Short Review | Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

If you asked me for a book recommendation, no questions asked, and you would read it, Alfred Lansing’s Endurance would be near the top of that list, if not the whole list.

In 1914, on the verge of WWI, Ernest Shackleton set sail on the Endurance, planning to sail to Antarctica and cross the frozen continent on foot. At the last moment, with British soldiers leaving for France to fight Germany, Shackleton almost canceled the voyage to put the crew of 27 at the disposal of the Government in the war effort. Then a one-word telegram arrived from the Admiralty: “Proceed”

Proceed Shackleton did, and the story that follows is legendary. Within six months, Shackleton’s voyage had navigated to within a mile of Antarctica, where the ice then locked around it, trapping it.

And that’s where the story really begins. Stuck in the ice, which treacherously shifted and moved around them, the men waited and bided their time, watching for spring and an opportunity to escape. It would be over two years before anyone heard from Shackleton and his men again.

When you pick up the book, avoid looking at the pictures and spoiling it yourself. Shackleton’s story is incredible, almost unbelievable, and Lansing’s writing provides urgency, analyzes its protagonists, and keeps you turning pages to the end. I was surprised to realize that this was Lansing never wrote another book, depriving the world of his talent and ability. It is a classic, an account of exploration, survival, and adventure, and told with all the power of a master of the English language, and we are lucky to have it.

Title: Endurance
Author: Alfred Lansing
Genre: non-fiction
Publisher: Basic Books
Release Date: April 1, 2015 (republished)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 357

In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. In January 1915, after battling its way through a thousand miles of pack ice and only a day's sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.

In Endurance, the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton's fateful trip, Alfred Lansing brilliantly narrates the harrowing and miraculous voyage that has defined heroism for the modern age.