This “fantastic story” of one of physics’ great riddles takes us through centuries of scientific history (Simon Lamb, author of Devil in the Mountain). Why do compass needles point north—but not quite north? What guides the migration of birds, whales, and fish across the world’s oceans? How is Earth able to sustain life under an onslaught of solar wind and cosmic radiation? For centuries, the world’s great scientists have grappled with these questions, all rooted in the same phenomenon: Earth’s magnetism. Over two thousand years after the invention of the compass, Einstein called the source of Earth’s magnetic field one of greatest unsolved mysteries of physics. Here, for the first time, is the complete history of the quest to understand the planet’s attractive pull—from the ancient Greeks’ fascination with lodestone to the geological discovery that the North Pole has not always been in the North—and to the astonishing modern conclusions that finally revealed the true source. Richly illustrated and skillfully told, North Pole, South Pole unfolds the human story behind the science: that of the inquisitive, persevering, and often dissenting thinkers who unlocked the secrets at our planet’s core. “In recent years, many very good books for interested non-scientists have been published: Richard Dawkins’s Climbing Mount Improbable and The Ancestor’s Tale, Stephen Jay Gould’s The Lying Stones of Marrakech, and Dava Sobel’s Longitude and The Planets, to name some of them. North Pole, South Pole . . . is a worthy addition to that list . . . Turner has a great story to tell, and she tells it well.” —The Press (New Zealand)

Daniel was an ordinary guy with an extraordinary dream. With no prior polar experience and no expedition experience, Daniel set off alone to bike to the South Pole. Starting near sea level and climbing to 9,300 feet while battling 10 to 30 mph headwinds, blinding whiteouts, deadly crevasses, and extreme cold Daniel biked for 51 days, covering over 750 miles to become the first person to successfully bike to the South Pole. South Pole Epic is a story of endurance and finding solutions to do the impossible.

In the golden age of polar exploration (from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s), many an expedition set out to answer the big questionÑwas the Arctic a continent, an open ocean beyond a barrier of ice, or an ocean covered with ice? No one knew, for the ice had kept its secret well; ships trying to penetrate it all failed, often catastrophically. NorwayÕs charismatic scientist-explorer Fridtjof Nansen, convinced that it was a frozen ocean, intended to prove it in a novel if risky way: by building a ship capable of withstanding the ice, joining others on an expedition, then drifting wherever it took them, on a relentless one-way journey into discovery and fame . . . or oblivion. Ice Ship is the story of that extraordinary ship, the Fram, from conception to construction, through twenty years of three epic expeditions, to its final resting place as a museum. It is also the story of the extraordinary men who steered the Fram over the course of 84,000 miles: on a three-year, ice-bound drift, finding out what the Arctic really was; in a remarkable four-year exploration of unmapped lands in the vast Canadian Arctic; and on a twoÐyear voyage to Antarctica, where another famous Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, claimed the South Pole. Ice Ship will appeal to all those fascinated with polar exploration, maritime adventure, and wooden ships, and will captivate readers of such books as The Endurance, In the Heart of the Sea, and The Last Place on Earth. With more than 100 original photographs, the book brings the Fram to life and light.

Polly Vacher wanted to become the first pilot to complete a solo flight around the world via both Poles in a single-engine aircraft. Her 60,000 mile voyage would take her to every continent. She prepared meticulously for two years and had garnered multifarious sponsors. However, as she took off, flanked by a Hurricane and a Spitfire, and waved off by her family and the Prince of Wales, she suddenly felt so alone. She had begun a remarkable expedition that would gain her three world records, but would also see her encounter extremes of weather and emotion, kindness, obstruction and also a little political intrigue.

Although it's a piece of history learned by every British student, the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910-1913 remains an epic story unknown to many. In this ultimate showing of life and boundless bravery, Robert F. Scott and his five-man team battled the elements--traveling through subzero temperatures with motor sledges and ponies--in the hope of being the first to reach this uninhabited territory. Arriving at the South Pole on January 18, 1913, the adventurers were greeted by their worst nightmare: a Norwegian flag. Disheartened and badly frostbitten, they trudged back toward their boat, only to die just eleven miles from the next depot. This well-documented journey is starkly relived in this waterproof, over-sized edition featuring a historic collection of stunning black-and-white photography on waterproof paper, and excerpts from Scott's harrowing diary uniquely crafted in calligraphy. Limited edition of 150 numbered copies

By the 1930s, no one had yet crossed Antarctica, and its vast interior remained a mystery frozen in time. Hoping to write his name in the history books, wealthy American Lincoln Ellsworth announced he would fly across the unexplored continent. The main obstacles to Ellsworth’s ambition were numerous: he didn’t like the cold, he avoided physical work, and he couldn’t navigate. Consequently, he hired the experienced Australian explorer, Sir Hubert Wilkins, to organize the expedition on his behalf. While Ellsworth battled depression and struggled to conceal his homosexuality, Wilkins purchased a ship, hired a crew, and ordered a revolutionary new airplane constructed. The Ellsworth Trans-Antarctic Expeditions became epics of misadventure, as competitors plotted to beat Ellsworth, crews mutinied, and the ship was repeatedly trapped in the ice. A few hours after taking off in 1935, radio contact with Ellsworth was lost and the world gave him up for dead. Antarctica’s Lost Aviator brings alive one of the strangest episodes in polar history, using previously unpublished diaries, correspondence, photographs, and film to reveal the amazing true story of the first crossing of Antarctica and how, against all odds, it was achieved by the unlikeliest of heroes.

In 2013 Maria Leijerstam set a double world record for being the first and fastest person to cycle to the South Pole from the edge of the Antarctic continent. Her book describes what it took to get her to the start and the finish of her world first expedition.

Examines Antarctica and Robert Scott's epic expedition to the South Pole.

On 9 November, 1992, Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr Michael Stroud set out from the Filchner ice shelf, to attempt the first unassisted crossing of the Antarctic continent. It was to be a journey of epic proportions. When they were finally lifted out, more dead than alive, they had completed the longest unsupported journey in polar history.