From Powells.com
Days before the outbreak of World War One renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton
and a crew of twenty-seven set sail to attempt the first crossing on foot
of the Antarctic continent. More than eighty miles from their destination,
however, their ship Endurance was trapped and then crushed by ice. The
crew were left stranded on ice blocks, set adrift as castaways for the
next five months in the most savage of climates and terrain. After five
months in open boats on freezing seas, tackling overland treks across
savage glaciers the crew made it to safety, astonishingly without one
single life lost. First published in 1959, and a bestseller ever since,
Alfred Lansing's Endurance is not only the best of the many books
about Shackleton's famous 1915 expedition, it is also one of the best
- and most popular - adventure books ever written. Lansing consulted with
ten of the surviving members and gained access to diaries and personal
accounts by eight others to produce this remarkable account of a daily
struggle just to stay alive. This is a tale of human courage, inspirational
leadership and one of the most riveting stories ever told.
Staff Pick
In 1914, Ernest Shackleton left for the Antarctic. While World War I occupied Europe, the Endurance was destroyed by ice and the men aboard were left far from help in a barren land where the darkness got longer every day. Although written in the 1950s, Alfred Lansing's account of this incredible survival story is just as fresh and riveting as anything by Jon Krakauer, Timothy Egan, or Erik Larson. Recommended By Eva F., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
In December 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven men set sail from South Georgia for the South Pole aboard the Endurance, the object of their expedition to cross Antarctica overland. A month later the ship was beset in the ice of the Weddell Sea, just outside the Antarctic Circle. Temperatures dropped to 35 degrees Celsius below zero. Ice-moored, the Endurance drifted northwest for ten months before it was finally crushed. The ordeal, however, had barely begun. Now illustrated with expedition photographer Frank Hurley's breathtaking images of the crew, the wildlife, the stark beauty of the land and terrors of the sea at every stage of this grueling adventure, Alfred Lansing's already compelling narrative assumes even more staggering dramatic power in its depiction of the heroic endurance of Shackleton and his twenty-seven indefatigably courageous men.