“George Murray Levick was the physician on Robert Falcon Scott’s tragic Antarctic expedition of 1910. Marooned for an Antarctic winter, Levick passed the time by becoming the first man to study penguins up close. His findings were so shocking to Victorian morals that they were quickly suppressed and seemingly lost to history.

A century later, Lloyd Spencer Davis rediscovers Levick and his findings during the course of his own scientific adventures in Antarctica. Levick’s long-suppressed manuscript reveals not only an incredible survival story, but one that will change our understanding of an entire species.

A Polar Affair reveals the last untold tale from the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. It is perhaps the greatest of all of those stories―but why was it hidden to begin with? The ever-fascinating and charming penguin holds the key. Moving deftly between both Levick’s and Davis’s explorations, observations, and comparisons in biology over the course of a century, A Polar Affair reveals cutting-edge findings about ornithology, in which the sex lives of penguins are the jumping-off point for major new insights into the underpinnings of evolutionary biology itself.”

I got this book through the Amazon Vine program for review. I kind of surprised myself by finishing this. In the end, finding out who got to the South Pole first and who survived the journey really propelled me through the book.

This book is a mishmash of historical and contemporary encounters with Adelie penguins. There is a lot of survival and history of polar exploration as well.

I enjoyed the middle portion of this book (where they are in Antarctica) much more than the beginning and end. The beginning and end just throw around too many names and jump around too much.

In fact the discontinuity is a fundamental flaw of this book. The author jumps around between past explorers and present explorers kind of willy nilly. He also jumps between his search for info on Levick and his own experiences at the South Pole. He does make an effort to tie together the topics across all of the people and timelines but it still comes across as a bit jumbled.

This is also not a book to read with kids. Each chapter starts with a two page discussion on a deviant type of sexual behavior and how it could relate to penguin reproductive behaviors. In fact this is another heavy theme throughout the book that felt forced at times. Davis often tries to relate the sexual exploits of the Adelie penguins to the sexual exploits of past explorers. The heavy sex theme is a bit weird and feels contrived.

The above issues aside, I did enjoy reading and learning about Antarctica and what explorers who go there suffer through. It was also intriguing to read about the different types of penguins and how they reproduce and survive. I didn’t find the piecemeal history and background about the different explorers to be as interesting.

Overall this is a decent read if you are interested in the history of polar travel and penguins. If blatant discussion about deviant sexual behavior bothers you I would skip it.

Review – A Polar Affair by Lloyd Spencer Davis (3/5 stars)

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