A hostile beauty: life on Macquarie Island.

Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 2011.
Quarto, dustwrapper, 192 pp. colour photographs, map.

Macquarie Island - a small, wind-blasted rocky outcrop between Tasmania and Antarctica - is one of the few places today that can still be considered truly wild. Using exquisite photographs and words, this book tells the story of this extraordinary Australian outpost teeming with life. Alistair Dermer's inspiring photography takes us up close and personal with the inhabitants of this unique island: gentle Gentoo penguins, engorged Elephant-seal bulls and scavenging skuas, and deep into a landscape that is as beautiful and life-giving as it is hostile and pitiless. Let these superb images, from the fury of the squalling Southern Ocean to the warm, trusting eyes of a seal pup, transport you to one of the most remote and spectacular places on Earth.