Rating: 
Summary: You think you've got it bad?
Review: "The Worst Journey in the World" details the mother of all adventures. I've read other books about rogue waves and Himalayan blizzards but they are pansy tales compared to this. Cherry-Garrard went deep into fresh Hell and came back to tell us all about it. This book is packed solid with stories of exploration, scientific discovery and the price that must be paid for both. There are sections of this book that describe a different death on every page. Yet the book is not at all morbid. That's the magic of Cherry's writing skill - the ability to state the all detail in a way that will keep the pages flipping. Cherry must have been a fascinating man. His bright spirit spills from the book as soon as you open it and his book has lost nothing to time. The language is surprisingly modern and that makes this book very easy to read. "The Worst Journey in the World" is as fresh as today's news. Don't miss it.
Rating: 
Summary: A superb account of Scott's expedition
Review: "The Worst Journey in the World" is one of the finest pieces of travel writing in English. Cherry-Garrard starts his story in June, 1910, as the _Terra Nova_ is leaving Cardiff, and ends it in early 1913, with Robert Scott and four of his men dead on the ice. The book has two separate climaxes. The first is the "Winter Journey", which Cherry-Garrard took with Birdie Bowers and Bill Wilson, to recover Emperor penguin eggs, which were then (erroneously) thought to be scientifically important. Cherry-Garrard's prose is archetypically English, restrained and transparent; but his language almost fails him here. Only his understated style tells you how bad it must be for him to say of an Antarctic hurricane that hit them: "The earth was torn in pieces: the indescribably fury and roar of it all cannot be imagined." Later he makes it clear that for him there are no words that can convey it. This journey is, despite what comes later in the book, in some ways the most memorable chapter. It took five weeks, in Antarctic winter darkness. A temperature of -40 when they camped was a warm night for them. They lost their tent--certain death--blown away in a three-day hurricane, and miraculously found it again. It's no use; I can't give you an idea of it in this review; all I can do is tell you to read this chapter, if you won't read the whole book--you will never forget it. The second climax is of course the story of Scott's expedition. Five men died; Edgar Evans of scurvy; Titus Oates, who not long before the end, with horribly gangrenous feet, walked into the blizzard to die in the hope that the party would be less burdened without him, and Scott, Wilson and Bowers, found dead in their tent by Cherry-Garrard and the others of the search party eight months later, only eleven miles from a depot that might have saved them. Cherry-Garrard went with them as far as the top of the Beardmore Glacier, and tells the story from that point on using various diaries and journals of the rest of the party. Some of the secondary stories are in themselves amazing feats of heroism and endurance, such as Crean, who walked thirty five miles non-stop alone in the terrible cold to bring medical help for Lieutenant Evans, dying of scurvy. The one flaw is the maps; I wished for more of them, and more detail, though the two main journeys are covered well enough. I don't agree with those reviewers who found the book ponderous, though; it's detailed, but well-written. I found little I wanted to skip except the occasional list of stores. If you want the most recent historiography, analyzing why Scott's expedition failed while Amundsen's succeeded with so little trouble, you may want to go elsewhere. Here you'll find the record of a contemporary, a polar expert, passionate and sincere. An unforgettable book.
Rating:
Summary: A superb account of Scott's expedition
Review: "The Worst Journey in the World" is one of the finest pieces of travel writing in English. Cherry-Garrard starts his story in June, 1910, as the _Terra Nova_ is leaving Cardiff, and ends it in early 1913, with Robert Scott and four of his men dead on the ice. The book has two separate climaxes. The first is the "Winter Journey", which Cherry-Garrard took with Birdie Bowers and Bill Wilson, to recover Emperor penguin eggs, which were then (erroneously) thought to be scientifically important. Cherry-Garrard's prose is archetypically English, restrained and transparent; but his language almost fails him here. Only his understated style tells you how bad it must be for him to say of an Antarctic hurricane that hit them: "The earth was torn in pieces: the indescribably fury and roar of it all cannot be imagined." Later he makes it clear that for him there are no words that can convey it. This journey is, despite what comes later in the book, in some ways the most memorable chapter. It took five weeks, in Antarctic winter darkness. A temperature of -40 when they camped was a warm night for them. They lost their tent--certain death--blown away in a three-day hurricane, and miraculously found it again. It's no use; I can't give you an idea of it in this review; all I can do is tell you to read this chapter, if you won't read the whole book--you will never forget it. The second climax is of course the story of Scott's expedition. Five men died; Edgar Evans of scurvy; Titus Oates, who not long before the end, with horribly gangrenous feet, walked into the blizzard to die in the hope that the party would be less burdened without him, and Scott, Wilson and Bowers, found dead in their tent by Cherry-Garrard and the others of the search party eight months later, only eleven miles from a depot that might have saved them. Cherry-Garrard went with them as far as the top of the Beardmore Glacier, and tells the story from that point on using various diaries and journals of the rest of the party. Some of the secondary stories are in themselves amazing feats of heroism and endurance, such as Crean, who walked thirty five miles non-stop alone in the terrible cold to bring medical help for Lieutenant Evans, dying of scurvy. The one flaw is the maps; I wished for more of them, and more detail, though the two main journeys are covered well enough. I don't agree with those reviewers who found the book ponderous, though; it's detailed, but well-written. I found little I wanted to skip except the occasional list of stores. If you want the most recent historiography, analyzing why Scott's expedition failed while Amundsen's succeeded with so little trouble, you may want to go elsewhere. Here you'll find the record of a contemporary, a polar expert, passionate and sincere. An unforgettable book.
Rating:
Summary: A Nonstop Read
Review: "Worst Journey" allows you to walk with a portion of Scott's exploration efforts in Antarctica. I introduce this very thick book to others by reading a portion of the last paragraph aloud: ". . . And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.... If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg." This is in reference to the scientific "missing link" hypothesis of the 1910s and is directly applicable to our too-busy lives today. The book is hard to set down. After reading, portions positively haunt and contribute to day time thoughts and challenges. I frequently pull the book and reread chapters to recapture the sights, sounds, dedicated effort and "sense of place." The book "carries" with you. Read the paperback and follow-up with Wheeler's (2003) "Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrad."
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding tale
Review: A well-written, fast-paced description of what it was all really like to be part of an exploration team in Antarctica in the early part of the century. Stongly recommend this book to anyone with interest in exploration, Antarctica, or navigation.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of its topic and its era
Review: Although this book is something like 550 pages long, it maintained its grip on me for the three weeks it took me to explore it fully. Cherry-Garrard was a young wealthy Englishman with a longing to test his mettle, who joined the famously doomed Scott expedition to the South Pole. Despite a complete lack of experience, he proved to be both a stalwart explorer and an excellent writer. Imagine this: three men pulling their own sleds hundreds of miles across broken ice, living for weeks in temperatures as low as -77 F. Then, a blizzard. Then, there tent blows away and they are left in this blizzard with no shelter for more than a day. How will they ever make it back to the home base? This particular episode, Cherry's "Winter Journey", is only a detour on the main narrative about the journal to the Pole. Not only does he convey the "what" - the breathtaking and death-defying details of his experiences, he conveys the "why" - what it meant to him to be there, and why he went. If you have read elsewhere that the expedition proved to England that its men were still capable of great things, you may have scoffed at this as the last longings of a dying Empire. But when Cherry-Garrard writes it, it is with utmost sincerity, and you believe him.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of its topic and its era
Review: Although this book is something like 550 pages long, it maintained its grip on me for the three weeks it took me to explore it fully. Cherry-Garrard was a young wealthy Englishman with a longing to test his mettle, who joined the famously doomed Scott expedition to the South Pole. Despite a complete lack of experience, he proved to be both a stalwart explorer and an excellent writer. Imagine this: three men pulling their own sleds hundreds of miles across broken ice, living for weeks in temperatures as low as -77 F. Then, a blizzard. Then, there tent blows away and they are left in this blizzard with no shelter for more than a day. How will they ever make it back to the home base? This particular episode, Cherry's "Winter Journey", is only a detour on the main narrative about the journal to the Pole. Not only does he convey the "what" - the breathtaking and death-defying details of his experiences, he conveys the "why" - what it meant to him to be there, and why he went. If you have read elsewhere that the expedition proved to England that its men were still capable of great things, you may have scoffed at this as the last longings of a dying Empire. But when Cherry-Garrard writes it, it is with utmost sincerity, and you believe him.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting topic but unfocused book
Review: Am I the only one who didn't love this book? After reading about Shackleton's adventures in the book "Endurance", I longed to read more about antarctic exploration. However, "The Worst Journey in the World" fell far short of my expectations. The first half was too long and not written well enough to sustain my interest. The author kept going off on tangents that made it hard for me to focus on this book. The story picks up in the second half, but I was sorely disappointed. Check out "Endurance" for a better read.
Rating:
Summary: A tragic story
Review: An amazing story, but tragic that Scott could not see the benifit of dogs. He took 4 good men with him. The winter journey is awesome. For the dedicated Antarctic reader.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing...
Review: Apsley Cherry-Garrard has truely given us an epic for exploration and adventure. This book conveys the horror, tragedy, and even ironic humor of Scott's ill-fated last expedition in an extremely eloquent manner. Cherry-Garrard could not more fairly credit his companions. From the beginning, he is modest and places huge credit on his fellow explorers. In particular, he talks about Bowers, Wilson, and Scott with a sense of awe and immense respect. The countless horrors of Scott's journey are described graphically, and it was easy to imagine anything from leaping from ice-flow to ice-flow for ours on the depot journey to stumbling upon the dead bodies of his friends. I enjoyed every minute of it. The Worst Journey was incredibly inspiring. After reading the book, I felt like I could do anything, take on any challenge. The troubles they endured, the lifestyle they adapted to, is mind-numbing. It is difficult to imagine surviving such things. In the "Winter Journey," one of the most difficult Journey's ever experienced by man, Cherry-Garrard and two other men struggle through the Antarctic Winter to Cape Crozier to obtain Penguin Eggs. They travel in pitch black, around giant crevasses, in frozen clothing, in -70 degree temperatures, and with sleeping bags that take hours to get into. This was the most intense, gripping reading I have ever done. No matter who you are, you will like The Worst Journey In The World. Fantastic writing, gripping plot, and visual descriptions will keep you glued to the book. And when it's done, you will not want to stop reading.
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