Thursday, April 24, 2008

Top ten: books about wilderness

At the age of 10, Sarah Anderson's arm was amputated as a result of cancer. She has gone on to write several travel books, including the newly released (in the U.K.) Halfway to Venus, which is "about life with one arm, about phantom and prosthetic limbs, about what hands and arms mean in different cultures and how they are portrayed in art and literature."

Anderson also founded the Travel Bookshop, that formed the setting for the movie Notting Hill.

For the Guardian, she named her top ten books about wilderness. One book on her list:
Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler

Antarctica is probably the ultimate wilderness - "The last great journey left to man" (Shackleton), but it is of course its interpretation that is most interesting. Sara Wheeler writes beautifully about Antarctica both as a continent and a metaphor, a place in the imagination with which we can all identify.
Read Anderson's full top ten list.

Read more about Halfway to Venus.

--Marshal Zeringue