Shackleton: Antarctic Odyssey

The story of Ernest Shackleton is gripping in any format, but I loved this graphic novel reincarnation. Shackleton was an Antarctic explorer, one of the last from the Heroic Age of polar exploration. Having missed discovery of the pole by less than one hundred miles, and beaten to that prize by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, Shackleton proposed the first trans-continental expedition across Antarctica, by foot and dogsled, crossing the South Pole on the way. He never got there. His ship, the Endurance, became trapped in pack ice for months, until it was crushed in the ice floes. The men had to make their way across shifting oceanic ice to try to find a solid camp. Eventually, Shackleton and a few others left their comrades and took another harrowing trip across open ocean, in small ship’s boats, to find a whaling station eight hundred miles away.

The miraculous journey and the incredible survival and rescue of the entire expedition, with no fatalities, is captured with intense drama in Shackleton: Antarctic Odyssey. Vivid moments of humor, suspense, terror, and relief absorb the reader from start to finish. The story is exciting and harrowing, and this book brings it all superbly to life.