I love books about Arctic and Antarctic exploration, and this is one of the better ones I've read lately. It covers a relatively unknown, but quite unusual, attempt to reach the north pole by balloon in 1897. S. A. Andrée's attempt seems foolhardy in hindsight, but one can't help but admire his bravery and drive to try something that had never been tried before.

In addition to describing Andrée's interest in ballooning and Arctic exploration, he goes into detail about some other attempts at the pole - from the ho-hum to the downright disastrous, including expeditions led by Adolphus Greely, Charles Francis Hall's Polaris expedition, and Fridtjof Nansen's Fram expedition.

I liked how the narrative worked in the second half, moving between what the balloonists experienced and how their loved one's dealt with their increasingly long absence. Overall this book was an excellent overview. My only gripes are that there were no captions for the photographs. And although there was one map, it was microscopically tiny and seemingly randomly inserted in the book. The last paragraph gave me chills.