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Summary: Incredible photos; great story; well-written.
Review: Having read many Artic and Antartic exploration books, this book's text ranks among the best. It focuses particularly on the individuals and their interactions, as opposed any particular character, or logistics. What puts this book over the top is the photographs. They are extraordinary.
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Summary: Phenomenal photographs, but Lansing tells the story better
Review: This book is worth purchasing for the fantastic Hurley photographs. But for the best told version of the story, the Lansing book is still supreme. Alexander can't compete describing the heart-stopping thrills and terror of the journey. If you are only going to read one Endurance book, get the Lansing one instead. Having read that one, you'll probably want to get this one, too. Perhaps some day the ideal version will appear -- the Lansing text with these Hurley photographs.
Rating: 
Summary: Four and half stars, really
Review: When you consider when they were taken, how they were taken, and what they survived through, these are miracle photographs! They are truly artistic. This is an excellent book, and an amazing story. However, Ms. Alexander's prose is sometimes confused -- is it a documentary, or is it a story? Regardless, the book is a good one, and worthy of purchase.
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Summary: An exquisitely drawn account of a heroic adventure
Review: Caroline Alexander's text more than amply matches the memorable photographic images in this quite wonderful book. I have been to South Georgia, have lingered over the grave and the memorial cross, and have long hoped for an account of Shackleton's achievement that combines the dash, bravura and romance of the whole affair. Caroline Alexander's book, which is surely destined to be definitive, fills the role just perfectly.
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Summary: Monumental adventure of survival and leadership
Review: I was awed by the hardships that 28 men were able to overcome in the harshest climatic conditions on this planet. I believe they owe their survival to the expedition leader, Sir Ernest Shackleton. He ultimately placed the lives of his men over a lifelong dream. At the same time, I was surprised at the lack of preparation that went into polar expeditions. In this particular case, man's ingenuity was enough to save them -- unlike Scott's expedition. The excerpts and quotes from the respective diaries were very personal and enlightening. I loved the photos!!! I plan to travel to the American Museum of Natural History to see the Endurance exhibition.
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Summary: This book will leave you amazed.
Review: This book is truly wonderful. It is an incredible story to begin with, but to read about it from the mens journals and see the fantastic photography will really help you realize how truly incredible these men were. It wont take long to read but you will thumb through it again and again.
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Summary: Your human spirit will live with this book
Review: Caroline Alexander's book touches something deep within our human spirit; challenge, hope, survival and love of life. For those who love to challenge themselves by the outdoors with the hope of great rewards these experiences can bring, read this book to understand how these pursuits can also provide very real dangers, except in this book the dangers go beyond one's imagination - twenty-two months in wet, sub-freezing conditions on ice, frozen lands and the Antartic's violent oceans.If you have read or enjoy reading books and adventures like Krakauer's "Into Thin Air," this book is a MUST read. Frank Hurley's photographs are excellent. Frank Hurley's committment to taking these pictures is unbelievable when considering the environmental conditions of this part of the world. My emotions rose and fell with the reading of "The Endurance." The book is a well-written tribute to the 28 men of the expedition. These men are adventurers and heroes beyond description. I was pleased with Ms. Alexander's afterword, which described what became of each of them after their rescue, this completed the story.
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Summary: An awe inspiring story of survival
Review: This book defines the true meaning of dicipline. I will not spoil the outcome for future readers, but let me say that the everyday hassels and tribulations we face in most of our lives pales in comparison to the raw "survival" depicted in this book. An excellent read (and the photos ... a miracle!).
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Summary: An Astonishing and Heart-Stopping Adventure!
Review: What might have been a dry re-telling of an ill-starred expedition is transformed instead, thanks to the brilliant Caroline Alexander, into a colorful and often heart-stopping account of an incredible journey of heroism and tenacity. I read "The Endurance" in one hearty, greedy gulp; at times I was trembling and weeping--at other times cheering and joyful. Even those with the most feeble imaginations cannot help but be moved by this testament of Human Will and, yes, "Endurance". The beautiful and sometimes astonishing photographs taken by Frank Hurley, laid out generously throughout the book, remind one that this was, indeed, a true account. My recommendation is this: BUY it, READ it, and TREASURE it, as shall I. You will not be sorry!
Rating: 
Summary: This is the greatest adventure story ever told.
Review: I fell into Shackleton's story like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, and I've never come up for air. This expedition has that effect on people -- it derails lives, makes converts; one doesn't just read this story and move on. It is a saga of almost unimaginable physical endurance, of course, but also a wholly unimaginable saga of survival of character. No one of the 28 men involved seems to have come out a lesser person than when he embarked upon the expedition, no one was brutalized by this experience. During the long months in the dying ship Endurance, camping as castaways on the ice, in the two great open boat journeys, the nearly five months on bleak Elephant Island the men seemed to have remained true to who they were. There was tension, friction, aggrevation, of course, but no one broke down and assaulted or turned on his fellow, or let the extraordinary privation debase him. I became interested in Mrs. Chippy in great part because the affection with which the men held their feline shipmate, and the fact that they contined to remember (and mourn) "her" years after was a clue to me that, although these men had endured an ordeal by fire -- or ice, in this case -- they had not become hardened. This is the element of this story that I believe could not be replicated again. In recent memory, one bad night on Everest resulted in endless recrimination. As we leave this century, which has shaped and nurtured all of us, our parents and our grand-parents, it will do us well to remember that the story of the Endurance may represent our finest hour.
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