Extremes: Surviving the World's Harshest Environments.(Brief Article)(Book Review)

EXTREMES: Surviving the World's Harshest Environments NICK MIDDLETON. St. Martin's/Dunne, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 0-312-34266-7

In his latest quest to discover how people survive in severe climates, Oxford University geographer Middleton visited locations even worse than those in his last book, Going to Extremes. That work took him to Siberia and northeast India; this time, he seeks places without permanent towns, locations where "survival requires a lifestyle completely in tune with Nature's rhythms." Middleton's good-humored, almost naive attitude makes his often treacherous explorations seem merely fun. He travels to remote, unlivable sites and visits indigenous people …