Polar North

Renowned scientist Neil Shubin has made extraordinary discoveries by leading scientific expeditions to the sweeping ice landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic. He’s survived polar storms, traveled in temperatures that can freeze flesh in seconds, and worked hundreds of miles from the nearest humans, all to deepen our understanding of our world. Written with infectious enthusiasm and irresistible curiosity, Ends of the Earth blends travel writing, science, and history in a book brimming with surprising and wonderful discoveries.

How can one pilot cram so much into a single lifetime? Climb into Captain Terry Reece's cockpit, fasten your seatbelt, and hold on for an exciting journey into the world of aviation. Born to a family of transplanted North Carolinians who moved to Washington State, a young Reece explored the hills of the Pacific Northwest. Hiking in the mountains and being a fire lookout gave him a taste of adventure, but he craved more-and he got it.

In June 1994, Alvah Simon and his wife, Diana, set off in their 36-foot sailboat to explore the hauntingly beautiful world of icebergs, tundra, and fjords lying high above the Arctic Circle. Four months later, unexpected events would trap Simon alone on his boat, frozen in ice 100 miles from the nearest settlement, with the long polar night stretching into darkness for months to come.

Blair Braverman fell in love with the North at an early age: By the time she was 19, she had left her home in California, moved to Norway to learn how to drive sled dogs, and worked as a tour guide on a glacier in Alaska. By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube charts Blair's endeavor to become a "tough girl" - someone who courts danger in an attempt to become fearless.

An inspired tale of high adventure, Out in the Cold is Bill Murray's vivid portrait of his travel across the vast Northern Atlantic from the Arctic north of Norway to Nova Scotia. Murray begins in pursuit of a total solar eclipse in Svalbard, 800 miles from the North Pole. He tests the culinary appeal of wind-dried sheep in the tiny Faroe Islands, befriends Inuit bone carvers in Greenland, and camps with an itinerant Italian musician who dreams of building Greenland's first luxury resort.

It is the dreamland of most children in Europe and the Americas, and the mysterious home of the mythical Santa Claus, his devoted wife Mrs. Claus, the reindeer and the many elves who make Christmas toys each year. In many ways, the North Pole is the first geographical location many kids learn - if only because children over the age of three can manage to tell any interested adult that Santa Claus lives there.

In an adventure of a lifetime, Alexander Armstrong heads north into an ever more hostile Arctic winter to explore the farthest reaches of the globe. In an epic journey, he navigates some of the Earth's toughest terrain, first travelling through the glittering landscape of Scandinavia then on to the isolated islands of Iceland and Greenland, as far as the infamously treacherous Northwest Passage. His final frontier is Canada and Alaska, where his journey ends on the international dateline between the USA and Russia.

This memoir blends the first 10 years of my experiences with bipolar disorder following the initial diagnosis in 1998 with a personal story of self-discovery and family revelation. I know that listening to this audiobook will help heal the pain, ease the frustration, and give hope to those diagnosed with this illness that none of us are alone and we all have a tale to tell.