Shackleton

Rating:
Summary: The most thorough biography
Review: This is one of the finest biographies I have ever read. It utilizes correspondance of people familiar with Shackleton, family memebers. The diaries of members of his expeditions. This provides a straight forward view of Shackleton's life exploitations, improprieties, conquests and road blocks. By the time you finish the book you will feel as if you have met and spent time with this eplorer

Rating:
Summary: Actually, two and a half stars.
Review: This LENGTHY biography of the British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton is unquestionably fully researched, highly detailed and competently written. Yet, long tracts left me bored to tears. The essence of this great man's life is more concisely presented in Alfred Lansing's "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage", a much shorter work that specifically chronicles the quest of the ship Endurance, a failed South Polar expedition that metamorphosed into a remarkable odyssey of incredible hardship and gritty survival, and a tribute to Shackleton's ability to lead men to hell and back - without the loss of even a single life. Buy the latter rather than the former, especially if you have too many books to read and too little time.