About this Event
Bookshop West Portal cannot wait to host renowned science fiction author of the Mars trilogy, The Ministry for the Future, and The High Sierra: A Love Story, and lifelong advocate for the wilderness and the environment, Kim Stanley Robinson. Join us to celebrate his new book, The Best Journey in the World: An Antarctic Story, a gripping story of adventure that brilliantly intertwines memoir and polar history. Learn about one of the most perilous places on our planet, how it shaped out history, and it’s importance for our future. You won't want to miss the truly stunning never-before-seen photography either!
This event is FREE to attend. Seating is first-come, first-served. (RSVPs are optional, but encouraged for our planning purposes.)
You don't need to have read the book beforehand to enjoy the event, but we do recommend reserving your copy ahead of time:
About the Book:
Interweaving memoir, some never-before-published photographs, and good old fashioned ice adventure, Kim Stanley Robinson takes readers along on the Arctic journeys that have happened before and the journeys that may never happen again.
In May of 1911, Robert Scott and the twenty-four men under his command said good-bye to the sun and settled in for the long Antarctic winter. When the sun returned in September, they were going to try to become the first people to reach the South Pole. However, a week past the winter solstice, Scott's second-in-command took a team on a trip to Cape Crozier to man-haul two sledges through the perpetual night of the Antarctic winter, exposed to the coldest temperatures human beings had ever traveled in. This side trip was, at best, a dangerous distraction and at worst, a disaster. Yet, chronicled by zoological assistant (and major expedition funder) Apsley Cherry-Garrard, it became The Worst Journey in the World, one of the best adventure books ever written.
Kim Stanley Robinson first read Cherry-Garrard's book in his twenties and re-read it again in 1995, as part of his preparations to Antarctica that he made that year as research for his Mars novels. It was a dream excursion: he traveled around the continent, by snowmobile and helicopter and airplane. All the while, Cherry's book loomed larger and larger in Robinson's mind, and he tried to follow in their ill-fated footsteps.
Ultimately, in The Best Journey in the World, we see Robinson stepping on ice and finding an earthly holy place. As he searches for what can--and cannot--be found again, he takes readers on a journey of realization that is not just about being the first to get somewhere but about falling in love with what the world has to offer us. That being with people who also feel a kinship to a place worthy of preserving is itself, an act of devotion. Replete with gorgeous photographs taken in a place many will never set foot, and woven throughout with Robinson's sharp, funny, and personal voice, prepare to take the best journey in the world.
One of the New Yorker's Most Anticipated Fall Reads
About the Author:
Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy, The Ministry for the Future, and The High Sierra: A Love Story. He was a featured speaker at COP26 in Glasgow, at the UN’s Summit of the Future in 2024, and at COP30 in Belém, Brazil. His work has been translated into thirty languages, and in 2016 asteroid 72432 was named Kimrobinson. He lives in Davis, California.
Agenda
🕑: 06:30 PM - 07:00 PM
Buy the book, browse the shelves, snag your seat!
🕑: 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Hear from the author + Q&A
🕑: 08:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Signing Line - Get your copy personalized by the author
Event venue & nearby stays
BookShop West Portal, 80 West Portal Avenue, San Francisco, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.