‘Extraordinary’ ANNE APPLEBAUM ‘Thrilling . . . a record of an infatuation’ TELEGRAPH ‘The book of a lifetime’ ELIF SHAFAK ‘The North Pole proves to be the perfect subject for him’ MICHAEL PALIN 'Heart-catching . . . fabulous' OBSERVER ‘A beautiful book’ ALAIN DE BOTTON The epic adventure story of the North Pole – its transcendent beauty and dangerous appeal – from Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge who travelled there in 1990 Foot-stepping alongside Erling Kagge, we hear the story of the North Pole as never told before. From Herodotus, who first wondered what the northernmost point of our planet might be like, to the intrepid early cartographers who mapped our world, and the legendary expeditions led by Fridtjof Nansen and Robert Peary – the first polar explorer global celebrities – who were in the grip of a dangerous obsession to get to the North Pole first. What emerges is a new history of the world, spanning thousands of years, as seen from the ‘silver-shining vacantness’ of the