Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 26-30 of 409
 Endurance:Shackleton's Incredible Voyage April 28, 2008
Lois Elaine Wells (Flagstaff, Arizona United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was exactly what I wanted and it arrived in great shape. The service was excellent; thank you!
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage April 28, 2008
A. Orton (Heber City, UT USA)
Great book! We used this book in our book club. Everyone enjoyed it! Very interesting and kept your attention. You really felt like you were there on the ice with the men.
A great read... April 6, 2008
J. Drechsel (Columbus, IN)
This book is a treasure. It's hands down the best retelling of a survivor tale that I've read. The author just tells the story in such a simple and yet compelling way. The details that are included are incredible. And the story is totally miraculous. I recommend this book to anyone who likes history or tales of courage/adventure. I was blown away by Shackletons (and his men's) accomplishment in the face of what was should have been sure death.
Still going strong, almost five decades later March 5, 2008
Displaced Chzhead (St Louis, MO USA)
There's not much to add to the almost 400 reviews preceding-other than another five stars.
Working almost exclusively with a palette of black, white, gray and blue, Lansing manages to craft a vivid account of the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition of 1914. As others have mentioned, this story, as interpreted by Lansing, is so engrossing you won't want to put the book down. (Even after a second or third time!) It's also an interesting perspective on leadership under the most dismal conditions that can be imagined.
A tidbit from one of the one star reviews that deserves mention: there was more than one publisher for the paperback versions of this book; Carroll & Graf, and Tyndale. As I understand, the Carroll & Graf edition contains the familiar secular foreword followed by Lansing's original text. The Tyndale edition has a Christian themed foreword from James C. Dobson, followed by Lansing's text edited for a Christian audience. IF this bothers you, make sure you're getting the Carroll & Graf version! (Thanks, Joel Abrams, for that information.)
 A treasure, that astonishes repeatedly throughout... February 29, 2008
D. Afton (Michigan, USA)
Utterly astonishing book, that builds and builds, leaving the reader in near disbelief at the display of sheer will-power, persistence---and yes, endurance--of all these heroic survivors. After reading this, I went and read the several negative reviews here, and while at first I was puzzled and of a polar-opposite (pun intended) opinion, I quickly came to see how worthless said reviews are, when considering the sources, with their concomitant, atrocious grammar and spelling. One can only conclude that such reviewers, being more familiar with the "airport fiction" genre, are persons unfamiliar with the reading of history, true-life narratives, or maybe even of reading itself. Seriously, even a fictionalized account could hardly have been more gripping, especially toward the mid-point of the book and onward. The fact that this was real makes the book all the more fascinating and riveting.
Indeed, the book does not begin by suddenly plunging the reader into break-neck-pace action. Rather, there is a deliciously slow build-up---the descriptions of the preparations made for the journey ahead, and of the men and their individual temperament and personalities----which became more fleshed-out as their individual contributions toward survival was told. Yes, the first 1/3 of the book is low on pure action and adventure, since basically the men are merely camping (on an ice flow probably the size of a city), and the book narrates day-to-day life on the flow. But this is indispensable in fleshing-out the personalities of the characters, and in bonding the reader to these men; we truly care about them, as things get dangerously more dicey as the books proceeds.
Once the ice flow breaks-up, and the men take to the boats, there is no end to the excitement and exhilaration in reading this book. The reader will be amazed at how, right to the very end, fate seems to erect constant, seemingly insurmountable, barriers and impediments to their ingenious and courageous efforts at self-preservation.
One small criticism of the book: I wish there was a follow-up, prologue chapter, describing what happened to the men following their rescue---maybe a "where they are now" summary.
Again, I can't, for the life of me, understand how someone could give this a poor rating, unless, as I stated, one concludes such reviewers are ignorant and inexperienced practitioners of the reading and historical arts (again, you be the judge, after noting their misspellings and grammar).
Anyway, I will probably get this in hardcover, if available, as it is a worthy addition to my permanent library collection. And I will likely seek out more books and information on the subject.
Showing reviews 26-30 of 409
|
