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. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best. Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the base-camp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter. Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and very little human history, but also a rare opportunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in the Antarctic. Following the penguins throughout the year -- from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness -- Gavin Francis explores a world of great beauty conjured from the simplest elements, the hardship of living at 50°C below zero and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring. 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. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best.

Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins

Travel

Francis, Gavin

Travel Writing

Vintage Books

“An essential book for our times, full of wisdom, compassion and sound advice. Every patient needs a copy of this gem.” –Katherine May, author of Wintering and Enchantment\nA gentle, expert guide to the secrets of recovery, showing why we need it and how to do it better\nFor many of us, time spent in recovery—from a broken leg, a virus, chronic illness, or the crisis of depression or anxiety—can feel like an unwelcome obstacle on the road to health. Modern medicine too often assumes that once doctors have prescribed a course of treatment, healing takes care of itself. But recovery isn’t something that “just happens.” It is an act that we engage in and that has the potential to transform our lives, if only we can find ways to learn its rhythms and invest our time, energy, and participation.\nDrawing on thirty years of medicine, and on insights from practitioners, psychologists, and writers across history, physician Gavin Francis delivers a profound, practical, and deeply hopeful guide to recovery. Rejecting the idea that healing is passive, Recovery offers tools and wisdom for convalescence, and shows how tending to our bodies, environments, and perspectives can help us move through the landscape of illness—and come out the other side whole.

Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Alternative Medicine

Penguin Life

In this book, Gavin Francis writes about the resonance for him as a medic in reading the work of early modern polymath Sir Thomas Browne.\nSir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was an English physician, wordsmith, and polymath who contributed hundreds of words to the English language (such as medical, electricity, migrant, and computer). After studying medicine in Montpellier, Padua, and Leiden, he settled in Norwich, where he practised as a doctor and wrote some of the greatest books of the seventeenth century, still read for their accessibility and eloquence.\nIn Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time, Dr Gavin Francis examines Browne's work through a variety of themes: ambiguity, curiosity, vitality, piety, humility, misogyny, mobility, and mortality. He argues that the work has lost little of its power and wisdom, and none of its beauty. Religio Medici ('Religion of the Doctor') examined the vexed question of faith in a God who, to a physician, seemed indifferent to suffering. Pseudodoxia Epidemica ('Vulgar Errors') gave free rein to an agile curiosity and sought to debunk notions then commonly believed, such as that dead kingfishers indicate the direction of the wind, or that a woman could get pregnant from sharing a bath with a man. Urne Buriall was Browne's meditation on mortality, occasioned by a find of funerary urns, while Museum Clausum ('Hidden Museum') sets out a series of thought experiments and counterfactuals, such as how history might have been different had Alexander the Great marched west instead of east.\nGavin Francis draws on his own experiences as a twenty-first century writer and doctor to discover that although many centuries separate him from Browne, they share a fundamental curiosity about the world and about people.

Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time (My Reading)

History

Europe

Oxford University Press

Adventures in Human Being: A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the Calcaneum

"Adventures in Human Being, with its deft mix of the clinical and the lyrical, is a triumph of the eloquent brain and the compassionate heart."--Wall Street Journal We assume we know our bodies intimately, but for many of us they remain uncharted territory, an enigma of bone and muscle, neurons and synapses. How many of us understand the way seizures affect the brain, how the heart is connected to well-being, or the why the foot holds the key to our humanity? In Adventures in Human Being, award-winning author Gavin Francis leads readers on a journey into the human body, offering a guide to its inner workings and a celebration of its marvels. Drawing on his experiences as a surgeon, ER specialist, and family physician, Francis blends stories from the clinic with episodes from medical history, philosophy, and literature to describe the body in sickness and in health, in living and in dying. At its heart, Adventures in Human Being is a meditation on what it means to be human. Poetic, eloquent, and profoundly perceptive, this book will transform the way you view your body.

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Basic Books

Gavin Francis spent fourteen months as a medical doctor 'wintering' in Halley Base, a profoundly isolated research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. Attracted by the prospect of solitude and silence -- the base is unreachable for ten months of the year -- it also a rare opportunity to explore the world of the Emperor penguin, the only species truly at home in the Antarctic. As the group of 64 base members narrows down to a core of 14, we move through the year -- from the months of constant sunshine to the three and half months of starlight, and explore the moods and manners of Antarctic living. Among the cold, ice and blankness of the landscape, the legends and myths of Shackleton, Scott, Wilson and Cherry-Garrard loom large, and Francis weaves a discursive and edifying train of thought from characters such as Emerson, Coleridge, Gandhi, Gilbert White, and Pliny, exploring the physical and mental hardship of living at temperatures of -50°C, and the unexpected reassurance and comfort that the penguin community brings in this desolate yet awe-inspiring landscape. Empire Antarctica is a book to luxuriate in: effortlessly blending travel writing with meditative thought and a profound sensitivity to the natural world, in an enchanting and evocative narrative.

Chatto&Windus

From birth to death, a lyrical exploration of the role of transformation in human life To be alive is to be in perpetual metamorphosis: growing, healing, learning, aging. In Shapeshifters, physician and writer Gavin Francis considers the inevitable changes all of our bodies undergo--such as birth, puberty, and death, but also laughter, sleeping, and healing-and those that only some of our bodies will: like getting a tattoo, experiencing psychosis, suffering anorexia, being pregnant, or undergoing a gender transition. In Francis's hands, each event becomes an opportunity to explore the meaning of identity and the natures-biological, psychological, and philosophical-of our selves. True to its own subject, Shapeshifters combines Francis's lyrical imagination and deep knowledge of medicine and the humanities for a life-altering read.

Shapeshifters: A Journey Through the Changing Human Body

Diseases & Physical Ailments

From birth to death, a lyrical exploration of the role of transformation in human lifeTo be alive is to be in perpetual metamorphosis: growing, healing, learning, aging. In Shapeshifters, physician and writer Gavin Francis considers the inevitable changes all of our bodies undergo--such as birth, puberty, and death, but also laughter, sleeping, and healing-and those that only some of our bodies will: like getting a tattoo, experiencing psychosis, suffering anorexia, being pregnant, or undergoing a gender transition. In Francis's hands, each event becomes an opportunity to explore the meaning of identity and the natures-biological, psychological, and philosophical-of our selves. True to its own subject, Shapeshifters combines Francis's lyrical imagination and deep knowledge of medicine and the humanities for a life-altering read.

Shapeshifters Lib/E: A Journey Through the Changing Human Body

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Hachette Book Group

Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the basecamp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter. Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and a very little human history, but also a rare opportunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in he Antarctic. Following Penguins throughout the year -- from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness -- Gavin Francis explores the world of great beauty conjured from the simplest of elements, the hardship of living at 50 c below zero and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring. 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. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best

Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence, and Emperor Penguins

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Outdoor Cooking

Counterpoint

Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the basecamp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter. Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and very little human history, but also a rare opportunity. Throughout the year -- from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness -- Gavin Francis explores the world of great beauty conjured from the simplest of elements, the hardship of living at 50 c below zero and the unexpected comfort that this penguin community brings, for this 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. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best.

Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence and Emperor Penguins

Science & Math

Nature & Ecology

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Francis, Gavin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Francis, Gavin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Francis, Gavin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins

Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence

Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time (My Reading)

Adventures in Human Being: A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the Calcaneum

Adventures in Human Being: A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the Calcaneum

Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins

Shapeshifters: A Journey Through the Changing Human Body

Shapeshifters Lib/E: A Journey Through the Changing Human Body

Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence, and Emperor Penguins

Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence and Emperor Penguins