Endurance

Shackleton's incredible voyage

by Alfred Lansing

357 pages

English language

Published April 28, 2015 by Basic Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-465-06288-1
OCLC Number:: 871228525

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(3 reviews)

"Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England in August 1914. In January 1915, after battling its way for six weeks through a thousand miles of pack ice and now only a day's sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. For ten months the ice-moored Endurance drifted northwest before it was finally crushed. But for Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men the ordeal had barely begun. It would end only after a near-miraculous journey by Shackleton and a skeleton crew through over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization. This astonishing tale of survival by Shackleton and all twenty-seven of his men for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctic seas, as Time magazine put it, "defined heroism." Alfred Lansing's …

3 editions

struppi reviewed Endurance : Shackleton's incredible voyage by Alfred Lansing

Review of "Endurance : Shackleton's incredible voyage" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

since everyone survives, i hope it’s ok for me to say it…. this book is so funny. i love how despite their miserable situation they are still cracking jokes, writing disses about one another, dreaming of pudding and cream, cutting one another’s hair in an ice cave while their friends foot is getting amputated…. there are so many moments where i just burst out laughing. i think it’s because in the midst of all the tension and bad fortune, these small tender interactions are all the more precious. i haven’t read a book like this before, at least not in a long time. even when i put it down to do other stuff my mind was still on that ice floe, running around with everyone and smacking seals on the nose with an oar.

i love every character, and i love how the author always gets just the right excerpt of someone’s diary to pinpoint the mood. for example when their ship was first beset, and one wrote they were like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar. oh man. i adore this book. i smiled so much, and i’m so glad that everyone’s ok and no one had to eat a human. i cannot believe this swashbuckling adventure is a true story and that i’m living in the same timeline.

protomattr reviewed Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Review of 'Endurance' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

In this excellent book, Lansing has retold the odyssey that Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men endured after meeting disaster in the ice off Antarctica as a haunting epic tale! Structured almost like a seven-act play, the ordeals, setbacks, tough choices, trials, and triumphs of the men unfold in scene after scene, each chapter drawing the reader further in, somehow lending a quick-paced narrative while simultaneously making the reader feel the interminable slow pace of the struggle. As we face the challenges of the 21st century, the leadership and cooperation displayed by Shackleton and his men in their determination to live to tell the tale serve as ideal inspiration.

localstatic

rated it

March 7, 2014

Subjects

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917)
Travel
Endurance (Ship)
British
Discovery and exploration

Places

Antarctica