ThinkerViews – Views And Reviews Personal views and reviews for books, magazines, tv serials, movies, websites, technical stuff and more.
For the regular readers of ThinkerViews, the name of Anuj Tikku is not unfamiliar. He is a professional travel blogger from India, who is popular among a group of readers and travelers.
We got a chance to read and review many of his books and here are quick links to our unbiased views and reviews for the same:
- Survival by Anuj Tikku | Book Reviews
- Blogging for Gold by Anuj Tikku | Book Review
- Travelthon Tales By Anuj Tikku | Travel Tales Collection | Book Review
- The Kumbh Travelogue 2019 by Anuj Tikku | Picture EBook Review
Recently, we were provided one more book by him – Antarctica Diaries: A Trip To The Beyond. The title itself is so intriguing that it made us curious to read the book at the earliest. Fortunately, from our team, I got a chance to read it and here are my unbiased views for the same.
| Book Title | : | Antarctica Diares Tagline: A Trip to Beyond |
| Author | : | Anuj Tikku |
| Publisher | : | Self published; (2019) |
| # of Pages | : | 7603 KB 130 (Kindle EBook) |
| Purchase Link(s) | : |
I love to talk about book covers :).
Antarctica Diaries: A Trip To The Beyond by Anuj Tikku | Book Cover
As you can see, the cover page of Antarctica Diares: A Trip To The Beyond is really eye-catcher. A Snow clad land and mountain in the background of the author is a well-thought design. Also, the horizon and blue sky reflect the tagline of the book – A Trip To The Beyond. And yes, the penguins in the front makes it even appealing and relevant. Overall, an interesting book cover.
Let me start with a disclaimer that the book title is presented as – Antarctica Diares – throughout the article, as it is printed on the book.
Only the Kindle version is available for this book and is quite costly. The book is a collection of 20 blog articles, all focused on the trip to Antarctica, each one represented as a chapter.
This book is different than Anuj’s other books in a specific aspect. It has articles from other bloggers also. In fact, the book starts with two nicely written articles by Kavita Kumble. Both these articles are very details, studded with nice photographs and shares the real experiences of the author. These chapters are definitely one of the most interesting parts of the book. She mentions about her way of traveling and how she is looking towards her approaching trip to Antarctica in the following words:
Going to a new destination challenges me physically, mentally, and educationally.
— — — — — —
A Cruise is not my kind of travel. I love it rough and tough with a lot of walking around. Here, there will be someone else navigating me around and telling me what to do all the time.
Here is a nice wordplay by her.
You already fill the chill in the air and the wind hitting you from those snow-capped mountains from Chile.
Her experiences about the flight delay and the way she missed the connecting flight, how she has arranged from the point forward, etc are not to be missed. In fact, the articles by Anuj Tikku also mentions similar stuff. It teaches you one very important thing about such trips.
Be ready for unexpected circumstances, and keep a positive attitude towards resolving the problems rather than crying about them.
Rest 18 pictures are first-hand experiences of Anuj written by himself.
It brings in some interesting facts about traveling, like:
Is traveling just about having a vacation? No, I guess it is more of an experience that you gather, enrich and grow with all the interactions you have along the trip with the people you meet and spend time.
The book also makes it clear that the experiences of a lifetime will cost you a remarkable amount of fortune too.
Traveling to various places makes a wise traveller to understand the importance of cohabitation and survival. And, often while en route, you get more destinations to consider in the future journey too.
The in-depth knowledge about various species of whales and penguins shared by Anuj will definitely make you enrich with something worth knowing. He seems to have done a remarkable amount of study and research work to acquire the knowledge, and even more importantly, he used the right way to pen it down using right words, and readers will find it amazing.
Anuj is a nature lover and he mentioned the following lines in the book, which I found really amazing:
We have tamed and colonised most of the world, but this vast stretch of the planet remains beyond our grasp and hopefully, we humans would not corrupt it in the years to come.
To add to it, at a different place, he mentioned:
… – the invention of harpoon gun in 1864 led blue whale deathrate to skyrocket.
Anuj is good at exploring scenes and he gave some interesting lines like:
The pebbled shore was hit by thin films of pure transparent water.
The segment where the author writes about witnessing a seal trapped on the snow-land and how uncomfortable it is, for her. Such emotional stuff makes you connect with the nature and other species quite well.
Any true Indian will like the exploration of the author’s experience of holding tri-color and getting proud and emotional about the same.
The author came up with some realistic yet philosophical lines like:
A travel experience gets enhanced by the company you get and the people you get talking to.
The book has some grammar/formatting issues. For example, at the beginning of 2nd chapter, you will find a missing space between “I read”. Similarly, in a chapter, there is a space missing between the words “Haddock from Tintin” at around midway of the book. There are so many photographs which are repeated. It is not good for a book focused on traveling or otherwise.
The book has a scope of a lot of improvement. Better formatting and management of pictures is essential for this book. Also, the articles are not arranged in a linear format. It jumps on the time and travel line from here to there. A reader expects a “from beginning to the end” one directional journey. And, he/she will be disappointed in that regards.
The author has recorded some videos during the trip and obviously, they cannot be embedded in the book. They are available to watch on the author’s website and YouTube channel both.
Summary:
Overall, a nice book exploring the trip to Antarctica. The first-hand experiences of the authors, the splendid photographs, the additional information about various places covered and species found there; makes the book worth reading.
7.5 out of 10
Quick Purchase Links:
If you already have read the book do share your remarks and thoughts via comments below. Does this review help you in making your decision to buy or read the book? Do not forget to share this article with your friends over various social networks via Twitter, Facebook and others. And yes, you may like to subscribe to our RSS feeds and follow us on various Social networks to get latest updates for the site to land right in your mail box.
