An excellent photography book highlighting a land of snow and ice while bringing out the unexpected colours found in such stark landscapes. From the Aurora Australis, to icebergs and research bases, the photos capture the life and intrigue of the Antarctic. Plus, there are plenty of photos of the cuter, more natural inhabitants of that icy shore. The perfect book for a travel enthusiast.