Q&A with Bill Streever
The world warms, awash in greenhouse gases, but forty below remains forty below. Cold is a part of everyday life, but we isolate ourselves from it, hiding in overheated houses and retreating to overheated climates, all without understanding what we so eagerly avoid. We fail to see cold for what it is: the absence of heat, the slowing of molecular motion, a sensation, a perception, the force behind bizarre adaptations.
From frozen humans to ice ages, from hibernating birds to hypothermic explorers, from Frankenstein to absolute zero, Bill Streever's new book, Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places, journeys through history, myth, geography, and ecology in a year-long search for low temperatures.
Here, the author answers a few questions about his new book, coming out in July from Little, Brown.
Why did you write about cold?
Cold gets a bad rap. People don’t like feeling cold, but in fact it’s a great topic. It encompasses skiing, exploration, hibernation, absolute zero, ice ages, frost bite, sea ice—the list goes on and on. Cold is cool.
Who should read your book?
Anyone who visits Alaska. Anyone who has ever been cold or who likes to play in the snow or who lives or wants to live in the far North. Anyone who wants to learn about low temperatures, ice ages, and super cooling but doesn’t want to be tortured by a textbook.
Reviewers compliment your handling of the science of cold, but also call your book “poetic” and remark on your humor. What’s behind this unusual combination?
In part, this combination reflects my view of the world. But in part the topic loans itself to science, poetry, and humor. In 1683, the famous scientist Robert Boyle wrote, “Why I thought fit to write of Cold at All?. . . The subject I have chosen is very noble.” Almost two centuries later, Mark Twain wrote about an Arctic voyage “so cold that the mate's shadow froze fast to the deck and had to be ripped loose by main strength.” And Albert Camus wrote, “In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” So the topic really does hold within it scope for science, humor, and poetry.
What are your favorite comments from reviewers?
Who would not like being called poetic and humorous? Someone recognized the book as a combination of science and history and travel, and that is exactly right. And Ned Rozell, an Alaskan science writer who I have admired for some time, said that I had “pleasantly tricked us into learning something” and that I had joined the complicated and the simple to create something readable. That is of course exactly what I had been trying to do, and it’s nice that Ned recognized my intent.
What authors do you read?
Almost anything written in English or translated to English is fair game, but for the past few years I’ve been reading much more nonfiction than fiction. John McPhee, David Laskin, Paul Theroux, Peter Matthiessen, Dava Sobel, Jonathan Raban, Thurbin Colin, Robert Twigger, Tony Horwitz, Bernd Heinrich, Nancy Lord, Alan Weisman, Brian Fagan, Gabrielle Walker . . . . It’s a long list. And then there is another long list of memoir writers, people like Firdtjof Nansen, Charles Brower, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and Elisha Kane.
Are you doing any signings or events?
I’ll be doing lots of events geared towards inspiring people about cold and cold climates. In Alaska, for example, I have events scheduled at Title Wave Books in Anchorage, Gulliver’s Books in Fairbanks, and at Denali National Park. Later in the year, I have something scheduled at Purdue. People are interested in this topic, and I’ll try to find time to give as many talks as I can.
Does your book address climate change?
In three ways. First, the book celebrates low temperatures, the very thing being eroded by climate change. Second, in talking about cold landscapes and animal and plant adaptations to cold, climate change is always lurking about in the background, ubiquitous. Third, the final chapter of the book is somewhat focused on climate change and its history, but not in a dogmatic way, nor in a preachy manner, but in what I would call a regretful tone.
Do you have a website up?
Yes. It is www.cold-the-book.homestead.com. There are links to webcams, a biography, a link back to the publisher, video clips, a temperature converter, and lots of other features. It’s worth looking at.
Is there anything else you want to tell readers?
Yes: Read this book. Buy copies for your friends and your family members. Enjoy it as a way to cool off this summer or as a way to appreciate the winter. And, once you’ve read it, drop me a line and let me know what you thought or to share a story about your own experiences with cold. I can be reached through the book’s web site.