Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This book got an enthusiastic review on the New York Times, so my expectations were high. If you have never read anything about the Arctic (like me) it is a passable, sometimes interesting introduction, but overall The Magnetic North is a rambling, plodding book, with just some fascinating bits thrown into the mix.
Things start promisingly with a visit to the Russian Arctic and some very interesting history about the sad fate of the native populations everywhere from Russia to Canada and Scandinavia. Unfortunately,the book eventually deviates into maddeningly irrelevant anecdotes from the author and the mostly uninteresting people she meets along the way; this is a major flaw as the interactions are neither funny nor illuminating, as they are supposed to be, and the book is full of them.
There is an attempt at a structure as the author travels to all the countries which have territory in the Arctic, but it reads like several National Geographic articles put together.
This haphazard quality is balanced by interesting historical information provided in each chapter: the relocation of Canadian native populations in the Sixties, Mussolini's quest for glory via zeppelins and the horror of the Soviet Gulag; but once again these are not exhaustive histories as the research seems at best superficial, although it is interesting if you have never read it before.
All in all the book does not do justice to its subject and just makes a passable read.
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