By: Anita Mathias

Anita Mathias — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:14:16 +0000

Lorna, I own a small publishing company, Benediction Classics, 4 years old, and one of the first books we republished in hardback was The Worst Journey in the World. I love the way the book begins
"Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised. It is the only form of adventure in which you put on your clothes at Michaelmas and keep them on until Christmas, and, save for a layer of the natural grease of the body, findthem as clean as though they were new. It is more lonely than London,more secluded than any monastery, and the post comes but once a year. As men will compare the hardships of France, Palestine, or Mesopotamia, so it would be interesting to contrast the rival claims of the Antarctic asa medium of discomfort. A member of Campbell's party tells me that thetrenches at Ypres were a comparative picnic. But until somebody canevolve a standard of endurance I am unable to see how it can be done.Take it, all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time than an Emperor penguin."
I was so interested in your self-publishing post. I think people would write far far more if they wrote for their own internal editor, got it professionally edited, and then self-published it. Writers' block wouldn't be such a problem. I am happy to see an increasing number of established authors going down the self-publishing route!

By: Lorna F

Lorna F — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:04:43 +0000

I read this book a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it. I thought the voice was excellent and am also a sucker for descriptions of Arctic/Antarctic environments I will never visit – years ago read Apsley Cherry-Garrard's 'The Worst Journey in the World' – brilliant title!

Comments on: The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

By: Anita Mathias

By: Lorna F