Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

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An American journalist who wrote for Collier's, among other magazines and was later an editor for Time, Inc.

As to that final feat of mountaineering – no one was able to duplicate it until something like 2013. Shackleton and his men, who quickly become "as helpless and isolated from the outside world as if they were on another planet," show you, just as quickly, the best that humans can be. And it's not even close to what happened to Ernest Shackleton and his crew during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914.The heart of this journey was Ernest Shackleton himself, a man who led quietly and competently and never despaired; a man who showed great care and concern for his men and made tough decisions without looking backward; and a man who never gave up his faith or tenacity in the face of unbelievable odds. Traveling by dog sleds to jumping from one ice floe to another, then, boarding small boats to make it to nearby islands to survive is so well described by Alfred Lansing. In October, 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. The expedition was unsuccessful, and instead of a grueling polar crossing, Shackleton and his men faced the horror of being locked in an ice flow for months on end; stranded on the ice when their ship, Endurance, was crushed and sank; and forced to launch out into a frigid, deadly sea to reach the closest landmass not once, but twice. Just last year, the wreck of the Endurance was discovered nearly 10,000 feet underwater in the Weddell Sea.

Sir Raymond Priestly said of the 3 early Antartic explorers, Scott you want him for his Scientific method, Amudsen for his speed and eficiency. It is also a testament to the human will to survive against all odds and an ode to the burning and ever-present drive to explore the far reaches of the world. On the book itself, the narrative was written by piecing together all the events experienced by the crew of the Endurance, accomplished via combing through every diary kept during the expedition and extensive interviews with almost all the surviving crew members. I highly, highly recommend this classic true tale of survival to anyone who seeks to be inspired by the sheer indefatigable will, courage and nobility that humans can be capable of.

For anyone who is not familiar this story – quite simply, this must be the greatest true story of survival against all the odds and is simply unparalleled in our times. Both books are amazing, dealing with life and death situations outside of civilization, on the forefront of exploration. It is no spoiler to say that this is a story of survival – that fact is known to the reader at the outset. Shortly thereafter, Shackleton and 5 others sailed one of the boats 800+ more miles through the terrifying Drake Passage to South Georgia Island.