What Are You Reading ?

[Ruby]

Still singing from the same hymn sheet! The obsession continues - I just bought The Ship Beneath the Ice. This is about how Endurance was located and I've just started it. Really must move on from Shackleton at some point, LOL ... I see Ranulph Fiennes has just released a book about Lawrence of Arabia which might be worth delving into. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to yet another perspective provided by this author who actually saw her with his own eyes, and further tales of derring do!  

Well that was a different perspective indeed and there are many videos on YouTube that one can find to see actual footage of the trip of the Agulhas II and so on. Again - there is information from diary entries and descendants that did not appear in Shackleton's own account, or others. A tale with many nuances! The search for Endurance, while infinitely plainer sailing than anything undertaken all that time ago, was not that easy either. Even a hundred years or so later and with vastly improved technology, nature remains the ultimate and unstoppable force to be reckoned with. Mensun Bound is knowledgeable but unfortunately not that great a writer and the book takes the form of sort of journal entries most of the time - it all builds a picture though and I remain a Shackleton groupie! 

The www is an amazing thing sometimes - it's astonishing what one can dig up. There is film footage from the Endurance expedition that has survived, quite fascinating to see - and there are other snippets of film of Ernest Shackleton too. I wondered if there were recordings of his voice - and I found one - speaking of their experiences on the Nimrod expedition ... it seems to be genuine - I checked a few sources.