True North

'True North... stands alongside Peter Davidson's The Idea of North, and Joanna Kavenna's The Ice Museum, as a significant recent addition to the Arctic canon'-Robert Macfarlane

The Stark, vast beauty of the Arctic Europe landscape has seduced explorers and adventurers for thousands of years. In this striking blend of travel writing, history and mythology, Gavin Francis offers a unique portrait of the northern outposts of Europe.

His journey begins in Shetland and takes him to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, then Svalbard and on to Lapland. Francis explores the creeping effects of climate change and the impact that modern culture with its 'guns, trucks, pornography and alchohol' has made on fragile and isolated Arctic communities.

As with all the best travel writing, True North is an engaging, compassionate tale of self-discovery, blending historical and contemporary narratives in the tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Robert Macfarlane.

Recensie(s)

'A great web of interconnecting sagas' - The Scotsman 'True North is a wonder-voyage - an immrama - out into the landscape of the northern regions, but also into the mindscape of those many travellers who have been drawn irresistibly northwards over the millennia. Fluent, subtle, tough and often beautiful, True North stands alongside Peter Davidson's The Idea of North and Joanna Kavenna's The Ice Museum as a significant recent addition to the Arctic canon' - Robert Macfarlane 'A deep empathy with the land and its history runs like a golden thread through every chapter of True North.' - Sara Wheeler, The Spectator Gavin Francis is an accomplished teller of traveller's tales. His nuanced, often witty, observations of the people and places he encounters mean True North really gets under the skin of Europe's magical north' - Sunday Herald