A good book about the true story of this event. It was engaging and kept me interested even tho I already knew the basic events.

What a fantastic read! I enjoyed the adventure of looking for the Endurance.

Mensun Bound takes the reader on a fabulous journey, looking for the wreck of the Endurance, and tracking Shackleton's adventure at the same time. There are ups and downs, as the first expedition hits several snags, leaving the crew dejected and upset over the lack of finding anything concrete. But the next try might yield better results, giving the team what they are looking for.

This book crosses between Shackleton and Bound, giving glimpses of the first journey, which was fraught with danger and unexpected hardships.

Loved this one immensely!

I love this story so much, but the writing was pretty not-great! i wish he'd had more editing - or less editing - or tried less to write it like a writer instead of a scientist.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Ship Beneath the Ice is a great nonfiction read about the team that found the shop Endurance, and the measures and hardships they faced along the way. It's a great read for anyone that is a fan of Shackelton or any that is interested in this type of read.

However, at times I found the writing to jump around between 1900s and 2000s which would not be my preference. It was also very heavy on acronyms. I would not recommend for a relaxed reader such as myself.

Written in the style of a captain's log, this book chronicles the author's journey to discover the remains of Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance. Mixing historical content and more modern information regarding climate change and how the area has now become a destination for tourists and scientists. I thought it was decently written, but it did not grab my personal attention.

I received this book in exchange for a review, but all opinions are my own.

Would you like to read someone's diary? Ok, but what if that diary is about finding a sunken ship under the ice of Antarctica? Now I have your attention, don't I?

Mensun Bound's The Ship Beneath the Ice follows two attempts by Bound to locate Endurance. Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated ship sank over 100 years ago and there are some pretty good leads about where it is exactly. Unfortunately, it is in the most inhospitable place on Earth.

Bound writes a day by day diary of his two missions to locate Endurance. You would have to ignore a lot of news to not know how the second mission finally turned out. Bound also intersperses insight from Shackleton's famous trip into his own experiences. This method of telling a story is very effective at first. Bound is open about his own self-doubt, his challenges, and what Endurance means to him. I enjoyed having a narrator who is so candid about his feelings and fears.

Unfortunately, it starts to slow the narrative down by the end of the book. Bound is still talking about the original Endurance mission in the final chapters and it gets distracting rather than enlightening. By that point, you just want to hear about the outcome of the mission and what it means. It doesn't ruin the book by any means, but it takes a little shine off the apple.

(This book was provided to me as an advance copy by Netgalley and Mariner Books.)

Thank you NetGalley and Mariner Books for accepting my request to read and review The Ship Beneath the Ice -- The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance.

Published: 02/28/23

This was a miss for me, personally. I am a long-time Shackleton follower. I've read, watched, and studied Shackleton my entire adult life.

Bound told too much of Shackleton's story. The book is finding the Endurance. I see two parts, two separate entities.

If I was gifted this book, I would be happy and shelve it. However, I wouldn't pick it up for myself. After reflecting for several days, I decided I've reached a point with Shackleton where it's out with the old and in with the new. How many people will Google Endurance? Shackleton?

A really great read about the team that found the wreck of Shackleton's Endurance and what it took to both get there and then actually find it. While the author discusses aspects of the original voyage, I highly recommend that you read the excellent Alfred Lansing book "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" to get the full story [and the full craziness of that whole trip and the subsequent survival story] before diving into this book.

While there are parts that were pretty technical [and may or may not have made my eyes glaze over a tad], overall, it is a very good read and a perfect companion to the Alfred Lansing book. I have to admit to being pretty excited when they finally find the wreck; I cannot even imagine how cool that must have been. Well done.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mensun Bound and Mariner Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A fascinating story of the modern search for Shackleton's lost Endurance, let down by the writing. The first part is the first venture, in 2019, where the crew had nature throw pretty much everything at them- which means they learned a lot- but didn't set eyes on the ship. I hadn't known (or remembered if I did know) about this expedition and there was plenty of interesting information about what is involved in a modern Antarctic expedition. Everyone knows about the second trip in 2022 because they found the Endurance. This is Mensun Bound's story, based on his diaries, so it is from an archaeological perspective, but also from the perspective of someone deeply inspired by Shackleton-because few other people would go looking for the Endurance, considering the conditions.

The writing style was my main problem, I found it a let down. The tenses change regularly, which always annoys me in a book. The shifts between Bound's exploration and Shackleton's trip work some of the time but not always and towards the end I felt like he put in more of the Shackleton expedition quotes than we really needed to describe the ship. Or maybe they would have fit better somewhere else? There were an overwhelming number of weird analogies and metaphors that added nothing. But this is a very boots on the ground kind of a story of the discovery of Endurance, which gives it a place on the shelves of ice explorers. The descriptions of the conditions they went through alone probably make it worth the read. Hard to imagine that, as difficult as it was in a modern ship, any wooden ship of an earlier design had a chance in the same situations!

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

An intriguing account of the quest to discover the wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance.

Generally in my nonfiction polar science/history reading, I prefer accounts of the original voyages to those of modern quests to follow up on them, but this is a fun, informative tale, well told in narrative fashion, about the group that eventually salvaged the wreck of the Endurance after it succumbed to its environment off the Antarctic coast.

Bound is a much better narrator than most in his profession, a bit on the goofy, philosophical side but also affable, enthusiastic, and not too mired in the tech nerd lingo of his profession to tell a good story to the masses.

The descriptions of both ships and of Shackleton’s semi ill-fated journey were much more to my liking than the parts of the book that focused on how things like modern ice cutting tools work (my mind wandered a bit during these segments), but on the whole it’s a well-balanced and complete account of Bound and his team’s two attempts (one failed, one successful) to find the Endurance.

Mensun Bound’s "The Ship Beneath the Ice" is unique in that the reader is brought along on two incredible adventures that took place over a century apart — Sir Ernest Shackleton’s doomed expedition to the Antarctic, which is the most incredible story of survival and human grit that I can fathom, and Mensun Bound’s Expedition to find Shackleton’s lost ship, which sunk beneath the ice in “the worst patch of the worst portion of the worst sea in the world.”

I learned A LOT in this book. I can’t even count the number of times I stopped to annotate a note saying “wow!” or “unbelievable!” However, the book still wasn’t as much of a page turner as I thought it would be. It’s pretty detail heavy, including on the science and technology of the modern-day expedition, and while I appreciate that it is important information, it did bog down the story a bit for me.

The glimpses into Shackleton’s expedition were fascinating and the research into the diaries of Shackleton’s men was superb. I loved reading the excerpts, learning about the different personalities, and seeing how the history mirrored and informed the modern-day mission. However, some of the flashbacks didn’t flow seamlessly and left the book feeling a bit choppy.

My favorite part of "The Ship Beneath the Ice" is how much Bound’s voice comes through the pages. There are some exceptionally beautiful quotes peppered throughout, and Bound was able to make me feel his elation, his disappointment, and his determination. I was truly rooting for him!

The heroing survival of the men on the app name ship the endurance is a story I had never heard an end this book written by Mensun Bound he tells in Journal form not only their story but the story to retrieve the long ago lost ship. I love the way he wrote this book in the credit he gave to all of those who had a hand in trying to retrieve the SS endurance. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and love adventure expeditions feel like the author gave voice to one of the modern day adventures and although he has made it his career to retrieve lost ships I don’t think I could get tired of reading about it. I thought this book was well written greatly detailed and a definite must read for adventure seekers in those who love to read about others seeking adventures. I received this book from NetGalley and Harper Collins and Mariner books but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

A tremendous novel about the hardships and determination to accomplish their dreams. The story will keep your attention and you will find the hardships they endured to be inspiring. A great read!

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.