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Title: Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places
ISBN: 0316042919
Author:
Bill Streever
Publicate Date: 2009-07-22
Publish: 2009-07-22
List Price: $24.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $10.45
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $8.96
Amazon Merchant Price: $16.49
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Book group selection for December 2010
Living in Alaska - Eagle River in fact - I can't help but find all the intriguing facts in this book of great interest. But of course the issues - Global Warming - (can we capitalize that now?) are of world wide import and while I do not feel Bill Streever is trying to take "sides" on this topic, or if he is, I think it is the side that feels world wide processes are so much greater than our small piece of time that the earth will get over it regardless of what we do. "We" are of only passing consequence in the big picture. And it is the big picture that is interesting. What does temperature do to various elements? How have living things adapted to it? Among all this big picture stuff there is of course some practical applications. How long can you tread water? What should you wear? How not to starve in the cold... and other such items pack the book. Why did some explorers do better than others? What historical bits detail the experience of people in the cold? Great stuff. Thanks fellow Eagle River resident! See you on campus.
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2: A Journey to Times and Places Unknown
I recently finished reading The City of Z, a book that took you through one of the most forbidding places on earth, the Amazon Jungle. "Cold" takes the readers to other forbidden regions and to times and places that they simply could have no hope of ever witnessing personally. It is wonderful that adventurers and scientists share these journeys and this knowledge with those of us who lead more mundane lives and seldom get the opportunity to venture beyond the narrow boundaries of our day to day existence. I hope to someday visit Alaska too see a little of its landscapes and features that Mr. Streever describes so interestingly.
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3: A Primer on Cold
I really enjoyed reading the book. I will admit that some of it comes across disjointed at times and the author does not go into as great a depth as my curiosity would have liked, but the topic of Cold is really quite vast and in order to keep the book moving and from turning into a 1,000 page dissertation, I think it was necessary to keep topics brief.
Overall, I give this book perhaps a star better rating because there are not many books written on Cold as a whole and stand-alone topic that I am aware of and I think it deserves some credit for tackling the subject.
I look at this book as a starting point for further exploration of the cold. Kind of a Primer on Cold.
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4: Offering a poetic, involving and moving account of the author's experiences of cold
COLD: ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD'S FROZEN PLACES is packed with examination of cold and ice, offering a poetic, involving and moving account of the author's experiences of cold and its importance in a warming world. From a history of the influence of cold on the planet to a personal quest for ice and cold mid-summer, this blends history with natural history in an unusual, passionate guide to cold and ice. Any science, environmental studies, or nature collection will find it a moving survey.
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5: Fascinating anecdotes, beautifully told
"Cold" by Bill Streever is a beautifully-written book, one of the best I have read in this genre.
Streever goes on a year-long quest for cold, with a Chapter devoted to each month. In each month he discusses particular "cold events" that occurred in the month, such as the severe US blizzard of January 1888 - the School Children's Blizzard.
These examples are interspersed with personal details of his own life and studies of cold as the year unfolds. In Streever's book this works well, and some of his descriptive passages are very evocative. This is a pleasant change from some other books in the genre that are simply vehicles for narcissistic display by the author. In "Cold" the subject enjoys the limelight, not the author elbowing the actors out of the way.
Some of Streever's anecdotes are truly surprising: lumps of ice falling out of the sky the size of a man in the 19th century, snowflakes 15 inches across. He explains how the Year Without a Summer (1815) contributed to the invention of the bicycle.
He gives an excellent account of hypothermia, and why some of its victims die soon after being rescued.
Streever lives in Alaska, and life there is very different to life in more temperate places. Houses sink as permafrost melts. People burn down their homes trying to un-freeze frozen pipes with blowtorches. Frost heave pushes posts out of the ground.
Most living tissue cannot survive being frozen. Streever gives some graphic accounts of how freezing affects cells. So I am not too optimistic for the future of James Bedford, who has been stored in liquid nitrogen since 1967, awaiting a cure for cancer.
Remarkably, a surprising number of living creatures can survive freezing. There is a caterpillar in Alaska that routinely "hibernates" over winter by freezing solid, and thawing out in spring to go about its business. Some frogs freeze. The most striking example of cold tolerance is the African desert fly that can even survive liquid helium at -450 degrees F.
When skiing I get ravenously hungry. Streever explains why this is so. Apart from the calories needed to sustain vigorous exercise, we also need a remarkable amount of energy simply to counteract the effects of cold. Early Polar explorers did not appreciate this aspect of nutrition sufficiently when planning food supplies for their expeditions and many died because they simply did not have enough food.
One could go on listing the fascinating aspects of cold discussed in the book. Naturally, not everything can be included. But I would have liked some mention of cold-induced brittle fracture of Liberty ships in World War 2. Twelve Liberty ships broke in half without warning because the grade of steel used suffered from embrittlement. Ships in the North Atlantic were exposed to temperatures that could fall below a critical point and thus the hull could fracture relatively easily.
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