Meredith Hooper (Antarctic Books)

Meredith Hooper has the rare, possibly unique, distinction of being selected as a writer in Antarctica by three government programmes - the US National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Program, twice; by the British Admiralty, travelling on HMS Endurance; and by the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions. She has written a range of books and articles on Antarctica (general market, academic, children's).

Meredith Hooper is a UK Trustee of the Brussels-based International Polar Foundation, a Trustee of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and served as a juror on the British Antarctic Survey's Artists & Writers Programme. She was awarded the Antarctica Service Medal by the US Congress in 2000.

Meredith was born in Australia and has been living in the UK since taking up a scholarship at Oxford to do post-graduate research.

THE FEROCIOUS SUMMER: PALMER'S PENGUINS AND THE WARMING OF ANTARCTICA was published in August 2007 by Profile Books. Meredith is currently researching and writing a book on Antarctic exploration for John Murray.

(For more information on Meredith's books for children see her alternative Author page on this website.)

Now out in paperback
http://www.profilebooks.com/title.php?titleissue_id=508

This remarkable book tells the story of Antarctic warming and how scientists are piecing together the jigsaw of causes and impacts, in particular, through a study of the Adelie penguins at Palmer. Meredith Hooper worked with key scientists during a ferocious summer of unprecedented weather on the Antarctic Peninsula. Her story is precisely located in time and space, focusing on the work and ideas of individual scientists, and on the local animals. In addition she draws on her wider experience of working in Antarctica, on research vessels and scientific bases.

The Ferocious Summer memorably brings an outsider's non-specialist awareness to the crucial understanding of what is happening, now, to the planet we share.

Praise for The Ferocious Summer:

‘The strength of this book lies in its lively, but even-handed, reportage of some very diligent science. It is also very readable. Woven throughout is an evident passion for this strange and alluring land...’
David Shukman, The Daily Mail (The Ferocious Summer was the Daily Mail's Science Book of the Year)

‘…this is one of the most important popular science books to be written in years. It is highly readable and fully accessible… Her book is so important because she makes this complex subject understandable and compelling.’
The Irish Times

‘…fascinating account of a summer spent at an Antarctic research station… Hooper’s story of scientists, penguins and her growing obsession with the beauty of ice conveys the allure of working in this most challenging of environments. For decades, Antarctica’s chief export has been scientific knowledge. This book does justice to the valuable work that is being done to add to that knowledge.’
The Sunday Times

‘Hooper has written a book that is unique among the wide-ranging Antarctic literature of recent times. The book is a delight to read … providing the human and scientific contexts of the research efforts and the contribution to climate change science in a remarkably intimate manner.’
The Australian

'...an amazing book. It is only on turning over the final page that the reader fully realises the sheer cleverness of what they have just read ... The real joy of the book is that the consequences of intangible and complicated global mechanisms are described within an entirely human framework, from the author’s own personal experience. It is the central humanity in the details of the routine successes, frustrations and the wealth of experience of the scientists working on the seabird communities on Palmer which ultimately bring home the extent of the effects of this summer upon the animals living there.'
Tom Moorhouse (Oxford University Department of Zoology), The Brown Book

'In this exquisitely written, accessible, eye-witness account, Meredith Hooper has captured how one scientific team uncovered the story of the devastating impact of rapid global warming on the Adelie penguins of the Antarctic Peninsula. Everyone with an interest in the survival of our planet will benefit from reading this book, for the Adelie penguin looks to be a canary in the global mine.'
Warren Zapol, M.D.
Harvard Medical School

Links to full reviews of The Ferocious Summer:

The Irish Times
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/weekend/2007/1020/1192807252896.html

The Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/books/authors.html?in_article_id=482319&in_page_id=1826

The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22556525-5003900,00.html

The Daily Mail recommends The Ferocious Summer as its Science Book of the Year:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk:80/pages/live/articles/books/authors.html?in_article_id=499887&in_page_id=1826

Full text of Tom Moorhouse review in The Brown Book:
The Ferocious Summer is in many ways an amazing book. It is only on turning over the final page that the reader fully realises the sheer cleverness of what they have just read. The book details events resulting from the warming of the Antarctic Peninsula - a consequence and early indicator of global warming - during the Antarctic summer of 2001 / 2002. The book covers topics as weighty as the dynamics of ice ages, global warming, the functioning of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the sudden, unexpected disintegration of the Larsen B Ice Shelf. The real joy of the book, however, is that the consequences of these intangible and complicated global mechanisms are described within an entirely human framework, from the author’s own personal experience. A problem with any book on global issues and wildlife conservation is the “so what?” factor: too factual and the point is lost as surely as if the text strays into over-sentimentality. Throughout the book Meredith Hooper skilfully navigates these pitfalls. Rather than blinding and brow-beating with endless statistics, she instead describes in glowing detail her experience as an outsider participating for a few short months in the daily life of the research scientists working at a station on Palmer Island. Rather than sentimentalising, the impacts of this particular summer upon the cast of assorted wildlife - Adélie and chinstrap penguins, giant petrels, skuas, blue-eyed shags, elephant seals, fur seals, fish, krill and phytoplankton - are witnessed through the responses of the researchers who know the wildlife best. It is the central humanity in the details of the routine successes, frustrations and the wealth of experience of the scientists working on the seabird communities on Palmer which ultimately bring home the extent of the effects of this summer upon the animals living there.
This book is a subtle combination of styles: part travel-journal and part documentary, with a dash of scientific text. The majority is written in the first-person, present tense, which lends an immediacy to the descriptions of the work of researcher Bill Fraser and his team as they battle the weather conditions and attempt to derive their results; just one more year in their long-term data sets from Palmer. The triumph is that the reader is left with a vivid impression of life living and working in such a rarefied environment, struggling to record and comprehend the legacy of that disastrous year. Occasionally, the book gets bogged down in the descriptions of details of station life and the research, and there is a claustrophobic sensation of déjà vu when reading some of the later passages. These, however, are quibbles and overall the book succeeds admirably in spanning the huge gulf between the global and the local, making the intangible effects of global warming upon the daily lives of these animals irrevocably real and poignant.