Rating: 
Summary: A Rare Breed of Travel Book
Review: There have been many, many travel books written, but so few actually remain with you, actually transform you. Terra Incognita is one of those books.No matter how Sara Wheeler got there, her 7-month trip through Antarctica unfolds beautifully between the eccentric and fun "beakers" she meets along the way and the intense splendor of the continent. Because of her mode of travel (spending a few days or weeks here or there, until her final 2-month stay in a shack during her last trip to see the coming of summer), Wheeler most likely got to see more of Antarctica--it's various bases, landscapes, and people--than just about anyone alive. Added to this is a great amount of Antarctic exploration history, which makes the book seem more than just a seven-month journey . . . more like 100 years of attempts to figure out this hypnotic and enigmatic continent; reading it encourages you to do your own further research on this subject. While I do agree that there could have been more maps included, just have a globe or atlas nearby if you want to follow her travels more closely! In my opinion, the downfall of most travel books is that the author focuses too much on him- or herself to the exclusion of everything else. Wheeler does include her thoughts, feelings--how she sees herself changing with each experience. These are never intrusive, however. The only other book that comes to mind with this sort of balance is Matthiesen's The Snow Leopard--another fantastic travel read. This book is quiet but never empty and never dull. Read it and be transported.
Rating:
Summary: A Rare Breed of Travel Book
Review: There have been many, many travel books written, but so few actually remain with you, actually transform you. Terra Incognita is one of those books. No matter how Sara Wheeler got there, her 7-month trip through Antarctica unfolds beautifully between the eccentric and fun "beakers" she meets along the way and the intense splendor of the continent. Because of her mode of travel (spending a few days or weeks here or there, until her final 2-month stay in a shack during her last trip to see the coming of summer), Wheeler most likely got to see more of Antarctica--it's various bases, landscapes, and people--than just about anyone alive. Added to this is a great amount of Antarctic exploration history, which makes the book seem more than just a seven-month journey . . . more like 100 years of attempts to figure out this hypnotic and enigmatic continent; reading it encourages you to do your own further research on this subject. While I do agree that there could have been more maps included, just have a globe or atlas nearby if you want to follow her travels more closely! In my opinion, the downfall of most travel books is that the author focuses too much on him- or herself to the exclusion of everything else. Wheeler does include her thoughts, feelings--how she sees herself changing with each experience. These are never intrusive, however. The only other book that comes to mind with this sort of balance is Matthiesen's The Snow Leopard--another fantastic travel read. This book is quiet but never empty and never dull. Read it and be transported.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent account of travels in Antarctica
Review: This is a truly outstanding book woven of three threads. Sara Wheeler, a Brit who got a position as "writer in residence" with the US National Science Foundation, writes achingly beautiful descriptions of the other-worldly scenery of Antarctica. For the first time I understand how such a seemingly inhospitable place "hooks" people. Second, she writes engaging portraits of the "beards", the scientists who work on the ice. Finally, she weaves into her tale fine sketches on some of the early explorers and adventurers who first caught the excitement of the place. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Travel Book?
Review: This is a wonderfully woven tale of travel to Antarctica in the past and present. It's not just Scott and Shackleton, but Seismic Man (a scientist there today), told in an engaging style. Nor is it just about travel to a physical place (albeit the most extreme on earth). Wheeler also describes the inner journey that travelers to Antarctica inevitably make. Antarctica is now on my destination list. But regardless of whether I ever make it there, after reading Terra Incognita, I think I understand the lure of the ice. The maps are good as is the ending recipe for the Antarctic version of Bread-and-Butter Pudding. My only regret is that she didn't include an appendix with the chronology of early Antarctic explorations. Terra Incognita is even better than Travels in a Thin Country, Wheeler's earlier account of travel in Chile.
Rating: 
Summary: sara cognita
Review: This is an account of travels within Sara Wheeler's mind, while her body just happened to be in Antarctica at the time. You will enjoy this book if you accept it as literature with frosty landscapes in the background. You will dislike this book if you want to learn anything at all about the place ... it will still be largely incognita when you have finished reading. Wheeler is part of the stereotype of female travel writers who are obsessed with the effect places and people have upon themselves; compare males who minutely describe the scenes and processes of travel. Antarctica seems to have an effect on its visitors which Wheeler adequately conveys. But you won't learn anything at all about why people work there, or what they have discovered.
Rating: 
Summary: Blankness of white environment makes you confront yourself
Review: Very impressive" Narrow Road to the Deep South." She shows the parallel process of adjusting to the environment and travelling down inside herself exceptionally well. The humour and lack of pomposity about the process is engaging as is the stealthy accumulation of historical detail on a subjective frame...Wanted to meet her and find out how the process had actually worked on her!
Rating:
Summary: Marvellous description of live on a base
Review: Wheeler paints a vivid picture of life on the Antartic base where she worked as a resident writer. The sterotypes she unearths (The Brits Old Boy approach, the Italians with their expresso machine) add to one of the most enjoyable, humorous books I've read in months.
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