Customer Reviews

South

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My good friend Antonia Martin just gave me this book for my birthday. Antonia, you are an absolute Treasure!

I have become fascinated with the Shackleton story, not only for the awesome testament to dogged determination to succeed in the face of seemingly daunting odds that it is, but because apparently my Grandfather knew him quite well and worked on the planning of the journey back in London. Somewhere we have a signed original of the book from 1919 amongst Mother's belongings, back in England.

This is a bone chilling visual and literary step by aching step trudge through the most inhospitable place on Earth. As the Endurance, their ship, died so their own endurance was born. And what an endurance that was!

As my eyes wander the pages in the warm comfort of bed my mind is wind-whipped by the Antarctic blasts Shackleton and his team ultimately survived! It is quite simply one of the most amazing stories it has ever been my pleasure to absorb. I am in awe of the achievement described and pictured in this book.

Everybody should read it!

I'm rather obsessed with Antarctic exploration at the moment, and reading material is harder to come by than I had first anticipated. This book has many good pictures and lots of diary entries, etc, from Shakleton and others. Well worth it.

I think I've been spoilt by reading dramatic non-fiction like Capote's In Cold Blood. This book came across as very dry to me. There was some good writing, but much of it was tedious, as parts were a day-to-day chronicle of Shackleton's expedition in the South. Interesting, from a historical perspective, but it gives the book a strung-together-with-pedantic-filler feeling.

The description of the book that I read implied that there would be more discussion as to exactly why the expedition had problems. Although many of those issues are mentioned, it wasn't as in depth as I expected. Perhaps the historical documentation used to fill the book out wasn't as rich as the author originally anticipated. Whatever happened, the result is a book that feels choppy and stilted in too many places.

There were some excellent pictures, and parts of the book were briefly exciting, but it was an uninspiring read overall.

I truly believe that everyone, everywhere should read this book. The story of Ernest Shackleton and his crew's incredible survival is exciting and inspiring, drawing from the personal journals of Shackleton and his men. There are some genuinely funny moments, particularly when Shackleton describes the penguins they encounter, and many more heartbreaking moments. An appendix gives essays from the scientists aboard the Endurance, covering topics from whales to meteorology to sea ice.
This book could greatly benefit from a map showing the paths traveled by Shackleton and his men, as well as some of the amazing photographs taken by the expedition's photographer, Frank Hurley.

This is a book which once started is hard to put down! Venturing into possibly the most unwelcoming area on Earth, Shackleton and his team faced the most overwhelming difficulties in trying to make mankind's first crossing of the Antarctic continent. Although they failed to achieve their aim, most of the party survived against incredible odds.

The book has a host of excellent photos, and the comments added to Shackelton's text by editor Peter King are very helpful. Unfortunately the maps are rather short on detail, so a good atlas is useful to have on hand.

Shackleton's story is a powerful illustration of the wisdom of the maxim "Never give up."

Pages 153 to 180 are repeated, and then 181 to 209 are missing (gone south?). Also, there is no general map in a book which discusses the geography and navigation of the expedition at length. There are lots of good b&w photos, and the story in absorbing, but this is some seriously sloppy publishing.

Rob Anzellotti