Polar Regions Books

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition

Caroline Alexander

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 161 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Melding superb research and the extraordinary expedition photography of Frank Hurley, The Endurance by Caroline Alexander is a stunning work of history, adventure, and art which chronicles "one of the greatest epics of survival in the annals of exploration." Setting sail as World War I broke out in Europe, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, led by renowned polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, hoped to become the first to cross the Antarctic continent. But their ship, Endurance, was trapped in the drifting pack ice, eventually to splinter, leaving the expedition stranded on floes--a situation that seemed "not merely desperate but impossible."

Most skillfully Alexander constructs the expedition's character through its personalities--the cast of veteran explorers, scientists, and crew--with aid from many previously unavailable journals and documents. We learn, for instance, that carpenter and shipwright Henry McNish, or "Chippy," was "neither sweet-tempered nor tolerant," and that Mrs. Chippy, his cat, was "full of character." Such firsthand descriptions, paired with 170 of Frank Hurley's intimate photographs, which are comprehensively assembled here for the first time, penetrate the hulls of the Endurance and these tough men. The account successfully reveals the seldom-seen domestic world of expedition life--the singsongs, feasts, lectures, camaraderie--so that when the hardships set in, we know these people beyond the stereotypical guise of mere explorers and long for their safety.

Alexander reveals Shackleton as an inspiring optimist, "a leader who put his men first." Throughout the grueling ordeal, Shackleton and his men show what endurance and greatness are all about. The Endurance is a most intimate portrait of an expedition and of survival. Readers will possess a newfound respect for these daring souls, know better their unthinkable toil and half-forgotten realm of glory. --Byron Ricks

Annapurna

Maurice Herzog

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Amazing Story of Incredible Human Endurance 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Wow! This is one of those real life adventure stories that has you wondering how much more the people can endure before they collapse and die. These guys climbed one of the world's most difficult mountains with old climbing technology. What they lacked in modern equipment, they made up for with strength and fitness. The more I read about mountaineering, the more I agree that it is 75% mental and 25% physical. Being in the best physical condition possible definitely gives you a better opportunity for success on high ground. If you liked this book, I encourage you to read my book "Rocky Mountain Adventure Collection". Best wishes on your adventures in life!

Good book 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book may have began a genre of climbing/adventure accounts because it was written some time ago, and this, more than the content (in my opinion) is the reason this book is the number 1 mountaineering book of all time; at over 11 million copies sold.

The first part is a bit slow and sort of parallel's the teams slow slogging through the land to get to the mountain. Overall, this was a harrowing and heroic feat, and gripping to read. It also opens the door to following books which dispute Herzog's point of view.

Good, not great. And there are some great books about climbing.

Editorial Review:

BASIC BK, SEA KAYAKING

Antarctica (Country Guide)

Jeff Rubin

Amazon Price: $18.71 List Price: $25.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Lonely Planet Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $17.77

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Just looking at the hauntingly sculpted blues, vast horizon-touching Shelves, and towering behemoths of Antarctica's ice formations makes the traveler know why she wants to go there and why she needs a good guidebook. Lonely Planet has once again done its homework. In addition to a thorough and succinct history section, useful overviews of Antarctic tour companies, information about how to plan your trip, detailed maps, and interesting facts about the places you'll visit, this book includes a 32-page color wildlife guide that introduces you to Chinstrap penguins, elephant seals, and eight types of whales.

LP has sought out the experts on Antarctic issues to write about science, environmental, and exploration issues. Shaded boxes offer in-depth highlights about topics such as traveling by zodiac (the small inflatable boats used by tour companies--ideal for cruising among "bergy bits"), Antarctic fiction, glaciology, and icebergs: "The Antarctic ice sheet is the iceberg 'factory' of the Southern Ocean. The total volume of ice calved from the ice sheet each year is about 2300 cubic km, and it has been estimated that there are about 300,000 icebergs in the Southern Ocean at any one time."

This book offers sage advice and is not afraid of the stark and sometimes dangerous realities of traveling to such a harsh and foreboding land: "If you fall overboard, you will die. Although this may not be true in every single case, it is almost certain, for human survival in the -1.8°C water of the Southern Ocean is calculated in minutes. Since drowning is thought by some to be preferable to freezing to death, one bit of only half-cynical advice for those who fall overboard is to swim as hard as you can for the bottom."

Mawson's Will: The Greatest Polar Survival Story Ever Written

Lennard Bickel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Bickel's Gift 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Rarely has fiction served the truth so well. Rarely has the truth served fiction so well.

Mawson's own account of his ordeal, in "The Home of The Blizzard", seems relatively matter of fact. We may not have marvelled at Mawson's accomplishment in surviving if we relied only on his way of telling it. Although a good writer, his specialities were geography and exploration.

Bickel's presentation here in "Mawson's Will" makes Mawson's accomplishment more touching than Mawson's own presentation. But it took an extraordinary writing accomplishment by Bickel to convey Mawson's accomplishment. Poetic license? To fail to understand how much faithful art it took to go from Mawson's diaries and book to Bickel's account would be to not appreciate how much effort and skill it took for Bickel to bring Mawson's tale so fully alive. If Bickel hadn't taken poetic license, this tale may have been of more interest to the most purist historian but it would have been of far less human interest. Sensitive to our lack of understanding of the Antartic experience, Bickel put us there in a way we never could have gotten from Mawson's own account. The last one hundred pages of "Mawson's Will" are as riveting as anything I've read in years.

Bickel's faithfulness to Mawson has made this a special work of art. Because of Bickel, we can be amazed at how Mawson survived and understand something profound about the human will.

P.S. I wake up the next day to find the story is still strong on my mind. Mawson returned to Australia to find his beloved waiting, married her, in time actually returned to the Antartic for exploration, and lived til 73. While we may never face as extreme a challenge as he did, there seems lessons here in the value of perserverence, in the benefits of careful self-management, and in the role of loved ones in making life worth living. This is an unusual book and Mawson and Bickel have made a special contribution far beyond whether land was claimed through exploration.

Editorial Review:

Australian Sir Douglas Mawson chose not to go with Robert Scott to the South Pole in 1911, but instead set out on a less prestigious expedition to chart Antarctica's coastline. Mawson was not inexperienced - in 1908 he had led an important expedition to the South Magnetic Pole - but nothing could have prepared him for what happened on this trek. Mawson's task was to chart 1,500 miles of coastline and claim it for the British crown. Setting out in a party of three, he faced mountains, crevasse-filled glaciers, and 60-mile-per-hour winds. Six weeks and 320 miles out, one man fell into a crevasse, along with the tent, most equipment, and all but a week's supply of food. After losing his other companion and the dogs, Mawson fought his way back home alone through horrific wind, snow, and cold to leave his own mark in history.

Red Summer: The Danger, Madness, and Exaltation of Salmon Fishing in a Remote Alaskan Village

Bill Carter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A vivid, unforgettable account of the danger, pain, and joy of working on a salmon fishing boat and living in a small village on the farthest edge of Alaska

Set in the tiny Native village of Egegik on the shores of Alaska's Bristol Bay, Bill Carter's Red Summer is the thrilling story of one man's journey from novice to seasoned fisherman over the course of four beautiful, brutal summers in one of the earth's few remaining wild places. As millions of salmon race toward their annual spawning grounds, Carter learns the ancient, backbreaking trade of the set net fisherman, one of the most exhilarating and dangerous jobs in the world.

Housed in a dilapidated shack with no hot water and boarded-up windows that keep the bears at bay, Carter spends his days battling the elements on the river and his nights drinking whiskey with a memorable group of hardworking, hard-living characters. There's Sharon, the tough, charismatic woman who runs Carter's fishing crew; Carl, her stoic but warmhearted colleague; and a half-dozen local fishermen, many born and raised in this unforgiving place. Their stories -- harrowing, touching, full of humor -- all underscore the credo of the village's fishermen: Do the work or leave.

Carter's crew is imperiled a number of times as tides rise, nets are snagged, and the weight of too many fish threatens to sink their boat. Written with gusto and honesty, Red Summer brims with astonishing human experience and joins the grand tradition of books written by great American outdoorsmen-writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Edward Abbey, Peter Matthiessen, and Sebastian Junger. Red Summer will appeal not only to fishermen, naturalists, adventurers, and armchair anthropologists alike but also to anyone who has ever yearned, however privately, to escape the bonds of modern civilization.

South: The Last Antarctic Expedition of Shackleton and the Endurance (The Explorers Club Classic)

Sir Ernest Shackleton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Trust your money and your life but not your wife with Ernest 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

What an expedition! There is a lot to be learned about leadership and survival by the adventurers on this journey. If you like men against the elements, who survive by their wits and never ever give up, this is the tale for you. A great winter read.

No one could tell this experience better than Sir Ernest Shackleton himself! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

After more than a year of seeing pretty much nothing but ice and snow, and living in, at times, sub-zero temperatures, Sir Ernest Shackleton writes about his camp's current conditions; "Drifts four feet deep covered everything, and we had to be continually digging up our scanty stock of meat to prevent its being lost altogether... On this day, and for the next two or three also, it was impossible to do anything but get right inside one's frozen sleeping bag to try and get warm. Too cold to read or sew, we had to keep our hands well inside, and pass the time in conversation with each other." He's so matter-of-fact... no fluff here. He just tells it like it is. I love that about this book. The conditions worsen by leaps and bounds as the story continues, but I'll leave that for you to explore on your own. Anyway, the first few chapters are very informative regarding how the expedition was planned, where they were headed, how they got there, etc... for me, it started a little slow, but I understand why the writer wanted to include this information. So, then you get into the "meaty" survival stuff... and is it ever so fascinating. And for me, it's especially fascinating because it doesn't seem to be sugar-coated, as so many writers are proned to do when telling their story. In fiction, I don't mind so much the way a writer gives you every detail, written ever so eloquently, but when it comes to true stories... especially survival stories, I personally just want to hear the straight talk. A GREAT SURVIVAL STORY AND PERFECTLY WRITTEN for this reader.

Editorial Review:

This first-person account of the Endurance crew's famed odyssey across the frozen Antarctic is a classic tale of survival, resolve, and leadership.

Antarctica Wildlife 5th (Bradt Guides)

Tony Soper

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Editorial Review:

Both a beautiful and practical guidebook, Bradt’s Antarctica Wildlife has remained a perennial favourite with cruise voyagers to this remarkable continent and a book suitable for natural history lovers to dip into.

This guide covers Antarctica’s major land, sea and air species. Each mammal, bird or creature has been illustrated with a fine original watercolor by Dafila Scott, with a concise but descriptive passage by high-profile natural historian, Tony Soper. An ideal gift or souvenir for travelers on tour, it also makes a perfect armchair read and would grace a coffee table or library collection.

The Antarctic: From the Circle to the Pole

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

serenely gorgeous 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I had to go to the post office to pick up my package and couldn't wait until I got home to open it. I opened it right there in the post office, "This is beautiful," I said out loud. The layout is so perfect for the pictures - it opens lengthwise. Other people standing in line all had to take a peek and loved it too.

Editorial Review:

Antarctica remains largely unknown and infinitely fascinating. Stuart Klipper has traveled to Antarctica six times in twenty years to photograph this astounding body of work offering a sweeping look at this majestic continent which has lately become central to global climate change concerns. Shot in panoramic format—the only way to encompass a landscape that seems to stretch on forever—Klipper's work captures major features and surprising details: ships suspended in the frozen sea glowing blue icebergs vistas of endless snow and troops of penguins. This volume's substantial size panoramic shape and unique vertical-opening case emphasize the grandeur of these austere and lovely photographs from the bottom of the world.

South: The Endurance Expedition (Penguin Classics)

Ernest Shackleton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Great account of adventure and survival in Antarctica. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is one of the best survival/adventure stories that you will ever read. The events which take place during the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917 are re-told by several different points of view and this gives the overall story a multi-faceted persona. The main re-telling of the story of the ENDURANCE is told primarily from Shackleton's point of view and re-affirmed through diary notes of his mates. His point of view is very straight-forward. He doesn't dwell on the painful and depressing conditions as you might expect but, seems to exude a strong, matter-of-fact leadership style which most likely gave his men strength in the face of such disastrous and dangerous conditions. Contrast his account of the ENDURANCE voyage with that of the AURORA which was originally planned to be the expedition's supply ship and you clearly see what I am talking about. The painful, weakened conditions of the AURORA men is agonizing to read...frostbite, scruvy, depression, fatigue, hunger, thirst, and the loss of 3 of their comrades. This is not implying that Shackleton never mentions the poor shape of his conditions or of his crew; it just seems that he doesn't dwell upon it however worried he may have been. Yet, we sense his concern for the failing health of some of his men and we share his pride when they are in fact rescued from Elephant Island and he watches them eat "proper" food for the first time in a very long time. In fact, one can hardly review this book without letting Shackleton, in his own words, describe the joy that found when they encountered when his small party found the whaling village at Stromness Bay, "We had pierced the veneer of outside things. We had "suffered, starved, and triumphed, groveled down yet grapsed at glory, grown bigger in the bigness of the whole."...We had reached the naked soul of men." This is truly one of the greatest adventure stories ever written.

Editorial Review:

Veteran explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s excruciating and inspiring expedition to Antarctica aboard the Endurance has long captured the public imagination. South is his own first-hand account of this epic adventure.

As war clouds darkened over Europe in 1914, a party led by Shackleton set out to make the first crossing of the entire Antarctic continent via the Pole. But their initial optimism was short-lived as ice floes closed around their ship, gradually crushing it and marooning twenty-eight men on the polar ice. Alone in the world’s most unforgiving environment, Shackleton and his team began a brutal quest for survival. And as the story of their journey across treacherous seas and a wilderness of glaciers and snow fields unfolds, the scale of their courage and heroism becomes movingly clear.

The Worst Journey in the World

Apsley Cherry-Garrard

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

As Apsley Cherry-Garrard states in his introduction to the harrowing story of the Scott expedition to the South Pole, "Polar Exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised." Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World is a gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. The youngest member of Scott's team, the author was later part of the rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and three men who had accompanied Scott on the final push to the Pole. These deaths would haunt Cherry-Garrard for the rest of his life as he questioned the decisions he had made and the actions he had taken in the days leading up to the Polar Party's demise.

Prior to this sad denouement, Cherry-Garrard's account is filled with details of scientific discovery and anecdotes of human resilience in a harsh environment. Each participant in the Scott expedition is brought fully to life. Cherry-Garrard's recollections are supported by diary excerpts and accounts from other teammates. Despite the sad fate of Scott, the reader will grudgingly agree with the closing words of The Worst Journey in the World: "Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion. And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.... If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg."