“Grann weaves tales of historic expeditions into his dimensional portrait of the driven Worsley…”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
David Grann is currently one of our best non-fiction writers. His last two books, The Lost City of Oz and Killers of the Flower Moon we’re both outstanding feats of writing and also we’re both very successful in sales. Now he has turned his attention to Antarctica and the South Pole and he tells us the story of Henry Worsley.
Mr. Worsley is a direct descendent of Robert Worsley who sailed with Ernest Shackleton on his quests to reach the South Pole. And Antartica is in his blood. In 2008 upon his retirement from the British military he teamed up with two other direct descendants of that voyage to recreate one of Shackleton’s voyages. On this trip they wanted to recreate Shackleton’s furthest point South south trip before the Pole had been reached. In 2011 they went back with three other adventurers to recreate Raul Amundson’s successful trip to be the first to reach the Pole, and in 2012, he went back alone to Antartica to attempt to be the first man to cross the continent unaided.
Gran captures the details of all three trips, plus provides a short history of Shackleton and his famous trips, including the tale of the Endurance.
The book comes with beautiful color photographs taken by Worsley and his companions.
This is the story of what a person can achieve when he puts his entire body and mind into achieving things which, on the face of it, appear to be impossible. Mr. Worsley belonged to another age, the age of exploration when so many men achieved so much but at times at terrible sacrifice.
A beautiful book which can probably be read in one sitting as it’s length is only 160 pages, I highly recommend it.
Reviewed by:
Richard Franco
Added 4th April 2019
