I expected something different from this book—maybe a little Gretel Ehrlich or Jon Krakauer, but this ended up reading like someone’s letters home or a fairly mundanely written set of blog posts. I want craft in the books I read, and this was not it.

A terrific addition to the list of books about Antarctica- and penguins! I was entranced by the descriptions of the penguins and de Garcia's research but even more so by details of living and working on the ice, This is, know in advance, also a memoir which gives insight into de Garcia herself. The writing is clear, there's just enough detail, and it's just a page turner. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A wonderful read.

I really enjoyed this book. I love that at times it was heavy on the science of what's happening in Antarctica and focused on the different animals and what the field workers are responsible for, but then other parts of the book read more like a memoir of the author's life. I think the way everything was wrapped around each other worked really well. I really enjoyed that we got an epilogue with an update not only on the author's life, but we learned what the other field workers were up and how regulations have changed since her season.

If a penguin stood on my foot and slapped me silly, I might rethink my plan. For Naira de Gracia, this is just part of the job. In her autobiography, she recounts five months she spent at Cape Shirreff in Antarctica with four other researchers and field workers as part of an ecosystem-monitoring program run by NOAA. The information they gather will impact global krill-fishing regulations. These tiny shrimp-like creatures are an engine for carbon capture and a keystone species in the ocean’s food web.

Since penguins are an indicator species, Naira and her coworker Matt will sort through regurgitated penguin food, install geolocators and time-depth recorders, tag and band, peek under penguin tails, weigh and measure, count and record, then climb rocky spires to study the predatory skua. Their days are spent covered in bright pink penguin excrement smelling like fermented shrimp, but Naira is in heaven.

Gracia describes her days on this remote and parsimonious corner of the world with prose that is as lovely and measured as the ocean tides. Living among wild things in a wild place rubs her heart raw with its beauty, she says. Interspersed with descriptions of her daily chores and conversations with Matt, she reflects on things that are weighty such as the struggle to form a lasting romantic connection, her childhood, and what is next for her. She infuses humor and insight into her descriptions of life in a freezing outpost with no modern conveniences and little privacy. In this book, we see a rare combination of scientific inquiry and beautiful prose. Gracia’s autobiography will appeal to nature lovers, adventurers, environmentalists, and anyone who might enjoy learning more about a daring young woman who takes in stride being chased through a poop-encrusted penguin colony by a raging fur seal, sharp canines bared.

Many thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for providing this eArc.

The writer Anne Fadiman says that everyone has a metaphorical “special shelf” of those books that are their particular and slightly eccentric passion. For Fadiman, it’s books on polar exploration; for me, it’s science and nature writing. Naira de Gracia’s new book, “The Last Cold Place,” about her season as a field researcher in Antarctica, deserves a place on both of these “special shelves,” as well as those of readers who love quirky memoirs, or animals, or, really, anyone who just loves a good story told well. Organized into sections by the stages of the penguin life cycle in Antarctica and broken into chapters for each month, October through March, that de Gracia spent in a tiny settlement on Cape Shireff with her team of two penguin techs (of which she was one), two seal techs and a lead researcher, “The Last Cold Place” is a fascinating account not just of, as de Gracia writes, “why, exactly, should we care about penguins”—although it’s hard not to after completing her book—but also of what it would feel like to be completely isolated at the bottom of the world, surrounded by desolate, unimaginable beauty (which de Gracia describes in gorgeous, never overblown prose) with four strangers and no privacy. Mix in some history, of both Cape Shireff and of polar exploration in general; some ecology; and some twenty-something soul-searching, all seasoned with more than a dash of humor, and the result is a book that I kept sneaking away to find time to read—in my case in front of a warm fire in December, but I could equally imagine savoring “The Last Cold Place” on a beach in the heat of August. Thoroughly enjoyed this and highly recommend it—I hope de Gracia has more writing in store for us.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for my honest review. It was a treat.

this was a really great look into penguins and it was what I was expecting from the description. Naira de Gracia does a great job in telling what was happening with these animals. I was invested in the story and it was well-written. I enjoyed the way Naira de Gracia wrote this and hope that there is more from the author.

Slapping The Only Tattoist On Antarctica. This was an excellent blend of memoir, science, humor, and reality from someone living a very isolated life for several months at a time - living with a handful of people, a lot of wild animals, and with no chance of resupply for weeks on end, no matter what. Referencing the relevant histories (as a Gen Z college student would, anyway) and combining them in ways very familiar with similar campaign memoirs of both soldiers and scientists of old and new - everything from Captain Shackleton and his expedition (whose story is summarized here) to Nathaniel Fick to International Space Station Commanders Scott Kelly (whose book, Endurance, also references the doomed Shackleton expedition) and Chris Hadfield. The exact science of penguin biology isn't covered as precisely as in say Lloyd Spencer Davis' 2019 text A Polar Affair, and yet the practicalities of collecting the data the science relies on *are* covered in much more depth here - more akin to Kelly and Hadfields' descriptions of life on the ISS. Overall an interesting tale of a life few will ever get to live, and a fascinating look at Antarctic science and the lives of the technicians gathering the data in some of the harshest climates on Earth. The only thing I can really knock this text over is the dearth of its bibliography, coming in at less than 10% of the text when even 20% is much more usual, even for more memoir based books such as this. Still, truly a fascinating and quick read, and very much recommended.