Blizzard - Race to the Pole

In late 1911, the final year of the Edwardian age, a British naval captain and a Norwegian conqueror of the North-West Passage embarked on the most gruelling race ever run. Their aim was not only to lead the first expedition to the South Pole, but also to live to tell the tale. Six months later, Robert Falcon Scott and four of his party were dead, while Roald Amundsens victory had been wired around the world.    A century on, the debate still rages. Was Scott unfortunate or incompetent? Was Amundsen a genius or lucky? In a unique television experiment, two teams led by the Norwegian explorer Rune Gjeldnes and the television anthropologist Bruce Parry, star of the BBC2 series Tribe, set out to recreate the famous race. Wearing the same type of clothing as their predecessors, surviving on the same diet, using the same equipment and travelling over the same distance, they seek to answer some of the burning questions.    Blizzard is a dramatic chronicle of both the original epic, and its reconstruction. Jasper Reess narrative skilfully intertwines past and present as he brings to life an extraordinary cast of characters. They may be separated from their predecessors by nearly a hundred years, but the modern race teams soon discover that, in polar travel, nothing changes. Among the hardships they face are uncontrollable dogs, inedible food, invisible crevasses, unimaginable cold, all in an unending prairie of snow.    Incorporating the gripping diaries of Parry and Gjeldnes, Blizzard paints an astonishing picture of comradeship in the face of physical danger and psychological torment in the most life-threatening habitat on earth.

Jasper Rees

Press reviews for Jasper Rees's Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood

‘Let’s Do It is a biography that feels as unflinching and true as it is entertaining and affectionate. Rees pulls off the trick of writing a brilliant tribute while also – somehow, almost – bringing Victoria Wood back to life in all her complicated glory’

‘You can almost feel him riffling files, rewinding tapes, so carefully is it pieced together. Yet the reward is a 360-degree biography that transforms a beloved entertainer into a real human being’

‘This superb biography ensures we can’t forget how revolutionary she was’

‘Joyous and revealing... If you're a diehard Wood fan (as I am) you'll find this account of her life wholly engrossing, and it also stands as a wonderful tribute to a pioneering entertainer and her exacting comic genius’

‘A joy. It paints a rounded portrait of a genuinely nice and kind woman who could also be difficult, scathing, even ruthless’

‘Rees’s research is wide-ranging and detailed... his analysis is acute and often beautifully articulated’

‘Packed with enlightening anecdotes and revealing interviews with her family and closest friends. A real treat’

‘This biographer is the safest of hands... It does not feel intrusive because it is so richly fed with the memories of those who properly loved her’

Praise from friends and fans of Victoria Wood:

‘This utterly absorbing and beautiful book, written with such insight and kindness, moved me hugely’

‘I would love people to read this beautiful book about the woman I will be forever grateful for in leading the way for me and other women in comedy and for making my life a jollier one’

‘Jasper Rees has found the perfect words to convey Victoria's brilliance, in this meticulously researched, immersive and entertaining biography'

‘This book is absolutely brilliant. So meticulously researched but also full of warmth and fun’

The Authorised Biography

Jasper Rees, the acclaimed Sunday Times bestselling author of Let’s Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood, interviewed Gambon more than any other journalist alive, and has been granted exclusive access to Gambon’s personal archive and effects. Rees is in the process of conducting over one hundred interviews with actors, playwrights and directors who across a career that spanned more than half a century were witness to some of Gambon’s most magnificent performances, including Penelope Wilton, Alan Ayckbourn, Brian Cox, Eileen Atkins, David Hare, Judi Dench, Christopher Hampton, Simon Russell Beale, Richard Eyre, Patricia Hodge, Simon Callow, Stephen Poliakoff and his closest friend in theatre, Oliver Cotton. 
 
The biography spans Gambon’s epoch-defining roles on stage, television and screen: the early years as a spear-carrier in Laurence Olivier’s newly formed National Theatre, his pre-eminence as an interpreter of Harold Pinter and Alan Ayckbourn, the triumphs in The Life of Galileo and A View from the Bridge, the screen roles that won him global fame, from Philip Marlow in The Singing Detective to Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films. It promises to be a deeply personal, moving and surprising book that will enrich our understanding of an acting legend who was as hilarious and elusive off stage – renowned for spinning mischievously tall tales – as he was mesmerising and chameleon-like on stage.

Jasper Rees

Praise for Michael Gambon

Press reviews for Jasper Rees's Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood

‘Let’s Do It is a biography that feels as unflinching and true as it is entertaining and affectionate. Rees pulls off the trick of writing a brilliant tribute while also – somehow, almost – bringing Victoria ...

‘You can almost feel him riffling files, rewinding tapes, so carefully is it pieced together. Yet the reward is a 360-degree biography that transforms a beloved entertainer into a real human being’

Press reviews for Jasper Rees's Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood

‘Let’s Do It is a biography that feels as unflinching and true as it is entertaining and affectionate. Rees pulls off the trick of writing a brilliant tribute while also – somehow, almost – bringing Victoria ...

‘You can almost feel him riffling files, rewinding tapes, so carefully is it pieced together. Yet the reward is a 360-degree biography that transforms a beloved entertainer into a real human being’

Press reviews for Jasper Rees's Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood

‘Let’s Do It is a biography that feels as unflinching and true as it is entertaining and affectionate. Rees pulls off the trick of writing a brilliant tribute while also – somehow, almost – bringing Victoria ...

‘You can almost feel him riffling files, rewinding tapes, so carefully is it pieced together. Yet the reward is a 360-degree biography that transforms a beloved entertainer into a real human being’

Books by Jasper Rees

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