My father was an artist who painted passionately, almost always outdoors. When I told him I wanted to become an art historian, he was sad partly because he hated art historians, but mainly because he imagined me chained (as a writer) to a desk, rather than marching the countryside looking for things to paint or draw. Like most writers, I sometimes get seriously bogged down, and his sadness comes back to haunt me. But then I pick up a book that, in just a few pages, puts my writing back on track, gladdening my father’s ghost.
Prose turned into poetry, history made uncanny, this slim volume by the master of cryptic visual illustration is an incredibly useful prompt for how to get one’s own writing going on a new and stranger track. Along the way, Sebald (author of The Emigrants and Austerlitz) delivers yet another powerful suite of stories entwining art and life.
After Nature is the very first literary work by W. G. Sebald, author of Austerlitz
'The greatest writer of our time' Peter Carey
After Nature by W.G. Sebald, author of Austerlitz, is his first literary work and the start of his highly personal and brilliant writing journey.
In this long prose poem, Sebald introduces many of the themes that he explores in his subsequent books. Focusing on the conflict between man and nature, each of the three distinct parts of After Nature give centre stage to a different character from a different century - the last being W.G. Sebald himself.…
I used to be the caretaker for the last home of Edgar Allan Poe, and during my four-year tenure, I tried to read everything Poe ever wrote, as well as literature inspired by his work. The key word there is “tried.” It’s an impossible task. Poe’s influence is vast and evergreen. The traditional ghost story was not his specialty, but nevertheless, I associate him with spirits and phantoms since one of his primary obsessions was the potential oblivion of the afterlife. I share these obsessions, and I doubt I would have taken the job if I wasn’t already drawn to stories that imagine what lies beyond the veil.
I love books that engage in a literary conversation with writers from a previous era, and Mat Johnson’s novel does just that—it’s both a homage and a critique of Edgar Allan Poe’s sole novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, itself a hodgepodge of gothic elements and maritime adventure. It’s also horrifyingly racist with its depictions of black-skinned islanders.
Johnson inverts and reframes these uncomfortable racial dynamics to glorious effect. It is both a raucous satire and full-throttle adventure story, as Johnson’s hero, Chris Jaynes, leads an all-black crew to the South Pole—into the center of whiteness—to discover what may be on the last bastion of the African Diaspora. From there, it only gets weirder and funnier.
“THE SHARPEST AND MOST UNUSUAL STORY I READ LAST YEAR . . . [Mat] Johnson’s satirical vision roves as freely as Kurt Vonnegut’s and is colored with the same sort of passionate humanitarianism.”—Maud Newton, New York Times Magazine
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Vanity Fair • Houston Chronicle • The Seattle Times • Salon • National Post • The A.V. Club
Recently canned professor of American literature Chris Jaynes has just made a startling discovery: the manuscript of a crude slave narrative that confirms the reality of Edgar Allan Poe’s strange…
I have been passionate about Polar exploration since I was a boy. My father was a Nordic Olympic skier who introduced me to the exploits of Norwegian and Scandinavian explorers when I was very young. Later, I traveled to Greenland in 2003 and was blown away by the remoteness, the dramatic ice and mountains, and the incredible toughness of the people who have explored the regions and carved out life there.
I was bowled over by Icebound, mainly because of how much I did not know about the intrepid Dutch navigator William Barents, for whom the Barents Sea is now named. It’s a deeply human story of early exploration (mid-1590s), disaster, and survival on the frozen wastes of Nova Zembla (Russian high Arctic).
I was deeply impressed by Pitzer’s astounding research.
In the bestselling tradition of Hampton Sides’s In the Kingdom of Ice, a “gripping adventure tale” (The Boston Globe) recounting Dutch polar explorer William Barents’ three harrowing Arctic expeditions—the last of which resulted in a relentlessly challenging year-long fight for survival.
The human story has always been one of perseverance—often against remarkable odds. The most astonishing survival tale of all might be that of 16th-century Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of sixteen, who ventured farther north than any Europeans before and, on their third polar exploration, lost their ship off the frozen coast of Nova Zembla to unforgiving…
Jordanna Max Brodsky is the author of the Olympus Bound trilogy, which follows the Greek goddess Artemis as she stalks the streets of modern Manhattan, and The Wolf in the Whale, a sweeping epic of the Norse and Inuit. Jordanna holds a degree in History and Literature from Harvard University, but she maintains that scholarship is no substitute for lived experience. Her research has taken her from the summit of Mount Olympus to the frozen tundra of Nunavut, and from the Viking ruins of Norway to Artemis’s temples in Turkey.
Living high in the world’s Arctic regions, Inuit civilization remained largely free of European influences until the twentieth century, allowing its traditions to remain relatively intact into the modern era. Like the Norse, Inuit are a people of wolves and sea monsters and giants. But while the Norse focus mainly on male gods and supernatural warriors, Inuit legends are full of female deities and resourceful humans, making for an arguably more relatable and compelling mythology. Neil Christopher’s immensely readable compendium of Inuit myths is a great introduction to this vibrant tradition.
A collection of ancient Inuit myths. In this exhaustive story collection, the rich tradition of Inuit storytelling becomes accessible to the rest of Canada for the first time. Unipkaaqtut is the Inuit word meaning "to tell stories." This definitive collection of Inuit legends is thoughtfully introduced and carefully annotated to provide the historical and cultural context in which to understand this rich oral tradition. Read about the origin of thunder and lightning, the tale of the man who married a fox and many animal fables from the North. Fascinating and educational, this little-known part of Canada's heritage will captivate readers…
I have worked and lived at sea for months at a time, and I have many memories of the sea, good and bad. I have lived through extreme Alaskan storms, fished in remote coves, and worked beyond exhaustion over and over. Working at sea taught me some important lessons about life and the possibility of sudden death. I experienced the romance of the sea from a young age, and it has inspired my writing.
The suspense of this novel captured me right from the start and kept me involved to the end. The adventure of being trapped on an iceberg in such a terrible predicament was fully entertaining. I recommend this because it is the most suspenseful book I can recall reading, and at the same time it offers escapism into the extremities of the polar ice cap.
A widespread drought is causing murderous famine. There is one possible solution: Arctic ice could be moved south to parched coastlines and melted for water.
In an Arctic icefield, a special team of scientists has planted bombs that will detonate automatically at midnight to break away some of the ice. Before they withdraw to the safety of their base camp, a shattering tidal wave breaks loose the ice on which they are working. Now they are marooned on an iceberg during the worst winter storm of the decade. The bombs in the ice beneath them are buried irretrievably deep...and ticking.…
As a mom of young kids who love animals, I know firsthand the benefit of finding fun books that are also easy to read, fun to look at, and short enough not to make you flinch when your kids pull them off the shelves during those later bedtime nights.
This book is a fun, singalong read written to the tune of “Over in the Meadow” that introduces children to the world of arctic animals. Kids will quickly pick up on the tune and rhyming pattern and be able to read along with the story. The fun, jaunty story is also just the right length for a bedtime read-aloud.
Over in the Arctic, snow blankets the land and ice covers the water. Come and count with the belugas, caribou, bears, and many other cold-weather animals that call the Arctic home.
I grow bored reading the same thing over and over, so I don’t. My favorite books challenge me, teach me, blow the walls out, and expand my horizons. I want books to take me to unexpected places and show me worlds existing and otherwise that I never dreamed could be out there. I’ve never been a fan of genre literature that strictly “follows the rules” for that reason. Some of the books on this list are from genres, but they still differ from the predictable. I want to be surprised, and then you’ll hold my attention for the entire novel, and I’ll refer back to it for years.
James Michener is my favorite author. What can I say? I’m a sucker for epics: narratives that fully explore characters, families, historical eras, and locations, both exotic and ordinary. Michener chooses a location and fully explores its history and people; those people don’t always behave as expected.
They interact in unexpected ways, making decisions that are not always what they “should” and marrying (or otherwise) lovers (and otherwise) across cultures and ages. We see how history truly is, humankind ravaging the unknown in discovery and survival.
I chose this book because it was the first one of his I read, and I lost myself in a world of wilderness, a gold rush, and a fight for statehood. It taught me most of what I know about the 49th state, as well as looking beyond the history books to see the human aspect of the past.
In this sweeping epic of the northernmost American frontier, James A. Michener guides us through Alaska’s fierce terrain and history, from the long-forgotten past to the bustling present. As his characters struggle for survival, Michener weaves together the exciting high points of Alaska’s story: its brutal origins; the American acquisition; the gold rush; the tremendous growth and exploitation of the salmon industry; the arduous construction of the Alcan Highway, undertaken to defend the territory during World War II. A spellbinding portrait of a human community fighting to establish its place in the world, Alaska traces a bold and majestic saga…
I’ve had a passion for northern places ever since I was a kid. I prefer locales that boast plenty of nature and not very many human beings. I’ve been to Greenland 15 times, but only once to Paris and never to Rome (Rome in New York State once). The more remote the locale, the better. Which is why I’ve only once been to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, but several times to almost never visited villages in East Greenland.
This is a book whose relationship with toxic chemicals in the Arctic is much the same as the
relationship Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring has with toxic chemicals down south. Ms. Cone does an expert job of documenting how these chemicals have gotten into the Arctic’s food web and affected wildlife as well as the Arctic’s Native peoples.
Traditionally thought of as the last great unspoiled territory on Earth, the Arctic is in reality home to some of the most contaminated people and animals on the planet. Awarded a major grant to conduct an exhaustive study of the deteriorating environment of the Arctic by the Pew Charitable Trusts (the first time Pew has given such a grant to a journalist), Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Marla Cone traveled across the Arctic, from Greenland to the Aleutian Islands, to find out why the Arctic is toxic. Silent Snow is not only a scientific journey, but a personal one. Whether…
I was born and raised in Northern California, right on the banks of the Sacramento River. While I didn’t realize it growing up, it was an epicenter for outdoor adventures. Along with skiing, snowboarding, hiking, wakeboarding, and camping, I always read a lot. My dad was worried that I would have no sense of direction because I was always in the back of our van or RV reading a book. That led to writing…and I had my first article published in a wakeboarding magazine when I was 15 years old. Traveling always took a backburner to reading, but now it’s front and center of my writing.
I was fortunate enough to join a writers group that this author was the founder of, and he had just released Refraction.
I read one of his other pieces of writing and was quite impressed by his ability to pull a story together so eloquently, so I went out and bought this. And I was blown away…it was well-written, had a nice flow, and covered themes such as the impact the oil industry had on native Alaskans, working in a harsh environment, and how Bruce was able to go back and forth between these diverse worlds.
I think anyone who is concerned about the environment would enjoy this book.
Refraction recounts the experience of working in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a remote Arctic outpost and home to the largest oilfield in North America. It's the story of one person's journey, told in a series of reflections on a time spent living in a frozen wasteland. Justifying the endeavor as a modern-day gold rush or a romantic odyssey could otherwise be viewed as another distorted image hovering above the horizon-another refraction.
A few years ago, while researching my novel Incarnate, I sought out Arctic, Alaskan, and winter horror novels. These books explored the dangers of such places—brutal nature, isolation, depression, fear, and suicidal tendencies. Combined with the supernatural, Lovecraftian, and unexplainable, they created gripping stories.
I also read non-fiction essays, books, articles, and watched YouTube videos about these harsh environments. The authors captured the reality of isolation and danger perfectly. If you're curious about what it’s like to venture into these perilous, frozen landscapes—without risking frostbite—these novels are a thrilling way to experience it.
Part of the challenge of writing my novel was trying to study the various cultures, people, rituals, economies, beliefs, and ways the locals survived. This anthology had a bounty of information and a variety of stories that were written by northern authors who knew the area, some of them living there for prolonged periods of time.
The word “Taaqtumi” is an Inuktitut word that means “in the dark”—which seems appropriate. With story titles like “Insinaqtutalik Piqtuq: The Haunted Blizzard” and “Wheetago War II: Summoners,” you can see that the native POV is important to these stories. It is so important that I hired one of the authors, Repo Kempt, to be my Arctic advisor on my book—to help me get the details right.
"Taaqtumi" is an Inuktitut word that means "in the dark"-and these spine-tingling horror stories by Northern writers show just how dangerous darkness can be. A family clinging to survival out on the tundra after a vicious zombie virus. A door that beckons, waiting to unleash the terror behind it. A post-apocalyptic community in the far North where things aren't quite what they seem. With chilling tales from award-winning authors Richard Van Camp, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Aviaq Johnston, and others, this collection will thrill and entertain even the most seasoned horror fan.
