Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

I'm slowly working my way through all the polar expeditions that have gone awry. Turns out there's a lot of them, and they always seem to go poorly. Can't imagine why that is... it's a bit cold, sure, and there's not a lot of food to be had, but surely this one will turn out differently!

It doesn't.

Shackleton puts together a crew to reach the South Pole, but doesn't make it. They get stranded in ice long before they reach their goal, and end up drifting with it for quite some time until they send out a party to go for help. In the meantime, we get to know (some of) the crew of 27, and what it took to survive on the pack ice they were stuck on for so long.

I've read quite a few arctic expedition books at this point, and while this one was a great read, it lacked some of the flair and panache of some of the other books. Part of it is because this was originally written in 1959 from diaries and first hand accounts from the survivors, which is great, but some of the writing is a bit stale. I like that Shackleton actually seemed capable of leading his crew (unlike some others... *coughcough*Stefansson*coughcough*), and the crew actually seemed fairly capable and steady when compared to some of the other disasters I've read about.

This was really an interesting read, a bit stale in the writing, but otherwise kept my attention.