In the Kingdom of Ice, by Hampton Sides

This is the story of the USS Jeannette, the U.S. Navy boat which in 1879 carried 33 men north to find the North Pole. Two years on a ship trapped in arctic ice followed by a 1000 mile journey by foot and small boat to the Siberian coast and then winter sets in, again. This is a survival story that rivals, even eclipses in some ways, the Shackleton story (see earlier post from 2014, as brief as it was). I particularly enjoyed the non-expedition narrative - life in the mid to late 19th century in the U.S., other expeditions and the romance of adventure (why this was deemed so important in the public and government's eyes), current state of knowledge regarding Earth's geography - many thought that there was an open sea at the North Pole which was surrounded by an "annulus" of ice (a fairly ludicrous thought in retrospect especially given the nascent stages of the Industrial Revolution), and the exploits of Bennett, the owner of the New York Herald newspaper (the paper of the day) which financed the entire expedition. This is a rapid and engrossing read. Truly worth my time (and thanks to my colleagues who told me to read it).