February Reads.
Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Bettie & John Geiger
Reading this confirmed how little real information the Nova special contained. Indeed, the Nova special was a teaser compared with this book and the others I have read about the (doomed) Franklin Expedition.
Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Frankin's Lost Polar Expedition by Scott Cookman
The text can be a little overwrought for nonfiction, but still a frighteningly informative (if depressing) description of what happened to the (utterly doomed) Franklin Expedition. Grr. They were so cocksure, so Victorian, so English they went ahead and killed themselves on a mission that was (we can so easily see this now) doomed to utter failure from the start.
Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail by Stephen R. Brown
Ordinarily, I would not have picked up this book, but the Franklin expedition suffered from scurvy and I am nothing if not all things Franklin these days. Anyway, a fascinating and disheartening read.
Nightwatch by Sarah Waters (read by Juanita McMahon)
This book made me want to cry. Or throw up. Aside from Jane Eyre when I was twelve, I've never felt so completely ... ensnarled ... in a book. Kay, Viv, and Helen were more real to me than some people I know.