Unlike the other biographies I've read of Shackleton and his contemporaries, this was written by Sir Ranulph Fiennes who is a polar explorer himself. Fiennes inserts some of his own experiences to explain or make guesses about what happened on Shackleton's expeditions. That was very interesting to me. ( )

This is a solid biography, although I'm not sure how much Fiennes's own exploration experience mattered to it. Fiennes is particularly good at describing the competition between polar explorers.

> After a number of polar expeditions with one companion, and others with two, I look back and can see that things were always easier with just one other person. With only two of you, each time the leader makes a decision that the other person disagrees with, the latter will usually chew the matter over in their mind and will usually do as they are told. But with three, if two disagree with the leader’s decision, they might discuss it among themselves and an awkward mini-revolt may result. Even if this fails, it can lead to a bad atmosphere.

> In his diary, Shackleton titled a page ‘Desire’ and wrote below a list of foods, which included sirloin steak, crisp fried bread, jam pastries and porridge. Every recorded dream also involved eating some sort of food. In one of them, he dreamed that ‘fine three-cornered tarts are flying past me upstairs’.

> When he learned of Shackleton’s plans to land at McMurdo Sound, Scott fired off another letter, telling him such a destination was off limits. ‘I think anyone who has had anything to do with exploration will regard [McMurdo Sound] as mine,’ Scott wrote. ‘It must be clear to you now that you have placed yourself in the way of my life’s work. If you go to McMurdo Sound you go to winter quarters which are clearly mine.’

> a peculiar sort of ethics had grown up regarding rights and where people could travel. Jean Charcot, a French polar explorer, later said as much, stating, ‘There can be no doubt that the best way to the Pole is by way of the Great Ice Barrier, but this we regard as belonging to the English explorers, and I do not propose to trespass on other people’s grounds.’ Amundsen, Scott’s later rival, clearly agreed with this, for he wrote to Nansen, ‘It is my intention not to dog the Englishmen’s footsteps. They have naturally the first right. We must make do with what they discard.’ Broken promise notwithstanding, landing at McMurdo Sound still proved a challenge

> Wilson was entirely unforgiving. In a letter to a friend he later said of Shackleton’s broken promise to Scott: As for Shackleton I feel the less said the better … I am afraid that he has become a regular wrong’un … In fact I have broken with him completely and for good, having told him in a somewhat detailed letter exactly what I thought of him and his whole business. I consider he has dragged Polar Exploration generally in the mud of his own limited and rather low-down ambitions.

> it was perhaps the printing press that gave Shackleton, and the men, most joy. The South Polar Times, as mentioned, had been a huge success on the Discovery, but this time around Shackleton wanted to publish a book for the party to read, with everyone contributing. It was to be titled Aurora Australis, with Marston producing the artwork and Shackleton again using the pseudonym Nemo.

> The ponies fared little better on the ice. Unbelievably, they weren’t shod, which meant they constantly slipped and fell. Scott was later to note the excellent results of easily fitted snowshoes for ponies in soft snow conditions, but I can find no record of Shackleton’s team even considering using them.

> Amundsen broke the momentous news that he had reached the pole itself on 14 December 1911. Opting to set up camp at the Bay of Whales, 100 miles closer to the pole than if he had wintered at McMurdo Sound, Amundsen tried a new route to the pole, heading for the uncharted Axel Heiberg Glacier in the hope it offered a shorter and less hazardous journey. For haulage he used fifty-two trained dogs (no ponies) and skis. His gamble paid off, and he reached the pole in thirty-three days. His focus, however, had been on just reaching the pole, rather than being weighed down by any scientific commitments.

> Markham also hit out at Amundsen’s use of dogs and claimed that Scott’s achievement in reaching the pole, via man-hauling, was the real test of a man and ‘the true British Way’. This was of course totally untrue, as Scott had also used ponies and dogs. Nevertheless, such was Markham’s disgust that when the RGS later finally agreed to host a dinner for Amundsen, he resigned from the RGS Council. At that same dinner, with Shackleton present to congratulate his rival, Lord Curzon could not resist insulting Amundsen. Rather than asking for three cheers for the explorer, he instead asked for ‘three cheers for the dogs’. British newspapers were also unable to accept that a foreigner had beaten Scott to the pole, leading to Amundsen later writing that ‘by and large the British are a race of very bad losers’.

> Scott and his party of Wilson, Bower and Bates had indeed reached the pole but all had perished on the return journey, ridden with exposure, starvation, frostbite and hampered by poor surfaces and appalling weather ( )

A great book more special because it was written by someone whose polar adventures are comparable to Shackleton. Fiennes's insights can't be matched by other biographers. It would be easy to see Fiennes interjections as sort of like, yeah I did more and better, egotistical, but it's not that. As Fiennes reviews Shackleton's life his own comes to the fore, the two mix in fruitful ways. ( )

As with his masterful biography of Captain Scott, Ranulph Fiennes has delivered a definitive book on one of the great Antarctic explorers. Fiennes' unique insight into the experience gives his account a veracity that no other living author can match. As ever, his prose is gripping and compulsive. I only wish the book had been longer. Highly recommended. ( )