The Ice Balloon, Alec Wilkinson
The Ice Balloon, Alec Wilkinson
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The Ice Balloon
S. A. Andre and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration

Author: Alec Wilkinson

Narrator: John Pruden

Unabridged: 7 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/15/2012

Categories: Nonfiction, History


Synopsis

In this grand and astonishing account, Alec Wilkinson brings us the story of S. A. Andre, the visionary Swedish aeronaut who in 1897, during the great age of Arctic endeavor, left to discover the North Pole by flying to it in a hydrogen balloon. Called by a British military officer the most original and remarkable attempt ever made in Arctic exploration, Andres expedition was followed by nearly the entire world, and it made him an international legend. The Ice Balloonbegins in the late nineteenth century, when nations vied for the greatest discoveries and newspapers covered every journey. Wilkinson describes how in Andre several contemporary themes intersected. He was the first modern explorerthe first to depart for the Arctic unencumbered by notions of the romantic age and the first to be equipped with the newest technologiesbut no explorer had ever left with more uncertainty regarding his fate, since none had ever flown over the horizon and into the forbidding region of ice. Woven throughout is Andres own history and how he came by his brave and singular idea. We also get to know Andres family, the woman who loved him, and the two men who accompanied himNils Strindberg, a cousin of the famous playwright, with a tender love affair of his own, and Knut Fraenkel, a willing and hearty young man. Andres flight and the journeybased on the expeditions diaries and photographs, which were dramatically recovered thirty-three years after the balloon came downalong with Wilkinsons research, provide a book filled with suspense and adventure, a haunting story of high ambition and courage made tangible with the detail, beauty, and devastating conditions of traveling and dwelling in the realm of Death, as one Arctic explorer put it.

About Alec Wilkinson

Alec Wilkinson began writing for the New Yorker in 1980. Before that he was a policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and before that a rock-and-roll musician. He has published nine other books—two memoirs, two collections of essays, three biographical portraits, and two pieces of reporting—most of which first appeared in the New Yorker. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lyndhurst Prize, and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He lives with his wife and son in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bonnie

This book was much more about a bunch of other random arctic explorers than it was about Andree. I understand creating context, but by the time I got to hearing about Andree and the balloon trip, it seemed way too short and underdeveloped. Also the other stories jump around too much and are very dis......more

Goodreads review by Greg

The Ice Balloon tells the story of S.A. Andrée and his attempt to cross the North Pole in a balloon in 1897. The subtitle, the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration, is a bit too ambitious for this volume and the examples chosen by Wilkinson do not, in my opinion, do much to illuminate Andrée's story. For......more

Goodreads review by Mike

This book had a lot of potential, after all it is a story about a man who attempts to reach the North Pole by balloon, in an era when balloons were still cutting edge technology and the North Pole was an unattainable challenge. Unfortunately, perhaps because insufficient material exists to really fl......more

This book was a big pile of meh for me. It was interesting because I really didn't know much about Arctic exploration before now, and I'm curious, so I might pick up a better book some day. It's also interesting because these people are freaking nuts. You can't walk to the north pole, so naturally,......more