Antarctic Ideas: Hot Reads for Cold Nights

A good book is, in many ways, like a good conversation. It engages with ideas in a way that leaves you energised, knowing more than you did when you began – but still thinking and questioning. Maybe that’s why we at Wakefield feel a special affinity with the Adelaide Festival of Ideas.

In the lead-up to the full festival program announcement in a few weeks, we’re remembering an event from this time last year that shone a spotlight on the home of the blizzard: Antarctica: Past, Present and Futures. Paleontologist John Long, writer Sean Williams and director of the Royal Society of South Australia, Paul Willis, each shared their experiences in Antarctica.

To discover more about Antarctica for yourself, why not burrow into one of our gripping true Antarctic stories? Preferably under a blanket or by the fire!

Home of the Blizzard

Sir Douglas Mawson

A classic tale of discovery and adventure by a bona fide Australian hero, this has been called ‘one of the greatest accounts of polar survival in history’ by Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
This is Mawson’s own account of his years spent in sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds, of pioneering deeds, great courage, heart-stopping rescues and heroic endurance. At its heart is the epic journey of 1912-13, during which both his companions perished.

Shackleton’s Boat Journey

F.A. Worsley

This is the classic account of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition of 1914-16, told by Frank Worsley, captain of the expedition ship, Endurance.
First trapped then crushed by ice, the Endurance drifted in an ice floe for five months before reaching the barren and inhospitable Elephant Island, leaving 22 men there while Shackleton, Worsley and four others made the 800-mile journey to get help.
Braving hurricane-force winds, fifty-foot waves and sub-zero temperatures, this is an extraordinary story of survival.

Body at the Melbourne Club

David Burke

This fascinating biography of the first Australian-born member of an Antarctic expedition gives a new perspective on one of the great polar expeditions.
As an expert horseman, Bertram Armytage was given charge of the ponies in Ernest Shackleton’s great 1907-1909 polar expedition, during which he narrowly escaped the jaws of killer whales. In London, he was decorated by royalty for his achievements. But then, aged just 41, back on home ground, he shot himself in his part-time residence of the Melbourne Club. This is his story.

South by Northwest: The Magnetic Crusade and the Contest for Antarctica

Granville Allen Mawer

The race for the South Magnetic Pole started in the fabled Northwest Passage, when rival French, American and British expeditions were sent to find it in 1840-41. At the turn of the century, it defeated their successors, Shackleton and Mawson. It wasn’t until 1986 that Australian scientists finally found it, after a marathon, multi-expedition hunt that collectively unveiled much of Greater Antarctica along the way.