I've finished reading Endurance (Ernest Shackleton) by Alfred Lansig and every few pages I felt I was not worthy of what I was reading.
Every page had me hanging on, I'm ashamed to say as an Irish man, I was aware of the story but truly I didn't know anything about it. My eyes were spinning in my head at what 28 men went through over the course of two plus year separated from the world.
Quite literally
the most anti-soy story you will ever read. An antidote to every film you've seen and moral relativism story of the last century. The thoughts of this odyssey/ordeal being filmed in the right way would single handedly course correct our societies (half joking). Every story within a 100 mile radius could fuck off compared to this one and looks like a child's finger painting.
A PETA REEEEEEEE fest: dogs, penguins, sea lions birds murdered over and over and in the most savage ways.
If you want a mind reboot on what you're capable of, read this. Yes it is sometimes repetitive, sprawling and you will be sick of the term "ice floes" much like the men themselves. The story is fucking ludicrious. I felt like I was being driven bonkers along with them.
We've devolved in a very real sense. This was an Age of Heroes, truly feels mythic. The way they maintain composure and even smile in the face of death consistently....at sub zero temperatures for two years, wearing same clothes for two years
Stop what you're doing and buy. Even halfway though it, I felt changed by it. Shackleton and his men, who quickly become "as helpless and isolated from the outside world as if they were on another planet," show you, just as quickly, the best that humans can be.
I was going to put it in the positivity page. The book has an understated feel to the descriptions and yet its incredibly tense.