An Inconvenience of Penguins: Epic voyages in pursuit of the world’s most beloved bird
On sale
25th September 2025
Price: £24.99
‘Laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly emotional … will bring joy’ – The Scotsman
‘Jamie Lafferty embarks on an epic quest – in which the journey is at least as entertaining as the end result’ – Stephen Moss, author of Ten Birds That Changed the World
‘Highly entertaining and gloriously obsessional’ – Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan
‘A wise, rude, hilarious and oddly moving account’ – Ed Caesar, author of The Moth and the Mountain
~ ~ ~
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.
‘Jamie Lafferty embarks on an epic quest – in which the journey is at least as entertaining as the end result’ – Stephen Moss, author of Ten Birds That Changed the World
‘Highly entertaining and gloriously obsessional’ – Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan
‘A wise, rude, hilarious and oddly moving account’ – Ed Caesar, author of The Moth and the Mountain
~ ~ ~
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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Reviews
Jamie Lafferty has written a kind of Antarctic 'Roughing It'--a wise, rude, hilarious and oddly moving account of the author's unusual quest to see all eighteen species of penguin. Like several of the birds he writes about, real travel writers are critically endangered. 'An Inconvenience of Penguins' proves they are not extinct.
Fascinating and funny, this book - unlike its charismatic subject - wonderfully takes flight.
Jamie Lafferty is undoubtedly one of the best travel writers in the English language today: this brilliant debut is both a mad quest and fantastically original memoir. It reveals, in glorious technicolour, so much about these little black and white birds.
Travel writer turned global birder Jamie Lafferty embarks on an epic quest - in which the journey is at least as entertaining as the end result.
A brilliantly vivid, ice-blasted account of one travel-writer's determination to see all 18 species of penguin. Jamie is funny, bluntly truthful and so skilled in making us feel as if we're there among the fluffy Adélie chicks. Bombastic, adventurous fun.
Every page has lyrical and witty words about travel, penguins and penguin people. I've read many books about penguins, this is the best!
Perched at the edges of our human world, penguins now find themselves at the front line in the emergency we humans have launched upon them. Jamie Laffery's epic adventures in search of these charismatic avians is highly entertaining and gloriously obsessional in equal degrees. A very enjoyable read.
Came here for the penguins; stayed for the stories of their fried eggs, gossip about the love lives of Antarctic explorers, etymological trivia and witty footnotes. An eclectic and delightful whirlwind of a book.
Lafferty has not only picked a winning subject, but in this well-written, widely-researched account, he has done justice to the mix of comedic joy and awe-inspiring lifestyles . . . the writer's droll sense of humour is much in service.
Refreshingly free of travel-writing cliches . . . a terrific read.
Come for the candid travelogue, woven with tales of early polar exploration, stay for the lush photos, and likely leave with a penguin passion of your own.
Laugh-out-loud funny ... his quest clearly brought him a measure of joy, and his account of it - always engaging and surprisingly full of emotional ups and downs for a book about birds - will bring joy to countless others.
Eco-aware travel writing at its most entertaining.