Moisture, temperature, gravity. These are the ingredients that create the life story of the driest of Earth’s continents.

Heart of Ice takes the reader on a compelling journey across space and time, navigating entangled stories of ice and rock, humans, animals and other species, through the prism of Antarctica’s ice. Joy McCann – author of the internationally acclaimed Wild Sea – eloquently draws on a vast body of scientific and historical research to explore how Antarctica’s ice sheets, its glaciers, ice shelves and sea ice, have been imagined, inhabited and invested with meaning over time. She invites readers to see this vast icy realm in a different way – as a vibrant, storied, multispecies environment and a powerful agent that has shaped – and continues to shape – our history and our planet.