Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance

ICE: THE NATURE, THE HISTORY, AND THE USES OF AN ASTONISHING SUBSTANCE: Mariana Gosnell: Knopf: nonfiction: 555 pages

I like to read nonfiction. I like being surprised by amazing facts about ordinary events or things. Surprise or amazement can be found on almost every page of Ice: the Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance. Did you know that “An Arctic iceberg can be the size of a cottage or a city block? An Antarctic iceberg can be the size of an American state(!)” or “a beam of ice hanging in a cold room with a weight on one end [will] stretch like taffy in slow motion…” Did you know that the fact that water can exist on our planet as a solid, liquid or vapor is crucial to earth’s climate?

This book has adventures on ice, too; Shackleton’s icy encounters in Antarctica; John Ross, whose ship was trapped in Arctic ice for three years, and more. Would you like to know how animals like seals, whales and penguins survive in icy conditions? And what about frozen insects – can they survive?

This book is not written for scientists. It is written for the insatiably curious person. Read a page, a chapter, or the whole book and you are bound to learn something. This is one of a number of fascinating books about everyday substances that have come out in the last few years. I also thoroughly enjoyed Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky, The Power of Gold: the History of an Obsession by Peter L. Bernstein, Napolean’s Buttons: How Seventeen Molecules Changed History by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson. And I could name many more, all of which I found by browsing the New Nonfiction display at the Provo City Library.

SH