A finely written account of an extreme experience of the Antarctic, worthy to stand beside some of the great travel narratives in the English language. - RSL Ondaatje Prize Judges

Empire Antarctica is the embodiment of everything I admire in travel writing -- a great journey, intense isolation, wide reading, vivid writing, scientific research, and something in the nature of an old-fashioned ordeal. That Gavin Francis is a medical doctor, with an important role to play in the darkness and cold at the ends of the earth, is a bonus. I loved this book.

One of the best travel titles I have read in a long time. Thoughtful, lyrical, extremely well written, it’s a triumph. - Conde Nast Traveller

A beautiful, profound and highly readable account of a remarkable personal adventure. Francis’s pacing is deft, his prose vivid, his research worn lightly. This is probably as close as most of us will ever get to experiencing a modern polar winter. Empire Antarctica is surely destined to become a standard, not so much of travel as of staying very still. - Daily Telegraph

Francis’ best writing (and it is excellent)... is Robert Macfarlane on ice. This writing achieves the ‘quilted quality’ of silence, and through it we are brought to a new landscape of words. - Literary Review

A Sunday Times Travel Book of Month: 'A book full of wonder. Brilliantly imagined, superbly brought to life' - Sunday Times

This is the sort of book that gives obsession a very good name. Here, in a cold, silent place you realise that obsession is another name for love. And love leads to extraordinary and beautiful writing -- this is a wonderful book

A valuable addition to polar literature, vividly describing the brutal, but beautiful, realities of undergoing an Antarctic winter

An extraordinary book -- lyrical, precise, intoxicating and with a remarkable spiritual depth

One of those rare books that leaves you with an almost breathless sense of the wonders of the planet. Beautiful, erudite and informative, it speaks joyously of the indomitability of Man and the natural world alike

Mesmerising and memorable - Economist

An awe-inspiring memoir of a modern-day pioneer who writes with a poetic style and descriptive flourish that is part education, part enthrallment, and wholly entertaining. - Daily Record

Part-travelogue, part memoir, part natural history book, a fascinating, lyrical account of one of the strangest places on earth and its majestic inhabitants. - Esquire

He writes beautifully about the strange other-worldly allure of this habitat of ice and snow - Metro

He perceives...continuous sights, sounds and sensations, writing as vividly and as fiercely in darkness at noon or in sunlight at midnight - The Times

Excellent mix of travel and nature writing - Bath Life

Lyrical and enjoyable account - Financial Times

Fascinating - Scotsman

[An] intense and lyrical portrait... shines with a clarity and lyricism descended from Thoreau - TLS

* WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2013 *
* Shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards *
* Shortlisted for the 2013 RSL Ondaatje Prize *
* Shortlisted for Banff Adventure Travel Prize *
* Shortlisted for Saltire Book of the Year Award *
Empire Antarctica is the story of one man and his fascination with the world's loneliest continent, as well as the emperor penguins who weather the winter with him. This is travel writing at its very best.

An ideal Christmas gift for those thousands of viewers who fell for the stone-stealing penguins in Frozen Planet, for the legions of people interested in Antarctica and for inquisitive armchair travellers who adore quality travel writing.

Exquisitely written, enchanting and utterly evocative: this effortlessly blends travel writing with new nature writing

Perfect for readers of Colin Thubron, for its immersion in and understanding of place, Sara Wheeler’s Terra Incognita (which sold over 35,000 copies in pb), and to all Antarctica enthusiasts (and lovers of penguins!)

Did I mention the penguins? This book is also a passionate paean to emperor penguins, who weathered the winter with Gavin Francis, and the only species truly at home in the Antarctic.

Shortlisted for the 2013 RSL Ondaatje Prize, of which they said: 'A finely written account of an extreme experience of the Antarctic, worthy to stand beside some of the great travel narratives in the English language.'