Our polar book ideas for Christmas

Are you looking for a gift to slip under the tree? Or a good book to read, curled up under a soft blanket, hot chocolate in hand?

Don’t look any further! From the Far North to the White Continent, PolarJournal has put together a list of books for you to discover or share. Whether you are a true fan of the polar regions, an insatiable curious or a lover of beautiful photos or good novels, you will definitely find what you are looking for in our selection. And since we only offer you the most recent publications here, you will have no trouble finding them at your favorite bookseller.

To be published on 15 December. Greenland provides extensive and richly illustrated, area-specific knowledge about Greenland’s nature and landscape, history, culture, society and businesses as well as its towns and settlements. A total of 87 mainly Greenlandic researchers and experts have contributed with their knowledge to this book about the most essential topics from Cape Morris Jesup to Uummannarsuaq (Cape Farewell) and from Qaanaaq to Danmarkshavn.

Niels Elers Koch (editor), Greenland, Rowman&Littlefield Publishers, Inc., December 2023, 424 pages.

A career-to-date retrospective of a unique creative talent. A journey to the most inaccessible Arctic regions of Siberia, showing dreamlike encounters with its people, landscapes, and fauna.

Hyperborea presents unforgettable visual tales of life in the Siberian Arctic that Evgenia Arbugaeva knew when she was growing up in Tiksi, a town on the shore of the Laptev Sea in the Republic of Yakutia. Her work discloses both the fragility and beautiful desolation of the land and those who inhabit it, and her rigorously composed photographs glow with rich otherworldly color, bristle with the raw vibrancy of the climate, and exhibit the quiet intensity of lives borne out in seclusion and extremes.

With her amazing photographs, Arbugaeva makes us discover rare Arctic landscapes. Hauntingly beautiful.

Evgenia Arbugaeva, Hyperborea, Thames&Hudson, October 2023, 112 pages

The 2005 Luc Jacquet documentary March of the Penguins won an Oscar for its depiction of emperor penguins’ fifty-kilometer trek over sea ice to their breeding grounds. While such a trek may be common for emperors breeding in colonies around the Antarctic perimeter, it is not the case for the largest colonies in the Ross Sea. To understand emperor penguins here, we must follow them on four critical journeys, each with its own challenges and hazards. In this compelling and accessible book, comparative biologist Jerry Kooyman and writer and fellow Antarctic explorer Jim Mastro offer a detailed explanation of all four journeys. 

A book that will take you on the field with scientists to discover those charismatic and fascinating birds.

Gerald L. Kooyman and Jim Mastro, Journeys With Emperors : Tracking the World’s Most Extreme Penguin, University of Chicago Press, November 2023, 256 pages.

A cultural history of Sápmi and the Nordic countries as told through objects and artifacts.

From Lapland to Sápmi is a cultural history of how objects from Sápmi, the homeland of the Indigenous Sámi people, were gradually removed to private collections and museums in Scandinavia and Europe and became part of private and national collections. With a wealth of detail, the narrative spans over three hundred years, beginning in the late seventeenth century. It explores how Nordic clergymen and scholars, along with European curators, gathered objects made by Sámi artisans. 

From sacred drums, decorative knives, and root baskets to twentieth-century woodcuts and paintings, how these objects were displayed shaped public images of the Sámi for centuries. Currently on the move again, many of them back to Sápmi and to Sámi museums, the objects and the stories they tell are questioning old models and creating new forms of artistry and craft.

Barbara Sjoholm, From Lapland to Sápmi : Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture, University of Minnesota Press, March 2023, 352 pages

Arctic/Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity offers a conversation between Indigenous Peoples of two regions in this time of political and environmental upheaval. Both regions are environmentally sensitive areas that have become hot spots in the debates circling around climate change and have long been contact zones between Indigenous Peoples and outsiders — zones of meeting and clashing, of contradictions and entanglement.

An epistolary exchange between the authors that includes Indigenous contributions coming from both Arctic and Amazonia. An original and richly illustrated perspective.

Gerald McMaster and Nina Vincent,  Arctic/Amazon : Networks of Global Indigeneity, Goose Lane Editions, April 2023, 256 pages.

You want to organize your next expedition in polar regions but you want to make sure that you have everything it takes to survive the challenge? This book has your back.

In this title, readers learn how to survive in the Arctic through the real-life experiences of those who survived. In addition to how to stay warm, find food and water, avoid frostbite, make a shelter, and signal for help, this title examines the climate, plants and animals, and dangers of the Arctic. Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. 

Jessica Rusick, Surviving the Arctic, A&D Xtreme, 15 December 2023, 48 pages

When a zoologist and an award-winning illustrator decide to write a book together about narwhals, the result is a beautiful and touching story where the young readers will learn everything about this unique animal.  

As winter comes to an end, a pod of narwhals begins a treacherous journey north. Along the way, they must find fish to eat, avoid a hungry polar bear, and navigate the maze of sea ice. Will their sensitive long spiral tusks and clicking calls be enough to keep them safe and help them find their way to their summer resting grounds? Join zoologist Justin Anderson and artist Jo Weaver as they reveal the mysteries of these amazing toothed whales and their Arctic home. Small text offers narwhal facts throughout, and young explorers can read more on the future of this fascinating creature in the back matter.

Justin Anderson (Author) and Jo Weaver (Illustrator), Narwhal : The Arctic Unicorn, Paperback, July 2023, 32 pages

In this strikingly illustrated debut with a quirky, surreal sensibility, the tale of an Arctic expedition invites readers to discover an elusive creature.

A moving tale of grit, endurance and self-belief to inspire young explorers and dreamers from a stunningly talented debut. Dr Morley is about to embark on a quest to the northernmost tip of the world, to discover a creature that everyone talks about but nobody has ever seen: The Giant Arctic Jellyfish. After years of research and hard graft, she gathers together a highly trained crew and a boat full of specialist equipment, and sets sail for the vast icy scapes of the Arctic. Will she find what she is searching for? Or will it find her? From debut author-illustrator Chloe Savage comes a beautifully detailed adventure into the unknown, sure to captivate the imagination of young explorers.

Chloe Savage, The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish, Walker Books, October 2023, 32 pages

Mirjana Binggeli, PolarJournal