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Terra Incognita

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Terra Incognita

By: Sara Wheeler
Narrated by: Patricia Gallimore
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About this listen

Sara Wheeler visited Antarctica as a guest of America's National Science Foundation and soon after her arrival fell in love with the frozen landscape and it's harsh beauty. During her seven month stay the author travelled to the various national sectors, visited several national bases and experienced four seasons. The author has a reverence for the early explorer and visits many historic landmarks in her journey across Antartica. Her writing is fresh and humorous and brings an insight into this intriguing continent.

©1996 Sara Wheeler (P)2011 W F Howes Ltd Travel Writing & Commentary Witty Polar Region
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Fantastic book, informative, historically accurate beautifully read, captivating and fascinating. I enjoy all the books I've read by Sara Wheeler and this didn't disappoint.
The recounting of many polar explorers along the way added a great deal of depth and feeling to her obvious respect and admiration of these incredible men and their lives.

I probably will never visit Antarctic....

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I came to this book with zero expectations. Simply looking for a good book about Antarctica which wasn't written by yet another macho male explorer. This couldn't have been a more perfect find. Sara's descriptions and historical anecdotes make you feel like you're there with her. And paired with the occasional hilarious remark about her frequently all-male environment it makes for a great audiobook. I've sat contemplating with her, and finally found a writer who like me is sick to death of what she calls the "frozen beards" (men out to see who can get the most dead in a quest for their manliness..!). She makes the whole tale feel so alive by bringing in elements of past explorers writings :) my new favourite book by far!

Fabulous book, deep and hilarious all at the same time

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I enjoyed travelling to antarctica and Living on scientific bases with Sara. She had read extensively about antarctic exploration and shared her knowledg seamlessly with her own acutely observed experience of living and working on antarctica. I loved the book learnt a lot and gained new understanding of the world from sarah's acute observation and superb narration. I also found her observation and description of entrenched chauvinism and the continued working of privilege and the class system as seen on the BAS base to be absolutely spot on.

enthralling

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A fantastic listen. Kept me accompanied both during & after a trip to Antarctica. Really loved the combination of short byte historic explorers, cultural nuances of the different bases, evocative descriptions of the landscape and humorous yet powerful descriptions of what it is like to live in Antarctica.
Only downside is the narrator’s accents for other nationalities but overall highly recommend for anyone wanting a more holistic immersion into peoples experiences of Antarctica.

Antarctica immersion

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I loved this book. A real day to day account of a woman's experiences of getting to, and living in, Antarctica. Her anecdotes are often very funny and occasionally bizarre. The reaction of the BAS boys to a woman on base is Victorian to say the least. Wheeler also manages to give a fine sense of history and place to both the historical sites and contemporary researchers. I recall the radio darts competition where the Italians didnt have a dart board but seemed to have won, the tent expedition with another woman artist, the American McMurdo base with all their US style, and always the wonderful descriptions of landscape and residents,from the seals to the beards. A great book to journey through. I have listened to it for hours now. You can just dip in to wherever she is. One of my favourite audio books. And read by 'Pat Archer' very well.

A long way from home, informative and funny.

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