Antarctica: or, Two Years Amongst the Ice of the South Pole - Otto Nordenskjöld

⭐ 8.0/10

(Originally written by Rebecca)

That's right, I'm still on my bullshit (reading books about antarctic exploration during the turn of the 20th century). I don't know exactly what drove me to read this one, a 600-page tome about the 1901-1904 Swedish expedition, except that I do and it's that it sounded a lot like the Endurance expedition. Similarly, these fellas ended up stranded out there for several years without knowing exactly how they'd get back. But they had it a bit better--there was more wildlife for them to eat, and most of them had pretty decent shelters. "Most of them?" you ask? Yeah, they were separated into 3 groups, all separately stranded on different islands. Anyway, the twists in this one were pretty insane, but the really interesting stuff only started like 40% of the way in, and before that it was a lot of science and geography. The book was written by 4 different guys from the expedition, and the main guy wasn't exactly a gripping storyteller.

In any case, I had a blast. I don't think anyone not extremely into polar exploration would be able to stick it out until the really good parts though. You can just ask me to tell you about it.