An African in Greenland  •  Tete-Michel Kpomassie  •  James Kirkup BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2001 •  PAPER  • 300 PAGES A memorable account of the odyssey of the West African author from Togo to Paris, Denmark and, ultimately, Greenland. Inspired by a children's book about Greenlanders, Kpomassie's grail is to visit the Arctic. A memoir, ethnography, travelogue and fairy tale, the charming and talented author's dreams all come true. Three-quarters of the book is devoted to his adventures in Greenland. Originally published in 1981. (ARC110, $14.95)
Bradt Guide Faroe Islands  •  James Proctor GUIDEBOOK •  2008 •  PAPER  • 208 PAGES A practical guide to the North Atlantic islands in the popular series, essential for anyone contemplating an extended visit. With islands maps, city plans, and detailed information on what to do and where to go throughout the archipelago. (ARC156, $25.99)
Call of the North, An Explorer's Journey to the North Pole  •  Andre Malaurie EXPLORATION •  2001 •  HARD COVER  • 336 PAGES A handsome, oversize memoir and celebration of the Inuit by the French polar explorer, featuring 300 of his own color photographs spanning a 50 year career in the Arctic. Maluarie is also the author of the wonderful Last Kings of Thule. Among his many polar accomplishments, he was the first Frenchman to reach the North Pole by dogsled in 1951. (ARC109, $60.00)
Chronicles of the Vikings: Records, Memorials and Myths  •  R.I. Page CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  1996 •  PAPER  • 240 PAGES A collection of Viking writings, organized thematically, including runic inscriptions, poems and a handful of eyewitness accounts. Scholar R.I. Page provides commentary to compliment his translations. (VIK16, $29.95)
Clara's Grand Tour, Travels With a Rhinoceros in Eighteenth-century Europe  •  Glynis Ridley HISTORY •  2006 •  PAPER  • 240 PAGES The entertaining history of a most unusual eighteenth-century European celebrity. Clara the Indian rhinoceros was brought to Europe in 1741 by the Dutch sea captain Douwemout Van der Meer, and toured for seventeen years, to the delight of heads of state such as Louis XV and Frederick the Great. A marvelous and unique look at the introduction of Eastern wildlife into the Western world. (FRN536, $12.00)
Denmark Map  •  Freytag & Berndt MAP 1:400,000 scale map of Denmark which includes inset maps of the major cities on the reverse. (SCN15, $12.95)
Distant Shores, The Odyssey of Rockwell Kent  •  Constance Martin  •  Rockwell Kent ART & ARCHITECTURE •  2000 •  PAPER  • 128 PAGES Distant Shores present 80 paintings, prints and drawings by Kent (1882-1971), many in glorious color, and including an exceptional selection of work from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Inspired by remote and inhospitable regions, the book follows Kent's life and work at Monhegan Island, Newfoundland, Alaska, Tierra del Fuego and Greenland. Published in conjunction with an exhibition by the same name. With 68 color illustrations and 58 black-and-white photographs. (ART34, $24.95)
The Eskimos  •  Ernest S. Burch, Jr. CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  1988 •  HARD COVER  • 128 PAGES An ethnographic portrait of Eskimo society, culture and beliefs, featuring 120 color photographs by Werner Forman and accompanying essays by anthropologist Ernest Burch. The oversize book shows the range and diversity of peoples of the circumpolar north with examples from eastern Siberia, the Aleutians, Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Its focus is on the Eskimo peoples of Alaska. (ARC165, $19.95)
Extremes, Surviving the World's Harshest Environments  •  Nick Middleton TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2005 •  HARD COVER  • 272 PAGES A British geographer with a television show, Middleton is also a fine, entertaining tour guide. In this latest exploration of how to thrive in impossible places, he goes native in Greenland, the Congo, Niger and Papua New Guinea. It's a sequel to his Going to Extremes. (TVL65, $24.95)
Glacier Ice  •  Austin Post  •  Edward R. LaChapelle NATURAL HISTORY •  2000 •  PAPER  • 145 PAGES An extraordinary book of aerial photographs of mountains, glaciers and ice accompanied by explanatory text by two devoted glaciologists. Much too beautiful to be called a textbook, this collection of striking black-and-white photographs introduces the major surface features, varieties of glaciers and diversity of ice. With a glossary and annotated bibliography for further reading. An obvious choice for mountaineers and polar explorers, this book will appeal to any curious traveler -- or even anyone who has ever looked out the window of an airplane en route over Greenland. In cooperation with the International Glaciological Society. A modern classic, originally published in 1971. (SCI07, $27.95)
Glaciers  •  Michael Hambrey SCIENCE •  2005 •  HARD COVER  • 376 PAGES An excellent companion for travel to regions with glaciers and ice-carved landscapes, the expanded second edition of this handsome book is a pictorial overview of glacial phenomena. From Scandinavia to Alaska, Antarctica and Central Park, its 200 color photographs introduce the formation and types of glaciers and their impact on landscapes over time. If you've ever wondered about circques, fjords, eskers or moraines, this book in excellent guide. (GEO03, $85.00)
The Gothic Enterprise, A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral  •  Robert A. Scott ART & ARCHITECTURE •  2005 •  PAPER  • 307 PAGES Scott, whose interest in the history of cathedrals began when he first saw the magnificent Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Salisbury, England, takes his reader on a historical, architectural and sociological tour of the magnificent spires and stained-glass windows that dot the landscape of Europe. It's an accessible, personable overview. (EUR190, $17.95)
H.W. Tilman, The Eight Sailing/Mountain-Exploration Books  •  H. W. Tilman EXPLORATION •  1987 •  HARD COVER  • 960 PAGES A dizzying, 900-page omnibus of eight terrific books, all featuring Tilman's adventures aboard the Mischief, his base for exploring the mountains of the Southern Ocean, Patagonia and the Arctic. A wry, cantankerous and entertaining writer (who sailed off from Rio de Janeiro in his 80th year in 1977 never to be seen again), Tilman crafts books that are jammed with information about the places he and his crew visited, including crossing the Patagonian Ice Cap, crossing of Bylot Island and ascent of Big Ben on Heard. This collection includes Mischief in Patagonia, Mischief among the Penguins, Mischief in Greenland, Mostly Mischief, Mischief Goes South, In Mischief's Wake, Ice With Everything, and Triumph and Tribulation. His earlier moountaineering books have been collected in a separate, and equally interesting, volume. (EXP13, $38.00)
Handbook of North American Indians: Arctic  •  David Damas REFERENCE •  1984 •  HARD COVER  • 829 PAGES The definitive reference on native peoples of the Arctic, one of the Smithsonian's fine series on North American Indians. Authoritative and somewhat academic, it's a terrific book for your library. Widely illustrated with photographs and drawings. (ARC15, $52.00)
Here Is Where We Meet  •  John Berger LITERATURE •  2006 •  PAPER  • 256 PAGES This novel weaves a portrait of several European countries through encounters with the dead, from the narrator's mother, whom he discovers on a park bench in Lisbon, to a childhood friend wandering a market in Krakow. "The dead don't stay where they are buried," the protagonist's mother tells him, and this becomes the mantra for this most unusual journey through Europe's history and people. (EUR189, $14.00)
The Ice Chronicles, The Quest to Understand Global Climate Change  •  Paul Andrew Mayewski  •  Frank White  •  Lynn Margulis NATURAL HISTORY •  2003 •  PAPER  • 264 PAGES A history of the Greenland Ice Sheet drilling project, started in 1998 to help measure global climate change throughout history. (SCI70, $19.95)
Islands of the Arctic  •  Julian Dowdeswell  •  Michael Hambrey NATURAL HISTORY •  2002 •  HARD COVER  • 280 PAGES A nicely illustrated overview of the physical geography of the Arctic, especially the role of glaciers and ice in shaping the land and history of northern islands across the Arctic from the Canadian Archipelago, Greenland and Svalbard to the Russian Arctic. The authors, glaciologists both, have worked throughout the circumpolar north with 40 years of field work between them. With 242 color photographs by the authors, illustrating a wide variety of Arctic phenomena, including glaciation, frost action, sea ice, coastal features, and life of the icy seas and tundra. The book concludes with chapters on human habitation and the future of the Arctic. (ARC122, $50.00)
The Last Imaginary Place  •  Robert McGhee BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2007 •  PAPER  • 296 PAGES In this wide-ranging portrait of the Arctic, McGhee combines a lifetime of archaeological field work, history and travel, touching on whalers and ivory-hunters, explorers, fur-traders, Viking farmers and, most particularly, the native peoples in a series of illuminating essays. With 37 black-and-white illustrations, 31 color photographs and nine maps. Published in conjunction with the Canadian Museum of Civilization, where McGhee is curator of Arctic archaeology. (ARC164, $18.00)
The Little Ice Age, How Climate Made History 1300-1850  •  Brian Fagan SCIENCE •  2001 •  PAPER  • 272 PAGES A delightful and well-documented survey of the impact of medieval cooling on world affairs, including the hardships suffered by the Norse on Greenland. (ARC147, $16.95)
Mammals of Europe  •  Priscilla Barrett  •  David W. MacDonald FIELD GUIDE •  2002 •  PAPER  • 320 PAGES Published by Princeton, this is a field guide to land and marine mammals throughout Europe, both endemic and introduced. With more than 600 color illustrations of over 200 mammals, it's a comprehensive handbook, with detailed descriptions, range maps and commentary on behavior. (FG61, $34.95)
The Norsemen in the Viking Age  •  Eric Christiansen HISTORY •  2002 •  PAPER  • 378 PAGES This scholary history of the Norse takes somewhat of a revisionist approach, examining the evolution of Viking culture as a direct reaction to threatening environmental and social forces at home and abroad. (VIK17, $26.95)
North to the Night, A Spiritual Odyssey in the Arctic  •  Alvah Simon EXPLORATION •  1999 •  PAPER  • 328 PAGES A well-crafted tale of adventures in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland aboard a 36-foot sailing yacht, including most memorably a solo winter frozen in the sea ice off Bylot Island. (ARC97, $14.95)
One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead  •  Clare Dudman LITERATURE •  2005 •  PAPER  • 416 PAGES What an intriguing idea! Clare Dudman takes the bare-bones of Alfred Wegener's adventurous life (1880-1930) and builds around that foundation an engrossing tale of science and exploration, richly set against a backdrop of Greenland (where Wegener ultimately met his demise) Dudman's first-person voice recalls the brave men and bad weather in the Victorian age. A meteorologist, it was Wegener who first proposed the notion of continental drift. Published in the U.K. as Wegener's Jigsaw. (ARC148, $14.00)
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings  •  Peter Sawyer HISTORY •  2001 •  PAPER  • 298 PAGES This compact, well-produced book, featuring contributions by 12 experts, is an insightful overview of the Viking Age. With numerous black-and-white illustrations. (VIK18, $27.99)
Rick Steves' French, Italian & German Phrase Book & Dictionary  •  Rick Steves LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS •  2003 •  PAPER  • 400 PAGES A compact phrase book for travelers, organized thematically and with a brief dictionary. French, German and Italian phrases are side-by-side on the page so that you can pick and choose depending on the situation. This is no dry litany but instead peppered with humor and Rick Steves' insider insight into how to break the ice and make friends around the world. (EUR142, $9.95)
The Royal Physician's Visit  •  Per Olov Enquist LITERATURE •  2002 •  PAPER  • 320 PAGES Swedish novelist Enquist fleshes out a footnote in Danish history in this story of the Enlightenment-era Danish court, the mad king Christian VII, the ambitious royal doctor and the passionate young queen. It's a wonderfully realized book. (DMK21, $14.00)
The Sledge Patrol, A WWII Epic of Escape, Survival and Victory  •  David Howarth HISTORY •  2008 •  PAPER  • 224 PAGES An engrossing true-life adventure story of Danish and Norwegian hunters evading Nazi troops across the hostile terrain of Greenland. (ARC112, $16.95)
The Solitude of Thomas Cave  •  Georgina Harding LITERATURE •  2007 •  HARD COVER  • 192 PAGES In this powerful work of historical fiction set in the 17th-century Arctic, a British whaler bets the rest of his crew that he can spend one winter alone in the Greenland. A strange, ghostly tale, beautifully written. (ARC194, $23.95)
Travelers' Tales, A Woman's Europe  •  Marybeth Bond  •  Mary Morris ANTHOLOGY •  2004 •  PAPER  • 298 PAGES This entertaining collection depicts Europe through the eyes of a diverse group of women writers, including Frances Mayes, Jan Morris and Mary Morris. These humorous and well-written true stories capture the misadventures, discoveries and slices of life that the continent (and travel!) has to offer. (EUR160, $17.95)
The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future  •  Richard Alley SCIENCE •  2000 •  PAPER  • 229 PAGES Paleoclimatologist Richard Alley takes the long view in this persuasive, accessible survey of climatic change as revealed through ice core drilling. He includes enthusiastic tales of his research in Greenland and Antarctica, an overview of how climate works, and his prognostication for the future. The world climate, not surprisingly, has changed often and suddenly over the last 100,000 years. An excellent, lively report. (SCI24, $19.95)