South

Explorer Ernest Shackleton's first-person account is the stuff of legend. While sailing in Antarctica in their ship, ENDURANCE, he and his men became locked in sea ice. The gripping tale of their subsequent voyage across 600 miles of ice floes and 850 miles of violent seas has entranced readers since it was first published after WWI. Now audiobook listeners have an opportunity to join the Shackleton expedition as it battles temperatures of minus 50 degrees and winds of 80 mph. Geoffrey Howard's splendid rendition conveys the genuine drama of the story without succumbing to false dramatics. His Shackleton has a deep-voiced charm; he is witty, calm and, most important, masterly in a crisis. In short, Howard's Shackleton sounds exactly as we imagine an explorer should sound. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine


Save this audiobook for summer listening. Its great, and true, adventure story of Antarctic exploration will take you to frigid places on a hot day. When their ship was crushed by ice on the Southern Ocean, Shackleton led his entire party to safety across hundreds of miles of open sea more than a year later. Narrator Rupert Degas captures the spirit of the man: hearty, plainspoken, determined, and devoted to the welfare of his crew. His stoicism makes the rare moments of deep emotion--for example, when their ship, ENDURANCE, finally slips beneath the ice--even more affecting. While the scientific appendix may be less interesting to some listeners, Degas enhances it with a variety of voices. D.M.H. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine