Where The Earth Meets The Sky

An elegant and insightful memoir set in seemingly bleak and featureless Antarctica but made rich and textured through the sharp eyes of Louise Blight. There is serious work being done here—a study of penguins, a study of humans—but also humour, curiosity, and reverence for every creature who spends their days and lives trying to make sense of this beguiling corner of the world.

Harley Rustad

Part love story for the wildest place on earth, part meditation on what we’ve lost, Louise Blight combines a scientist’s clarity and rigour with an artist’s appreciation of landscape and language to create a hauntingly beautiful depiction of her season studying Adélie penguins at a remote Antarctic field station. Where the Earth Meets the Sky gives us brilliantly rendered sketches of people, place and penguins; fascinating, funny, insightful - and occasionally bizarre – details of an isolated, stripped-down life and its effect on those who live it; an ultimately positive personal trajectory; and a powerful testimony to the vital importance of the Ross Sea as the most intact marine ecosystem on earth.

Kate Rawles

A vivid portrait of a harsh and unforgiving landscape, succeeding in making the inhospitable seem inviting. Surrounded only by penguins — and a few lovable curmudgeons — Blight weaves a captivating memoir of a field season spent on the White Continent. Full of scientific curiosity, and equal parts illuminating prose and wry humour, Where the Earth Meets the Sky is a wonderful addition to Antarctica's rich literary history, told from the unique perspective of a wildlife biologist. A heart-tugging requiem for Antarctica's imperiled penguins.

Gloria Dickie

Louise Blight presents an intriguing theatre of emotions, a fascinating world of highs and lows where ice, humans and birds interact. At the centre of this evocative book is a small team of dedicated scientists and their support crew surviving in the cold, snowy, windswept wastes, while studying these amazing and lovable birds. But it is the small community of academics and support crew, isolated at the end of the world, which provides a fascinating mix of harmony and conflict. The wonder, beauty, and tragedy of nature meet human love, fear, and dispute. A fascinating story of the family life of penguins and those who study them.

Brian Hall, author of High Risk