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Title details for South with the Sun by Lynne Cox - Available

South with the Sun

Roald Amundsen, His Polar Explorations, and the Quest for Discovery

by Lynne Cox
Christine Williams
Audiobook
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A powerfully built man more than six feet tall, Amundsen's career of adventure began at the age of fifteen (he was born in Norway in 1872 to a family of merchant sea captains and rich ship owners); twenty-five years later he was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles. Lynne Cox, adventurer and swimmer, author of Swimming to Antarctica ("gripping"-Sports Illustrated) and Grayson ("wondrous, and unforgettable"-Carl Hiaasen), gives us in South with the Sun a full-scale account of the explorer's life and expeditions. We see Amundsen, in 1903-06, the first to travel the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in his small ship Gjoa, a seventy-foot refitted former herring boat powered by sails and a thirteen-horsepower engine, making his way through the entire length of the treacherous ice bound route, between the northern Canadian mainland and Canada's Arctic islands, from Greenland across Baffin Bay, between the Canadian islands, across the top of Alaska into the Bering Strait. The dangerous journey took three years to complete, as Amundsen, his crew, and six sled dogs waited while the frozen sea around them thawed sufficiently to allow for navigation. We see him journey toward the North Pole in Fridtjof Nansen's famous Fram, until word reached his expedition party of Robert Peary's successful arrival at the North Pole. Amundsen then set out on a secret expedition to the Antarctic, and we follow him through his heroic capture of the South Pole. Cox makes clear why Amundsen succeeded in his quests where other adventurer-explorers failed, and how his methodical preparation and willingness to take calculated risks revealed both the spirit of the man and the way to complete one triumphant journey after another. Cox also describes reading about Amundsen as a young girl and how his exploits inspired

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 13, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781611746051
      • File size: 246504 KB
      • Duration: 08:33:32

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The details of Roald Amundsen's famous explorations to the South Pole and the Northwest Passage are interwoven with accounts of the author's own efforts to swim (in only a bathing suit!) in subzero temperatures. Amundsen is a role model for Cox--she wants to know how others who did things in cold places that had never been done before found their way. Narrator Christine Williams adeptly delivers Amundsen's feats, including his unusual efforts to learn from the inhabitants of arctic environments. The narrative's footnotes are extremely distracting; they sound disconnected, as if they were added after the main narration. In addition, Cox's details on her research methods are not very interesting. The combination of narrative, footnotes, methodology, and Williams's overly upbeat voice becomes tiresome. A.B. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 18, 2011
      As a teenager, Cox (Swimming to Antarctica) was enamored with Norwegian explorer Amundsen (1872â1928), the first to lay claim on the South Pole. Aside from chronicling Amundsen's frosty adventures, Cox details her efforts to swim in the waters off Antarctic and Greenlandâin the very icy waters where Amundsen sailed. An ambitious mélange of biography, memoir, and journalism, Cox's work covers too wide a terrain, feeling choppy and abrupt, conditions not aided by her flavorless writing and poor organization. As a memoirist, Cox fails to establish a personal connection to her aquatic quest and doesn't define her historical inspiration. As a reporter, she seems more concerned with celebrating her friendships and networking abilities than in uncovering information, an annoying tactic that will leave readers wondering who the book is really about. Overlooked and underreported, Amundsenâhe was also the first to sail through the Northwest Passageâis relegated to being the nebulous center in a book that is hopelessly adrift from the opening pages. 62 photos; 3 maps.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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