The Library of Ice
Readings from a Cold Climate
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Narrated by:
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Tania Rodrigues
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By:
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Nancy Campbell
About this listen
‘A wonderful book: Nancy Campbell is a fine storyteller with a rare physical intelligence. The extraordinary brilliance of her eye confers the reader a total immersion in the rimy realms she explores. Glaciers, Arctic floe, verglas, frost and snow — I can think of no better or warmer guide to the icy ends of the Earth’ Dan Richards, author of Climbing Days
A vivid and perceptive book combining memoir, scientific and cultural history with a bewitching account of landscape and place, which will appeal to readers of Robert Macfarlane, Roger Deakin and Olivia Laing.
Long captivated by the solid yet impermanent nature of ice, by its stark, rugged beauty, acclaimed poet and writer Nancy Campbell sets out from the world’s northernmost museum – at Upernavik in Greenland – to explore it in all its facets. From the Bodleian Library archives to the traces left by the great polar expeditions, from remote Arctic settlements to the ice houses of Calcutta, she examines the impact of ice on our lives at a time when it is itself under threat from climate change.
The Library of Ice is a fascinating and beautifully rendered evocation of the interplay of people and their environment on a fragile planet, and of a writer’s quest to define the value of her work in a disappearing landscape.
‘The Library of Ice instantly transported me elsewhere... This luminous book is both beautifully written and astute in its observations, turning the pages of time backwards and revealing, like the archive of the earth’s climate stored in layers of solidified water, the embedded meanings of the world’s icy realms. It is a book as urgently relevant as it is wondrous’ Julian Hoffman, author of The Heart of Small Things
‘An extraordinary work not only for the perspicacity and innate experience of the author who leads the reader carefully across intertwined icy tracks of crystallised geographics, melting myths and frozen exploration histories, but through her own tender diagnostics of what reading ice can show us in these times … Perilous in its scope, exacting in its observation, wild in intellect, The Library of Ice captures the reader’s attention almost as if caught in ice itself’ Kirsten Macgillivray, poet
‘This is travel writing to be treasured. A biography of ice, the element that has another life, with hard facts thawed and warmed by a poet's voice. Campbell's writing is companionable, curious, deeply researched and with no bragging about the intrepidity that has taken her between winter-dark Greenland, Polar libaries, Scottish curling rinks, Alpine glaciers and Henry Thoreau's pond at Walden’ Jasper Winn, author of Paddle
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2018 Nancy Campbell (P)2018 Simon & Schuster UKListeners also enjoyed...
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Travels in Siberia
- By: Ian Frazier
- Narrated by: Ian Frazier
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the 40-below midwinter afternoons, the bugs. The book brims with Mongols, half-crazed Orthodox archpriests, fur seekers, ambassadors of the czar bound for Peking, tea caravans, German scientists, American prospectors, intrepid English nurses, and prisoners and exiles of every kind....
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I Loved This Book
- By Sara on 01-05-14
By: Ian Frazier
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The White Road
- Journey into an Obsession
- By: Edmund de Waal
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Extraordinary new nonfiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and best-selling international sensation The Hare with the Amber Eyes. In The White Road, best-selling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or "white gold".
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Marvelous and addictive
- By Elizabeth on 09-27-17
By: Edmund de Waal
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Far and Away
- A Prize Every Time
- By: Neil Peart
- Narrated by: Brian Sutherland
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Following in the tradition of Ghost Rider and Traveling Music, Rush drummer Neil Peart relates nearly four years of band tours, road trips, and personal discoveries in this introspective travelogue. From the ups and downs of a professional artist to the birth of a child, this revealing narrative recounts 22 adventures from rock's foremost drummer, biker enthusiast, husband, and father.
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What a disappointment!
- By Philip G. on 12-02-16
By: Neil Peart
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Underground
- A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet
- By: Will Hunt
- Narrated by: Will Hunt
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A panoramic investigation of the subterranean landscape, from sacred caves and derelict subway stations to nuclear bunkers and ancient underground cities - an exploration of the history, science, architecture, and mythology of the worlds beneath our feet.
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An interesting unearthing of some awesome spaces
- By Garry on 02-23-19
By: Will Hunt
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Falling Upwards
- How We Took to the Air
- By: Richard Holmes
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Falling Upwards tells the story of the enigmatic group of men and women who first risked their lives to take to the air and so discovered a new dimension of human experience. Why they did it, what their contemporaries thought of them, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet in wholly unexpected ways is its subject.
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A Significant Factual-Interpretative Error
- By William P. Mitchell on 04-01-20
By: Richard Holmes
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In Search of the Canary Tree
- The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World
- By: Lauren E. Oakes
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Several years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellow-cedar. With climate change as the culprit, the death of this species meant loss for many Alaskans. Oakes and her research team wanted to chronicle how plants and people could cope with their rapidly changing world. Amidst the standing dead, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again in the wake of destruction, and a diverse community of people who persevered to create new relationships with the emerging environment.
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Moving and inspiring
- By Catherine A Gould on 05-26-19
By: Lauren E. Oakes
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The White Darkness
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry Worsley spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th-century polar explorer who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape and life-threatening physical exhaustion. He soon felt compelled to go back. In 2015, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone.
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Will Patton's narration
- By Carol on 01-18-19
By: David Grann
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Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher
- The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, Egan's book tells the remarkable untold story behind Edward Curtis's iconic photographs, following him throughout Indian country from desert to rainforest as he struggled to document the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. Even with the backing of Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, it took tremendous perseverance. The undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate.
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STUPENDOUS!
- By Curious Artist Librarian on 10-29-12
By: Timothy Egan
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The Art of Travel
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.
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Dull, suggestions for better alternatives
- By J. Natael on 08-07-13
By: Alain de Botton
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The Great Quake
- How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet
- By: Henry Fountain
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting narrative about the biggest earthquake in North American recorded history - the 1964 Alaska earthquake that demolished the city of Valdez and swept away the island village of Chenega - and the geologist who hunted for clues to explain how and why it took place.
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Fascinating to hear the full story
- By Debby A Davis on 08-18-17
By: Henry Fountain
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Krakatoa
- The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa - the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster - was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly 40,000 people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round die planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light.
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Great subject, great writing, great voice
- By rwise on 01-26-04
By: Simon Winchester