A pole of inaccessibility is the point in any landmass that is hardest to reach. Every continent has one, and in 1958 a Soviet exploration team reached the remotest of them all – Antarctica’s. At an altitude of some 3,700m, the average temperature there is negative 60 degrees making it the coldest place on earth.

Early on in Camille Cusumano’s ‘Tango: An Argentine Love Story’, the author mentions the Zen saying: “To relegate it to words is to defile it” as she discusses her perception of tango. Reading about someone’s experiences on tango made me skeptical.

This December it will be 40 years since Fred Hampton, leader of the Chicago chapter and later chairman of the Illinois State Black Panther Party, was poisoned and then shot by the FBI. His young face looks out from the T-shirt of storyteller Michael D. McCarty as he walks on stage to give a talk to the assembled seniors of Jean Mermoz Secondary School in ritzy Belgrano, Buenos Aires.

For those who are not fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s more obscure work, the name of this bookshop and cafe may initially seem slightly bizarre. It is worth explaining, therefore, that the name is taken from a posthumously published collection of that writer’s letters and essays relating to his nervous breakdown.

As soon as I entered Walrus Books I felt very much at home. This may be because my Dad is a voracious reader who has turned our dining room into a library! However, I’m certain that the worn rugs, unique book shelves and a browser friendly soundtrack will also put you at ease in your quest to find a light holiday read or unearth a lesser-known poetry collection.

There’s a lot to admire in Nathan Englander’s first novel ‘The Ministry of Special Cases’. It’s a soulful and deeply sad account of life under the last military dictatorship, tracking the plight of a Jewish couple in Buenos Aires as they search for their ‘disappeared’ son.

Located on Avenida Santa Fe, El Ateneo Gran Splendid is not just a bookstore, it’s an experience. Walking in for the first time it’s hard to hold in your gasps. It might be part of a chain of regular bookstores now, but El Ateneo still retains a theatrical grandeur that makes it one of the best and most unique retail experiences in the city.

Most Argentines tend to be open and supportive to foreigners who risk putting their pride on the line to engage with their culture and language. But when I heard that two gringos with poor Spanish had tried to write a book in the language within two months of arriving, I wondered, worried, how they would be received.

“My destiny has always been a literary destiny,” Jorge Luis Borges once stated. “This is the heritage that I received. When I was a child it was always understood that I had to become a writer; that I had to fulfill the literary destiny that had been denied to my forefathers.”