In 1897, at the height of the heroic age of Arctic exploration, the visionary Swedish explorer S. A. Andree made a revolutionary attempt to discover the North Pole by flying over it in a hydrogen balloon. Thirty-three years later, his expedition diaries and papers would be discovered on the ice. Alec Wilkinson uses the explorer`s papers and contemporary sources to tell the full story of this ambitious voyage, while also showing how the late 19th century`s spirit of exploration and scientific discovery drove over 1,000 explorers to the unforgiving Arctic landscape. Suspenseful and haunting, Wilkinson captures Andree`s remarkable adventure and illuminates the detail, beauty, and devastating conditions of traveling and dwelling on the ice

ICE BALLOON PB

Wilkinson, Alec

History

Fourth Estate Ltd.

Poppa Neutrino has been a vagabond his whole life. His existence is far outside the boundaries of what most of us consider normal. Acclaimed New Yorker contributor Alec Wilkinson explores his most charming subject yet in the person of this eccentric hero.

The Happiest Man in the World

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Vintage Books

Draws a portrait of North Carolina liquor agent Garland Bunting, a man who will do nearly anything, including dancing, preaching, or dressing up as a woman, to get his culprit

Moonshine

Penguin??Books

A true American original is brought to life in this rich and lively portrait of Pete Seeger, who, with his musical grace and inextinguishable passion for social justice, transformed folk singing into a high form of peaceful protest in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger, New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson lets us experience the man’s unique blend of independence and commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in human equality and American democracy. We see Seeger instilled with a love of music by his parents, both classically trained musicians; as a teenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; and as a young man, singing with Woody Guthrie and with the Weavers. We learn of his harassment by the government for his political beliefs and his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949. And we follow his engagement with civil rights, the peace movement, and the environment—especially his work saving the Hudson River and building the ship Clearwater. He talks ardently about his own music and that of others, and about the power of music to connect people and bind them to a cause. Finally, we meet Toshi, his wife of nearly sixty years, and members of his family, at the house he built on a mountainside in upstate New York. The Protest Singer is as spirited and captivating as its subject—an American icon, celebrating his ninetieth birthday.

The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger

Arts & Literature

KNOPF

A spirited and intimate look at American icon and activist Pete Seeger. Throughout his life, Pete Seeger transformed a classic American musical style into a form of peaceful protest against war, segregation, and nuclear weapons. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger, Alec Wilkinson delivers a first hand look at Seeger's unique blend of independence and commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in human equality and American democracy. We see Seeger as a child, instilled with a love of music by his parents; as a teenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; as a young adult, singing with Woody Guthrie. And finally, Seeger the man marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King in Selma, standing up to McCarthyism, and fighting for his beloved Hudson River. The gigantic life captured in this slender volume is truly an American anthem.

Humor & Entertainment

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

In this grand and astonishing tale, Alec Wilkinson brings us the story of S. A. Andrée, the visionary Swedish aeronaut who, in 1897, during the great age of Arctic endeavor, left to discover the North Pole by flying to it in a hydrogen balloon. Called by a British military officer “the most original and remarkable attempt ever made in Arctic exploration,” Andrée’s expedition was followed by nearly the entire world, and it made him an international legend. The Ice Balloon begins in the late nineteenth century, when nations, compelled by vanity, commerce, and science, competed with one another for the greatest discoveries, and newspapers covered every journey. Wilkinson describes how in Andrée several contemporary themes intersected. He was the first modern explorer—the first to depart for the Arctic unencumbered by notions of the Romantic age, and the first to be equipped with the newest technologies. No explorer had ever left with more uncertainty regarding his fate, since none had ever flown over the horizon and into the forbidding region of ice. In addition to portraying the period, The Ice Balloon gives us a brief history of the exploration of the northern polar regions, both myth and fact, including detailed versions of the two record-setting expeditions just prior to Andrée’s—one led by U.S. Army lieutenant Adolphus Greely from Ellesmere Island; the other by Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian explorer who initially sought to reach the pole by embedding his ship in the pack ice and drifting toward it with the current. Woven throughout is Andrée’s own history, and how he came by his brave and singular idea. We also get to know Andrée’s family, the woman who loves him, and the two men who accompany him—Nils Strindberg, a cousin of the famous playwright, with a tender love affair of his own, and Knut Fraenkel, a willing and hearty young man. Andrée’s flight and the journey, based on the expedition’s diaries and photographs, dramatically recovered thirty-three years after the balloon came down, along with Wilkinson’s research, provide a book filled with suspense and adventure, a haunting story of high ambition and courage, made tangible with the detail, beauty, and devastating conditions of traveling and dwelling in “the realm of Death,” as one Arctic explorer put it.

The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration

World

In 1897, at the height of the heroic age of Arctic exploration, the visionary Swedish explorer S. A. Andrée made a revolutionary attempt to discover the North Pole by flying over it in a hydrogen balloon. Thirty-three years later, his expedition diaries and papers would be discovered on the ice. Alec Wilkinson uses the explorer’s papers and contemporary sources to tell the full story of this ambitious voyage, while also showing how the late 19th century’s spirit of exploration and scientific discovery drove over 1,000 explorers to the unforgiving Arctic landscape. Suspenseful and haunting, Wilkinson captures Andrée’s remarkable adventure and illuminates the detail, beauty, and devastating conditions of traveling and dwelling on the ice.

Vintage

The defined and undefined beauty and ugliness of a small town is revealed by a music student who joins the police force of a Massachusetts resort community

Midnights

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Random House, Inc.

Moonshine: A Life in Pursuit of White Liquor

A compelling and timely study of the migrant workers who cut cane for large American sugar companies in Southern Florida provides an inside look at the difficult lives of the workers and at their exploitation by the powerful sugar industry

Big Sugar: Seasons in the Canefields of Florida

Business & Money

Economics

Akfred A. Knopf

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wilkinson, Alec. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wilkinson, Alec

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wilkinson, Alec. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

ICE BALLOON PB

The Happiest Man in the World

Moonshine

The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger

The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger

The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration

The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration

Midnights

Moonshine: A Life in Pursuit of White Liquor

Big Sugar: Seasons in the Canefields of Florida