My dear, darling (if slightly mad) sister Sue, is currently in Antarctica, where she has been ever since Shackleton had enough of her cooking and rowed off to South Georgia. Although her links to sanity are at times tenuous (I have photographs to prove this), she hasn't completely lost touch with reality as is evident from the various , thoughtful presents that appear in the post on all our birthdays. One of those was a book entitled 'Antarctica - Secrets of the Southern Continent' and my initial reaction was "Christ, not more feckin penguins". There are penguins, but there is also a lot more besides. A lot, lot more as this is a big, big book. The sort of hefty book you could easily use to clobber a cute baby seal to death with and then check to see whether the fresh, raw seal meat you are feasting on comes from the Lobodon carcinophagus or, as you suspect, the leptonwychotes weddelli.
The writing is insightful, the photography superlative, and for this cartographic nut, the book comes with 12 detailed regional maps and a further 80 thematic maps on subjects such as the polar environment, explorers' routes and the top ten places to go baby seal clubbing.
No comments:
Post a Comment