A review by nelsonminar
The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andrée and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration by Alec Wilkinson

2.0

Fascinating story, but not well told in this book. Half the book is confusingly about other Arctic explorers. Which is great for the context and they are interesting stories as well, but the author doesn't do a good job weaving it into a narrative. Then the Andree sections are kind of stilted too. Again, the story itself is fascinating and this is a solid enough English treatment of it, but it's just not great. There's a new book in Swedish that is being translated now to English (October 2014 release?) that may be more interesting.