Rating: 
Summary: Incredible but true
Review: In 1915, Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and left on his attempt to cross Antartica, a feat that had not yet been accomplished. Somewhere in the Weddell Sea, Endurance was caught in the ice. The floes of ice kept the Endurance for nearly a year, during which time, Shackleton kept his men together and alive. Finally, Endurance was crushed by the ice, and the real adventure began. Shackleton and his men, using the lifeboats from the Endurance traveled to Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton and 5 crew members embarked on an 850 mile open sea voyage in one of the lifeboats to bring back a rescue party for the remaining 22 men. The voyage is considered one of the most remarkable voyages in seafaring history.This is a good book. I really enjoyed reading it. It doesn't flounder about with long-winded descriptions of everyday life, but you get a real sense of what these men went through. This was definitely a more rugged era! Mr. Lansing brings this entire adventure to life and once the final voyage begins in the book, it was extremely hard to put it down!
Rating: 
Summary: Inspirational Adventure
Review: What a great book. I read this while sitting in a center seat on a 19 hour flight Hong Kong. Under such conditions, it is rather difficult to be on the edge of your seat. But, this book managed to keep me there. I think the thing that most amazed me about this story is the courage of the men as they went through this ordeal.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, great story.
Review: While this book dragged in parts, it was an excellent (and detailed) account of an amazing adventure. I enjoyed it.
Rating: 
Summary: Historically Boring
Review: I had to read this book for my school over the summer, and I have to say that I was got very bored after the first couple of chapters. It was like reading a history book, and seeing that History is one of my worst classes I didn't enjoy it very much. There were too many dates and information to keep tract of to enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Truly incredible
Review: This book should be assigned reading for high school and college students. I wished I had read this book earlier so I could have seen how trivial people's everyday problems were compared to what Shackleton and his crew faced. It is an incredible story of survival and leadership. Even though this book was written so many years ago, it is in accessible language and it draws from the diaries of the men in the crew. It doesn't have pictures but I thought it was better that way because I could focus on the story itself. Alfred Lansing's language is very accessible and although some of my friends mentioned that the navigation/boating language was sometimes too much for them to follow, they appreciated it nonetheless because it made everything more real. It immersed them into the story. The book does rush through the last part of the rescue process a bit, but there are other books out there that can fill in the gaps. This book is a classic, if you are looking for a book to begin to get to know Shackleon, his crew and their incredible voyage, this is it.
Rating:
Summary: "You won't be able to put it down!"
Review: If the reader is a scientist, as I am, he will be rapt with the descriptions of physical phenomena: the variatons in ice forms, the extreme weather caprices, the landforms, and the awesome power of the ocean. If the reader is a biologist, or in any way interested in wildlife, he will experience the entire range of human emotions in the descriptions and events dealing with a wide variety of animals. Finally, as a human being, the reader will draw tremendous inspiration from the characters and their experiences in thier perilous struggle to survive in one of Earth's most extreme environments. Lansing's prose is excellent; his words carefully chosen and orchestrated, with religious adherence to his diligent, extensive research. Upon finishing the book, one has more profound appreciation of the word "Endurance" and Sir Ernest Shackleton as one of history's most extraordinary heros.
Rating:
Summary: An Incredible Read
Review: We read this in our book group and everyone thought that this was the best adventure book they had ever read. It is not just a book a man would enjoy even though it seems more like a mans book. Once you start you can not put this one down!
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Story
Review: The story of the Endurance and the courage of its crew is one of the most amazing adventures of the 20th Century. It is of a time before radio, GPS, helicopter airlifts, and Polartec arctic gear. Their survival was miraculous. Lansing's work is based on interviews with some of the then-surviving officers and their logs. He tells the story in a methodical, dispassionate "Dragnet" style. At times you almost want to scream at him to inject some of his own emotion into the book, or to tell us what he thinks the crew was thinking. (One wonders what Minchener could have done with the story.) But through it all this is a very good read, proving once again that "truth is stranger than fiction." I had one ironic thought: the crew experienced innumerable hardships during their months in Antarctica. At the same time, their peers were experiencing similar hardships in the trenches in France and Belgium or in the Royal Navy. Could it be said that the tragedy actually saved them from the carnage in Europe?
Rating:
Summary: Amazing story!
Review: This book tells the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-16. Lansing wrote the original manuscript in 1959, based on the diaries and recollections of the expedition's members. He tells this gripping story in a spare prose that only adds to the story's terrific suspense. Shackleton's aim was to compensate the Empire for the American Robert Peary's being the first to reach the North Pole in 1909 and for the Norwegian Roald Amundsen's beating Robert Scott to the South Pole in 1912. With 27 men, Shackleton set sail in the Endurance from Buenos Aires in October 1914, seeking to make the first overland crossing of the Antarctic - an ambition not achieved until 1958. They left the island of South Georgia in December, but in January the Endurance became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea, and stayed trapped for nine months until she sank in November. They were 1200 miles from the nearest human beings. They had no radio transmitter and no hope of rescue. The crew now struggled North for six months, travelling 400 miles, walking and dragging their three boats, drifting on fragile ice floes. They launched the boats after the pack ice finally released them, and made a six-day voyage to Elephant Island, where Shackleton left 22 men camped. Then he and five crewmembers sailed 850 miles back to South Georgia - sixteen days, in an open twenty-foot boat, across the stormiest ocean in the world. Shackleton and two others then trekked across the mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, a crossing next made in far easier conditions in 1955. The tale shows how all the men discussed what they had to do next and how, once they took a decision, they implemented it. It also shows Shackleton's extraordinary powers of decision and judgment. Despite their appalling ordeals, they didn't lose a man. No wonder that Chris Bonington called it 'the greatest survival story of all time'.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent tale of adventure and leadership.
Review: The story of how Shackleton and the crew of the Endurance were able to overcome the overwhelming odds of survival is simply amazing. This book is as much a story of leadership as it is survival. The inner thoughts of the crew are shown in an amazing series of exerpts from journals and interviews. This story is one that many people will be hearing about over the next few years as major television and movie productions are based on it.
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