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Antarctic exploration - the ultimate team survival
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My heart belongs to the Franklin expedition, but I‘m trying to branch out! Endurance doesn‘t disappoint (truly HOW did they survive that) but I do have an unpopular opinion™️. I am not sold on Shackleton‘s leadership skills! Lansing glosses over mistakes and tends to give Shackleton full credit for feats that were group efforts (or even just Frank Worsley efforts, justice for Frank.) It felt biased and made me wonder about other sides to the story

This book tells the story of Captain Cook‘s final voyage and its well written. Just enough historical diary entries, explanations of ship maintenance and navigation, and a variety of characters lead this book to be entertaining. The colonialism isn‘t avoided, critiques about decisions are included, and shocking avoidance of death make it interesting.

My two Hampton Sides books from HPB. The tagged book should work for #readingOceania @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB

Mine is an #unpopularopinion, but I was bored to tears through most of this. I‘m sure the audiobook narrator didn‘t help, but there are nonfiction authors whose writing is more compelling, IMO. It wasn‘t until the last visit to the Hawaiian islands and Cook‘s death that things got interesting. I struggled to convince myself to pick it up, as evidenced by the fact that I finished with only 2 hours left on my Libby check out.

Voyager 1 is back online! What an amazing piece of technology. 47 years into a 5-year mission, both Voyager 1 and 2 are in interstellar space, having escaped the influence of the sun's solar winds and magnetic field. It takes almost two days to see how Voyager 1 will react to a command sent from Earth.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/voyager-program/voyager-1/voyager-1-returning-...

This is a pretty lively summary of readings about discoverers and “discoverers”, explorers and mapmakers. Inherently a volatile mix of political chicanery, the hubris of men that think it‘ll be fun to sail off the edge of the world, scurvy, occasional deaths by polar bear, and the vicissitudes of pre-industrial economics, expansionism, and mercantilism, I found myself grimly laughing at all these misadventures.

Read it.

It‘s history, so you think you already know how the story goes. But Hampton Sides somehow always manages to imbue his nonfiction accounts with suspense and a propulsive narrative that reads like a thriller. This details the third and final voyage of Capt. James Cook, which ended with his death in Hawaii in 1778. What precipitated that violent and tragic encounter on the beach? I couldn‘t put it down.

This is a fascinating look at Captain Cook‘s final voyage, from inception to conclusion. Using primary sources, it helps clear up some misunderstandings about him and explores some unknowns/remaining questions. (Did you know he never named a place after himself, despite being a prodigious mapmaker? All those places named after him were done by others.) I was riveted by it.

This is a detailed account of Peter Freuchen, a legendary polar explorer. He had one of the more ridiculous, badass, and gross survival stories from his days of exploring Greenland. Outside of polar exploration, his life was filled with a variety of unique adventures and twists and turns.

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