Books like Terra Incognita — picked by fans

Elizabeth Rush is a beautiful, meditative writer, but she also knows how to swear, which I appreciate. After loving her first book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, I was delighted to find her next book was about Antarctica.

In a deeply immersive narrative that follows a 2019 research voyage to the Thwaites ‘Doomsday’ Glacier on the American ship Nathaniel B. Palmer, Rush writes honestly and seriously about climate change and how Antarctic ice melt is contributing to global sea level rise, but she’s also hopeful and positive about the future.

There is a parallel narrative thread about motherhood, birth, and her own plans to get pregnant. Unexpected bonus content (and spoiler!)—the book contains probably the best and most honest account of giving birth I’ve ever read. 

This is a powerful book that I devoured over three days, deeply engrossed in both the Antarctic storyline and a back story about McNeil’s extraordinary childhood in another cold place–the Maritimes of eastern Canada. McNeil travels to Antarctica on the British survey and supply ship James Clark Ross then spends the summer at a British base on an island off the Antarctic Peninsula.

She explores Antarctica–with the help of a friendly Twin Otter pilot–but travels inward too, and the story becomes more and more personal as the Antarctic days shorten, and she is hit by a sudden and intense anxiety. Although our Antarctic experiences were very different, I identified deeply with this story, and learned so much from this brilliant writer. 

I loved this book for its engrossing introduction to the history, wildlife, and landscapes of Antarctica and the people who work–and sometimes live–there.

Written by a scientist turned science writer, this book focuses less on the author and more on the people she meets over her five visits to Antarctica, but from the tantalizing glimpses of the author through her responses to the extraordinary places she visits–including South Pole Station–I know she’s someone I would like.

The last chapter of the book focuses on climate change and ice melt, and this is a reminder of how long scientists have been trying to warn us about the dangers of a warming planet.

This long (my copy is nearly 800 pages) and gripping adventure story obsessed me for a while, and I read it multiple times. I knew it was fiction, but I got so caught up in the characters, the story, and the location that it felt intensely real to me.

The narrator is a woman called Morgan Lamont, who is recreating Scott’s expedition, hauling a sled to the South Pole, and she’s still one of my all-time favorite fictional heroines. 

This is a gripping account of expeditioner Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the youngest members of Scott's team, recorded the experience of this adventure gone disastrously wrong. Despite the horrors that Scott and his men faced along the way, Cherry's account is filled with stories of resilience, belief in the human spirit, and to persevere in the face of adversity, no matter the cost. Through frostbitten flesh, teeth chattering so hard they spontaneously shatter in the cold of the air, to sweat freezing the instant it emerges from the pores – this is not for the faint-hearted. Nonetheless it is certainly one of the most inspiring accounts of developing self-belief and pushing on in the face of brutal setbacks. 

I had no idea about what life is like in McMurdo Antarctica. On top of that, getting patterns of wearable art that you can knit yourself is a welcomed surprise.

Even though I’m not a crafter, I appreciate reading about the necessary camaraderie that’s needed to be comfortable in a remote place away from your family and friends. 

Most books about grief deal specifically with the death of a loved one, but grief isn’t just about death—it’s about major loss. For some of us that might mean the loss of a friendship or relationship or job. In this book, the main character is facing the loss of a lifelong dream.

Despite what TV shows and self-help books tell us, success is not a simple matter of dedication and hard work. Sometimes we don’t achieve our dreams, and stories like this remind us that "failure" is okay, that we have options, that we can choose to pursue the thing we love in a different way, or choose to love something else, or maybe we'll have to take a break to heal and reflect before we choose anything at all. The universe might steal away a dream, but we remain in charge of our happiness.

This book is hard to find, but it was in the Tompkins County Jail Library and I fell in love on the first page, when the authors began describing the process of finding the inner strength to finish a seemingly impossible journey.  In their case, the journey was an Antarctic expedition—but the words felt surprisingly germane to my own journey through the legal system.

“Success on an expedition (as in life),” the authors wrote, “isn’t about brute strength, or even endurance, but resilience: the ability to remind oneself, over and over, of the joy of living, even amid the greatest hardship.”

I copied those words into the inside of a notebook and read them back to myself again and again until I’d nearly memorized them. Before jail, it wasn’t even the sort of thing I would have typically read. But being locked up forced me to try out books I… show more.

This book blindsided me with its explosive blend of ancient mysteries and cutting-edge science. I was captivated by how Riddle wove together seemingly disparate elements—a structure in Antarctica, autism research in Jakarta—into a thrilling quest that challenges everything I thought I knew about human origins.

The ethical implications of these discoveries drove me to research and question long-held beliefs. This thriller didn’t just keep me up all night reading; it left me eager for the sequel.

Ernest Shackleton was Scott’s rival and companion, the one who was smart enough not to die. A later Antarctic explorer, Sir Raymond Priestly, famously said, “For scientific discovery give me Scott. For speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen. But when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.” Shackleton’s last expedition was the stuff of legend. His ship the Endurance was trapped in the ice for ten months, and finally crushed by the ice and sunk. Shackleton marshalled his men to march across the floes dragging their boat, and then they sailed across the polar seas to Elephant Island where they finally were rescued more than two years after they set out. It’s an almost unbelievable feat.