A pretty interesting book about how ecosystems and humans have adapted to cold weather around the world, revolving around the author's experiences in Alaska (and other places). Lots if nifty information, but it was not as compelling a read as it could have been, and took a while for me to finish the relatively short book.

Or maybe that was because I had to stop reading to find a sweater or blanket. ( )

Left me..... Well..... cold? ( )

Packed with factoids if a bit academic. ( )

Bill Streever's book, Cold, is subtitled "Adventures in the World's Frozen Places". It reads like a natural history of the climate of cold with almost everything you might want to know about cold from the scientific discovery of absolute zero to the development of high-tech clothing to augment if not surpass the use of nature's wool and fur to keep warm when it is cold. Using the calendar year - starting and ending in the summer - the author takes you on ever colder adventures and explorations of the nature and meaning of cold. He includes details of how animals cope with cold such as hibernation: what it is and how some animals use it while others use a variant of it to survive the cold of Winter. His story is one that expands to include the way cold climate has shaped our planet and gave this reader pause to consider the massive forces that have been unleashed to raise and lower the earth's temperature over the millenia. Having grown up in an area of the Midwest United States whose contours were shaped by the last major ice age I found this book a fascinating education in who and what cold had effected elsewhere over history. Streever interlaces his personal adventures with natural history and science creating an educational and entertaining story of the continuing presence of cold in our lives. ( )

Poetic and rational at the same time on what you might have thought was more a "concept" that an object of scientific examination. We adapt to cold, the world adapts to cold, animals adapt (or fail to adapt) to cold. We need cold to live, and yet the cold can kill us, and the lack of cold can kill us. I now understand the difference between frostbite and hypothermia. Cold is more than the absence of warmth. You will feel real heat from cold for the first time. Cold is HOT! ( )