Stephen R. Bown's Blog: Stephen Bown's random author musings, page 2

Great review in New Scientist

In Island of the Blue Foxes, Stephen Bown has drawn on journals, logs, letters and official reports to piece together a story never fully told before. And what a story: adventure and discovery, misery and death, and a cast of characters by turns admirable and appalling, brilliant and hopeless, annoying and plain nasty. Two of them – Vitus Bering, the Danish leader of the expedition, and German naturalist Georg Steller – have long been heroes of mine. Thanks to Bown’s revelations and brilliant storytelling, I now know just how astonishing their exploits were.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/...

RBC Taylor Prize!

I'm pleased to see Island of the Blue Foxes make a second award list so far this year. The RBC Taylor Prize recognizes books that "combines a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception."

http://www.thecharlestaylorprize.ca/2...

My Book the Movie - Island of the Blue Foxes

This is how it could be on the screen, as imagined for the blog My Book the Movie:

https://mybookthemovie.blogspot.ca/20...

Radio interview on CBC Daybreak

Here is the link to a good radio I interview I did with Russell Bowers for Island of the Blue Foxes.

https://audioboom.com/posts/6457951-i...

Andrea Wulf and Peter Stark

A new book always requires advance blurbs from other authors and it can sometimes be an exhausting process to get them. I was fortunate this time to get he endorsement of two fine authors whose books I admire, Andrea Wulf and Peter Stark. Here is what they had to say:

"'A rip-roaring tale of adventures, hardship, sacrifice, human hubris and - dare I say – madness –... set in inhospitable landscapes and told with breezy energy. Wonderful."
– ANDREA WULF author of The Invention of Nature: Alexander Humboldt's New World

A gifted chronicler of Northern exploration, Stephen Bown tells this incredible tale with grace, authority, and a deep grasp of its significance."
– PETER STARK, author of Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire

"Bown has done an exceptional job in telling the compelling tale of one of the world's greatest and most tragic maritime expeditions ... a largely forgotten story of an incredible Russian seafaring endeavour in the early eighteenth century, as well as the depth of human despair and perseverance in the name of exploration and science."
– JAMES P. DELGADO, author of Across the Top of the World: The Quest for the Northwest Passage

Island of the Blue Foxes

A new book doesn't seem real until you hold the first edition in your hand. It reminds me what I've been working on for the last two years! I just received the first copies of the Canadian edition today, the US edition any day now. www.facebook.com/srbown
www.stephenrbown.net

William Mills Prize for Polar Books

My books often make their way onto shortlists, most recently for the Canadian Authors Association Award for History and the Alberta Literary Award for Non-Fiction, but only once before have I actually made it to the top - until now. I am honored that White Eskimo was chosen to win the William Mills Prize for Non-Fiction Polar Books, which "honors the best Arctic or Antarctic nonfiction book published throughout the world."

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2016/07/steph...

Down to Earth magazine

Down to Earth is an international science/environmental magazine based in India. They just did a feature Q+A and excerpts from White Eskimo - a nice layout and design.

http://www.downtoearth.org.in/reviews...

Wall Street Journal

“Is Knud Rasmussen the most remarkable polar explorer that few people have ever heard of? In White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen’s Fearless Journey Into the Heart of the Arctic, Stephen R. Bown makes a good case that he is…White Eskimo—the first English-language biography of Knud Rasmussen—offers much pleasure. Mr. Bown’s prose is clear and lively, and while he clearly believes that Rasmussen was an extraordinary man, he doesn’t dodge Rasmussen’s flaws.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/native-in...

Scientific American

Scientific American listed White Eskimo as a recommended read for January - no comment just the recommendation along with four other interesting books, but I'll take it. And Ken Mcgoogan wrote an excellent review in Alberta Views magazine. "A significant addition to the narrative literature of polar exploration ... [Rasmussen] was brave, intelligent, efficient, charismatic and persevering. In the history of arctic exploration, he is a singular figure. Hats off to Stephen Bown for bringing him to life."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/art...