Rating: 
Summary: Great tale, but told better elsewhere
Review: Full disclosure: I read Caroline Alexander's book prior to Lansing's, and strongly believe - despite the hype surrounding Lansing's supposed classic retelling - that Alexander's is the superior work. This opinion is in some part based upon the impact of the lavish reprinting of Frank Hurley's photos in Alexander's book. By contrast, the poor reproductions appearing in Lansing's work are notable only by their odd selection. The small set does no justice to the tale at all. To think that the full impact of these photos was not revealed until the '90s in the form of Alexander's book and contemporaneous exhibits!! Lansing's book also perpetuates one of the big lies of Hurley's work: for some reason, the famous picture of the Elephant Island crew waving at a boat in the distance is termed as "The Rescue: Help comes at last." Instead - as Alexander clears up - this picture depicts the James Caird *leaving* the island on its start of the epic journey to South Georgia. Through the photos, Alexander's book gives you a better feel for the distinct personalities that make up the crew of the Endurance. But to give credit to Lansing, his effort certainly does a much finer job at detailing the deprivations and tribulations faced by the crew and throughout his tale, death seems a more probable outcome (and realistically so). Lansing seems to lose steam at the end: the trek across South Georgia and the trip back to Elephant Island is wrapped up in 20 pages, when it could easily make up an entire book. Then it's left to the publisher to add a couple of comments about some significant events after the journey is wrapped up. Good thing Alexander's work exists to feed the answers to the obvious question: how did life play out for these amazing inividuals?
Rating: 
Summary: a must read
Review: Forgive the cliches, excuse the platitudes. This tome is a must read. This story proves beyond any doubt that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. If it were a work of fiction, nobody would buy into it. What happened to the men of this expedition far transcends any reality we could possiblly comprehend. The men of this ill fated Antarctic expedition endured more hardship in any one week over an almost two year period than one would think even a super human being could handle. Day after day; week after weeek, month after month in miserable condtions, never knowing what misfourtune the next day would bring and all the while knowing that nobody else in the world knew they were even alive. I highly, highly recommend this incredible story of human courage. UNDAUNTED COURAGE by Steven Ambrose is also a great testament to the spirit of human survival, but ENDURANCE is even better, and believe me, as a huge fan of Ambrose, I do not make that statement without great thought and introspection. It's been a while since I read ENDURANCE, but it still astounds and inspires me. Read this book. Pass it on to a friend. You will never regret it; you will never forget it.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not the best
Review: I read Lansing's version of Endurance after having read Caroline Alexander's book because I had heard that Lansing's version is the "classic". While it is true that Lansing's book is very good and does capture the spirit of Shackleton's leadership and the incredible courage and endurance of the entire crew, I would recommend Alexander's book over Lansing's. Her book does a better job of personalizing the crew members and also reporting on their lives post-survival. She also includes some details of the journey which were left out of Lansing's book and which have led me to think that Lansing was "protecting" Shackleton in some way from any negative or potentially critical views--an entirely unnecessary thing to do given his incredible leadership of this voyage. Also, having the photographs from the voyage included in Alexander's book adds an important extra vantage point to the story.
Rating:
Summary: An all night read
Review: Whew!! is right. Reviewer Mr. Schaefer says it all. I have NEVER stayed up all night reading a book. But I couldn't put this one down. I was exhausted the next day from lack of sleep, but more from trekking with Shackleton and all those amazing men. Whew! Alfred Lansing was brilliant in his ability to combine all the diaries and interviews--to state a story simply and leave the reader breathless.
Rating:
Summary: "Forget 'Survivor,' This Is The Real Deal!"
Review: What was supposed to be an exploration of the Antarctic turns into a fight for survival for famed explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew. Trapped in an ice flow, their ship destroyed, forced to live on ice flow, crossing open seas in small boats. For two years they lived in bitter cold and constant dampness. They battled starvation, thirst and illness. Every other day the unpredictable Antarctic weather would descend upon them. Still they battled on in an effort to reach civilization.. Undoubtedly one of the most amazing non-fiction stories I ever read. The writing draws you in, makes you experience the crews' struggles first hand. Find out what it's like to sail a boat through horrid weather when you are dead tired and soaked through the bone. When you read this, you will feel guilty about complaining the next time you drag yourself into work fighting a cold. A stellar example that, even against the most impossible odds, people can still triumph.
Rating:
Summary: An Incredible Voyage
Review: What more can I add for a review, it already has 5 starts and there are 237 reviews before me. Let me just say that this story is one that I was familiar with. I knew the story and the outcome and yet I still found this book a fascinating read. The detail in which this book delves is rarely seen and makes this a page turner. Don't hesitate to read it, you will be rewarded for your endeavor.
Rating:
Summary: I¿ll never complain again!
Review: 'Endurance' is a great thriller made more so by the realization that this isn't fiction. I've read many novels about characters that manage to do the impossible but, until now, I have never read a nonfiction account of the impossible. Shackleton's crewmen described him as the "greatest leader on earth, bar none." That must be close to true for him to have brought them home safely from that incredible voyage.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: The book was recommended to me during a flight between San Jose and Los Angeles by a complete stranger. I was intrigued by the subject matter and even moreso by the reviews on Amazon. A superb book - I read it in its entirety during recent business trip flights. A gripping tale that, had it been a novel, I would have rejected as unbelievable, that man could endure so much and still live. Definitely 5 stars!
Rating:
Summary: An Antidote for the Age of Whining and Self-Absorption
Review: Everything that defines courage and leadership for our age and any other is within the 280 pages of this wonderful book. For nearly two years, in conditions of constant zero and below cold, freezing wet, and often hunger, Ernest Shackleton kept all 27 men who sailed with him on the Endurance alive to eventually return to the England they left on the verge of World War I. That single-minded devotion to his men should make this book required reading for every would-be politician and corporate executive before he dares ask for the faith, trust and respect of those he would lead. Lansing dedicated the book "In appreciation for whatever it is that makes men accomplish the impossible." He wisely and without flourish often lets the men's own words -- through the journals that many of them kept at the time and in interviews forty years later -- tell their extraordinary story, each stage of which reads more harrowing than the last. On an expedition that would have attempted to cross the Antarctic on foot (a feat not accomplished until four decades later), the Endurance is trapped in pack ice before it can reach shore. Shackleton's perhaps foolhardy original goal thus turns to keeping his men alive until they can be rescued. After ten months locked in the drifting pack, the Endurance is crushed and the men forced to abandon her for an ice floe, then several weeks later a smaller floe still. Eventually they take to three boats to reach forlorn Elephant Island from which Shackleton takes a skeleton crew of five and in a 22 foot open boat navigates the enormous seas of Drake's Passage to South Ascension Island. Once there he only (only!) has uncharted glaciers to cross to reach the whaling station on the other side of the island from which rescue of the Elephant Island castaways is eventually launched. The only other crossing of South Georgian Island by foot at the time Lansing wrote in 1959 occurred on a "easier" route with equipment and time. Shackleton had neither, only a fifty foot piece of rope, a carpenter's adze, and the knowledge that to stop moving was to invite death by freezing. At journey's end, to the astonished manager of the whaling factory, he says simply, "My name is Shackleton." I would have liked to have known him and all his men.
Rating:
Summary: Human endurance pushed to the limit
Review: An amazing story of human endurance. It is hard to comprehend what unbelievable hardships these men went through, but the author brings it home in a compelling manner. In these days of high tech solutions and all manner of equipment we often forget how a leader can pull a team through an incredibly difficult situation. Shackleton must go down as one of the world's great hero's and this book as a must read for anyone interested in history and peoples achievements.
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