darchildre: a crow being held in one hand.  text:  "bird in hand" (bird in the hand)
[personal profile] darchildre
So, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I decided to put a bunch of books on hold this week about polar exploration. Currently, I am reading Ghosts of Cape Sabine, which is pretty great thus far and promises to eventually include cannibalism, so that's exciting. I also have one about Shackleton and Antarctica because of course I do. Later in the month, there will be more books about expeditions that went horribly wrong in various ways, including stuff about Franklin and the Northwest Passage.

The fun thing about this (aside from the obvious enjoyment of adventure stories set in trackless icy wastes), is the maps. See, I grew up with a lot of maritime folk music (as I've mentioned before), a lot of which was about whaling. So I have spent a lot of time singing songs that mention bits of Greenland or Baffin Island, without actually knowing anything about the geography of the area. And now, I have these books with these maps in them and I can look at them and see all these places whose names I've known forever but now I know where they are. It's weirdly great.

Also, I kinda want to go to Antarctica. I mean, not today. But someday, before I die. That's not, like, totally crazy, right?

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darchildre: a candle in the dark.  text:  "a light in dark places". (Default)
Renfield

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