Lindsay McRae spent 11 months filming emperor penguins in Antarctica. Photo / BBC
Lindsay McRae spent 11 months filming emperor penguins in Antarctica. Photo / BBC
The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown most of the world off its axis. It's taken lives, impacted the health of thousands of people and interrupted our very way of life.
It's easy to be overwhelmed by all the information coming at you, so it's important to take your mind off things,even for a little while.
To help you with this we've pulled together some of our favourite big reads from our international partners. There's not a Covid-19 story in sight, promise.
Today we take a look at the life of a wildlife cameraman, the courageous mother raising her kids on adventure, a night spent as Jordan Belfort, revenge of the Winklevoss twins, and when artificial insemination gone wrong.
'My husband chose penguins over the birth of our son'
Mating is a lonely game in the world of emperor penguins. After laying her egg the female passes it to the male and waddles off to sea. While she hunts, he waits, with the egg incubating deep within his fat folds for months on end until the baby hatches.
When wildlife cameraman Lindsay McCrae discovered his new wife Becky was pregnant with their first child, they chose to do things rather differently. He left her at home with the proverbial egg and flew off to Antarctica to spend a year filming the emperor penguins.
An Adélie penguin keeping the crew company while filming. Photo / @badgerboy05 Twitter
She had stage 4 lung cancer, and a mountain to climb
For two decades Isabella de la Houssaye has raised her five children on adventure. Then came a brutal diagnosis, and a burning desire for a final journey with each one.
Isabella de la Houssaye on her way to Camp One during the ascent of Aconcagua. Photo / Max Whittaker, The New York Times
My night as the Wolf of Wall Street
If you haven't seen the Hollywood film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, it is the relatively true story of how one man manipulates the market, while devouring most of the drugs in Long Island.
Even in 2013, when the film debuted, the story was a throwback to inexcusable excesses. Since then, we've had #MeToo and increased gender pay fights.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss once sued Mark Zuckerberg claiming Facebook was their idea. Now, they say their second act is even bigger. Photo / Getty Images
Their children were conceived with donated sperm. It was the wrong sperm
As genetic testing becomes more widespread, parents are finding that sperm used in artificial insemination did not come from the donors they chose.
