Reviews

Naira de Gracia relates her time as a field researcher studying penguins in Antarctica with compassion, humor, insight and a bit of nostalgia. She muses on climate change, lowered funding, the state of the ecosystems, love, isolation and much more while also describing the practicalities of monitoring hatching penguins and their chicks in one of the coldest climates on earth. It is a really interesting insight into a very niche, but important, job.

laindarko2's review

Go to review page

adventurous informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Content Warnings

insatiablewanderlust's review

Go to review page

adventurous informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

I really enjoyed this book. I love that at times it was heavy on the science of what's happening in Antarctica and focused on the different animals and what the field workers are responsible for, but then other parts of the book read more like a memoir of the author's life. I think the way everything was wrapped around each other worked really well. I really enjoyed that we got an epilogue with an update not only on the author's life, but we learned what the other field workers were up and how regulations have changed since her season.

bookanonjeff's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

5.0

Slapping The Only Tattoist On Antarctica. This was an excellent blend of memoir, science, humor, and reality from someone living a very isolated life for several months at a time - living with a handful of people, a lot of wild animals, and with no chance of resupply for weeks on end, no matter what. Referencing the relevant histories (as a Gen Z college student would, anyway) and combining them in ways very familiar with similar campaign memoirs of both soldiers and scientists of old and new - everything from Captain Shackleton and his expedition (whose story is summarized here) to Nathaniel Fick to International Space Station Commanders Scott Kelly (whose book, Endurance, also references the doomed Shackleton expedition) and Chris Hadfield. The exact science of penguin biology isn't covered as precisely as in say Lloyd Spencer Davis' 2019 text A Polar Affair, and yet the practicalities of collecting the data the science relies on *are* covered in much more depth here - more akin to Kelly and Hadfields' descriptions of life on the ISS. Overall an interesting tale of a life few will ever get to live, and a fascinating look at Antarctic science and the lives of the technicians gathering the data in some of the harshest climates on Earth. The only thing I can really knock this text over is the dearth of its bibliography, coming in at less than 10% of the text when even 20% is much more usual, even for more memoir based books such as this. Still, truly a fascinating and quick read, and very much recommended.

More...