Glossopteris

In the Pokémon world, a new trainer just starting their adventure has a choice to make: do they want fire-type, grass-type, or water-type for their first Pokémon? In the first generation, these “starter Pokémon” were represented by Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle. Starters are meant to be beginner-friendly; indeed, they are your first friend on your Pokémon journey.

So what “starter polar books” would I recommend for those interested in starting their polar history adventure? Great question! What started as a Pokémon joke made to some friends has turned into me making a quiz over on uQuiz to hopefully help people find their match! I’ll exposit a bit more on the thinking behind it in this post, but you can also just click through to the quiz if you like 🙂

First off, the quiz is meant for those who are truly new to polar history. If you’re reading my blog, that’s probably not you—but please, send it to your friends if you’re trying to hook them in! For those of you who are already old sledging hands, you’ll surely recognise quotes and photographs in the quiz.

Secondly, the quiz is not meant to be taken too seriously. There are some silly questions in there (including one about actual Pokémon…I did match Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle up to polar books!) and uQuiz doesn’t allow me to weight questions or completely exclude certain results given certain answers, so as it stands you might answer saying that you want to be grinning at the end of the book and still be assigned A First-Rate Tragedy. C’est la vie. Take it with a grain of salt, and have fun with it!

There are many ways to get into polar history, and there are many reasons people are interested. I don’t pretend to know them all. (In fact, I often find the “why?” question we are constantly asking of the explorers is worth asking ourselves as well, if only to gain a sense of how hard it is to answer!) That said, given how rooted Scott’s last words and the death of the polar party are in the public consciousness, especially here in Britain, it’s probably worth addressing why Scott’s Last Expedition is NOT on my list of starter books. It’s simply because, aside from the last few entries, I think a lot of it is either slow or confusing to a new reader. Names are tossed around without introductions, the ice conditions are scrutinized in detail only appreciable by a glaciologist—and then there’s the utter chaos of trying to keep track of who was where during the depot journey! These are the bits where it is painfully clear Scott’s diary was never intended for publication in this raw form. It’s all very engrossing once one knows who Atch and Soldier and Debenham are, and knows ice blink from water sky, of course, but I wouldn’t recommend it for the clearest start. The big exception, of course, being the last few entries. Scott’s Message to the Public has captured hearts and minds for generations, and continues to do so today. Sarah Airriess has a great post here where she addresses this curious phenomenon in which so many discover the Terra Nova Expedition members specifically through a “reverse biography” of “death, Expedition story, life story” in that order. But while Scott’s final writings are often the first things people read, I’d wager few read his diary cover-to-cover as their entry point.

So what three books have I picked as starters, and why? I was going for works that are written for popular audiences, feature different expeditions, do not assume background knowledge, and are just plain exciting and enjoyable to read. In no particular order, my starter polar books are:

Endurance by Alfred Lansing: this was a no-brainer. Lansing’s account of Shackleton’s incredible survival story is gripping, well-researched, and has been a common entry point into polar obsession for decades for a reason. I’ve heard people say they couldn’t put it down and read it in one night!

A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston: alone of these starters, Preston’s book focuses on a person rather than an expedition. She follows Scott through both the Discovery and Terra Nova expeditions, unpacking the life of this figure so many of us meet at his death. Along the way, she provides fairly well-balanced and well-cited ‘pen portraits’ of many important figures in the Heroic Age.

Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton: the most recently-published of my picks, Madhouse is about something completely different: the Belgica expedition, in which a crew that included a young Roald Amundsen became the first to overwinter in Antarctica. It provides an excellent sense of just how strange expeditions can get, and will surely tell the reader whether or not they want more!

Reading any of these three should tell someone whether they want to continue their polar journey, and if so, what route they want to take.

What do you think? What beginner-friendly polar reads have I missed? Did you start with any of these—or were you like Ash Ketchum and Pikachu, taking a fourth option for a starter?

Regardless, thank you for bearing with my repeated forced references to a 90s children’s anime/video game/trading card game franchise. I promise I won’t be like this every post. Though, hmm, now I think of it, “Gotta Read ‘Em All!” does capture how I feel about polar books…