Writer Ben Weissenbach has his first book out in July - a generational adventure and critique of our digital culture.
North to the Future is a kind of bildungsroman of perception - a story of learning to see and hear and feel by venturing out in the wild. It is a beautiful and necessary book.
Elizabeth Kolbert
A Gates Cambridge Scholar is preparing to publish his first book which combines a generational adventure story with a stirring critique of the digital culture many young people are growing up in.
North to the future: An offline adventure through the changing wilds of Alaska by Ben Weissenbach [2023] will be published by Grand Central Publishing on 15th July. It charts Ben’s journey to and through Arctic Alaska at the age of just 20. Ben, a writer from Los Angeles with little previous experience of life in the great outdoors, writes about his experiences and conversations with environmental scientists along the way as he comes face to face with the impact of a fast-thawing region.
They include Roman Dial, a larger-than-life ecologist with whom Ben walks and rafts 1,000 miles across Alaska’s Brooks Range; Kenji Yoshikawa, a reindeer-herding permafrost expert, who leaves Ben alone for almost two weeks to care for his off-grid cabin in winter; and Matt Nolan, an independent glaciologist, who flies Ben to the largest glaciers in the American Arctic.
Described as a new generation adventure story in the tradition of author John McPhee, Ben’s mentor at Princeton University, Ben explores the inner tensions of a digital native finding his way in a stubbornly physical world.
Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction, says: “North to the Future is a kind of bildungsroman of perception – a story of learning to see and hear and feel by venturing out in the wild. It is a beautiful and necessary book.”
Another bestselling author John Colapinto describes the book as capturing “how all this reality feels to a 20-something raised on the airless virtual world of the 4”x2” screen”.
Ben, who has written for many publications, from the LA Times to National Geographic, is doing his PhD in Polar Studies, researching environmental perception under the mentorship of Professor Michael Bravo.
*To pre-order the book, click here.
