Talk#6: The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic.

Sara Wheeler is a prizewinning broadcaster and non-fiction writer whose ten books include the international bestseller Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica. The Sunday Times found her last book, Mud and Stars: Travels in Russia with Pushkin and Other Geniuses of the Golden Age ‘Superlative’. Of her biography of one of Captain Scott’s men, Jon Krakauer wrote, ‘Utterly fascinating. Cherry is a wonderful book’.

In ‘The Magnetic North’ Sara Wheeler takes us on an illustrated, personal tour of the circumpolar Arctic – sailing on a Russian icebreaker out of Murmansk, herding reindeer with Sami and shadowing the Trans-Alaska pipeline with truckers. She discovers a complex and ambiguous land belonging both to ancient myth and modern controversy.

The talk offers a spicy confection of history, science and reflection in which Sara meditates on the role of the Arctic: fragmented lands which fed imaginations long before the oilmen showed up (not to mention desperado explorers who ate their own shoes). The book of the talk, also called The Magnetic North, was chosen as Book of the Year by Michael Palin, Will Self, A.N. Wilson, Robert Carver and others.

Tickets from https://www.citizenticket.co.uk/events/john-rae-society/the-magnetic-north-notes-from-the-arctic-by-sara-wheeler/