Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Which of Shackleton’s leadership qualities do you find most applicable to challenges in your own life?

2. The crew maintained remarkable optimism despite their dire circumstances. When have you relied on positive thinking to overcome difficulty?

3. What everyday conveniences do you think you would miss most in a survival situation like the one faced by the Endurance crew?

4. The book shows how isolation affects people differently. How do you personally respond to isolation?

5. The men alternated between focusing on immediate survival tasks and allowing themselves to dream of rescue. How do you balance immediate concerns with long-term hopes?

6. Recall a moment when you witnessed or participated in an act of generosity during hardship, similar to when the crew shared their milk with Greenstreet after his was spilled.

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Lansing’s account was written in 1959, decades after the expedition. How do you think an author writing in the 21st century might approach the same subject matter? What has changed about society’s concept of heroism and exploration since the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration” depicted in the book?

2. How might the expedition reflect broader societal attitudes about risk, adventure, and nationalism during the era of World War I?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. What techniques does Lansing use to build and maintain tension throughout the narrative, even though readers likely know the expedition’s outcome?

2. How is the Antarctic environment portrayed in the book? How does this environment connect to the book’s key themes? 

3. The symbolic meaning of the ship’s name plays out through multiple characters and situations. Where do you see this symbolism most powerfully expressed?

4. Lansing frequently describes the ice and the ship’s destruction in almost human terms. What purpose does this personification serve?

5. The narrative draws heavily from journals and firsthand accounts, similar to the approach used in Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea. How does this documentary style affect your connection to the story?

6. What aspects of Shackleton’s character does Lansing emphasize at different stages of the journey? What is your impression of Shackleton overall?