An Inconvenience of Penguins by Jamie Lafferty

The problem started, as problems often do, with a penguin.

From Kings and Emperors to Macaronis and Rockhoppers, penguins are one of the most immediately recognisable animals on Earth. Yet for all that familiarity, what do we really know about them? An Inconvenience of Penguins follows award-winning travel writer Jamie Lafferty as he visits all eighteen species in a bid to understand the birds and their extraordinarily varied habitats a little better. On voyages to some of the planet’s most inaccessible and challenging landscapes, he recounts the history of our unique relationship with the world’s most popular bird, telling not only the stories of the penguins, but also the people and places around them.

From getting stranded in the Galapagos and marching through African guano fields to leading photography groups in the Antarctic and taking psychedelics on the Falklands, this is a birding quest like no other. Along the way, Lafferty relives the experiences of early polar explorers, for whom penguins were perplexing mysteries, welcome companions and even occasional meals, and meets the modern penguin lovers trying to save their fragile environments.

Featuring cameos from a wide cast of characters including Ernest Shackleton, Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Drake, as well as beautiful photographs of each penguin species, An Inconvenience of Penguins is part love-letter to and part biography of these remarkable creatures.

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An Inconvenience of Penguins is another book from my visit to this year’s Ilkley Literature Festival.  While I’m not a huge reader of non-fiction, I was interested in hearing the author’s talk (who doesn’t like penguins?!) and promptly bought a ticket when they went on sale.  It was, of course, absolutely fascinating, and so yet another book came home with me.   

I would advise against attempting to see every penguin species in the world.

Jamie Lafferty is a travel writer, and as such has spent a lot of time here, there, and everywhere.  Like many, it’s a career that was hit hard by COVID and the associated lockdowns and travel restrictions, and Lafferty, wanting to avoid the second UK lockdown, decided to travel to the Galapagos islands, hoping to be able to pitch a story, but also triggering a quest to see all 18 species of penguin in their natural habitats.  Already familiar with the southern hemisphere, he’d seen penguins before, but decided to “wipe the slate clean” and start again.  It’s a journey that will take over four years – he does have to earn a wage and return home occasionally – and that will take him to some of the most remote places on Earth.  An inconvenience indeed.

Lafferty is very quick to point out that this is not a penguin guidebook.  Rather, it’s one man’s journey in the southern hemisphere visiting these iconic birds.  He’s open about some of the trouble he encounters, the idiocy of some tourists (you know the ones), but also the pure joy of seeing penguins doing their thing out in the wild.  He also looks at our fascination with penguins – their apparent clumsiness on land and the way that they appear like rotund children.  There are also cultural impacts, mostly positive, although Feathers McGraw is a notable exception.

Lafferty writes with great humour and I enjoyed the witty asides provided via the footnotes throughout.  Despite the light-hearted tone, he does touch upon some more serious themes as well.  You don’t need me to tell you that humankind has a spotted history, and he looks at our history of exploration, not shying away from some of the more unpleasant treatment of penguins and other animals during those voyages.  He also looks at the impact of climate change on penguins and their habitats, highlighting that many species are in decline.  It’s a relevant and timely reminder that all ecosystems are impacted by human-made climate change and that world events can have far-reaching consequences.

An Inconvenience of Penguins is a brilliantly written and amusing tale of one man’s travels to some of the most remote places on Earth in search of these stunning birds, and I loved the photos, taken by the author with one of each species, highlighting the surprising variety in these beautiful creatures.  Highly recommended.