“The Magnetic North offers a fascinating tour of a disappearing world. Sara Wheeler is an eloquent and intrepid guide.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe

“A wise, provoking and zestful chronicle, poetic, often tragic and always engaging. Wheeler, a prolific raconteur of distant places, has created the finest book on the Arctic since Hugh Brody's The Other Side of Eden . . . She has mapped a remarkable journey.” —Rory MacLean, The Sunday Times (London)

“The Magnetic North proved irresistibly attractive. I loved . . . Terra Incognita, and this was an equally coddling hoosh of personal travelogue, historical anecdotage and speculative thinking--all the better because Wheeler began her series of Arctic travels, if not a climate change sceptic, then unconvinced about its anthropic cause, and ended up unable to deny the meltwater on the ground.” —Will Self, New Statesman

“A book that deserves to stand alongside Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez's classic account of life above the tree line. Indeed, more than once I made the comparison in Wheeler's favour. She's funnier, and her writing, while brilliantly evocative, is never overblown.” —Erica Wagner, The Times (London)

“Fantastic . . . Readers are whisked away on an incredible, multifaceted tour of a region still unknown . . . This fact-filled narrative is nearly impossible to put down . . . By chronicling what the Arctic tells us about our past, Wheeler vividly reveals what it tells us about our collective future.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)