How long is it?
416 pages in the Basic Books 2015 trade paperback edition.
Nonfiction · Biography & Memoir · History · Travel
Endurance
Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 29 / 100Light
- Length
- 416 pagesBasic Books · 2015
- Reading time
- 8 h 15 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Brisk
- Emotional intensity
- 4 / 5
About 8 h 15 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 17 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Ernest Shackleton’s planned crossing of Antarctica becomes a struggle to bring twenty-seven men home after their ship, Endurance, is trapped and crushed in the Weddell Sea. Setting out in 1914, the expedition faces months on drifting ice and journeys in small open boats, carrying supplies salvaged from the wreck. Alfred Lansing reconstructs their ordeal from crew diaries and interviews with survivors, tracing the work of finding food, keeping warm and maintaining morale.
Reader notes
The narrative stays close to practical emergencies and individual decisions, building suspense from the daily business of survival. Long periods of confinement alternate with desperate physical effort; Shackleton’s leadership matters, but the sailors remain distinct people whose skills and temperaments affect the group.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Descriptive · Direct · Journalistic
- Tone
- Earnest · Suspenseful · Tense
- Structure
- Chronological nonfiction
- Driven by
- Character · Plot
- Setting
- Weddell Sea · Antarctica and the Southern Ocean
- Evidence style
- Archival history · Primary documents
- Practical orientation
- Reflective
- Nonfiction form
- Biography · History · Narrative nonfiction
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 2 / 5
- Structure
- 2 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Community
- Nature and environment
- Survival
Content notes
- Violence
- Strong
- Sexual content
- None
- Swearing
- Mild
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- None
- Self-harm or suicide
- None
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Basic Books · 2015 · Trade Paperback. ISBN 9780465062881.
How long does it take to read Endurance?
About 8 hours 15 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 416-page Basic Books edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Alfred Lansing
Alfred Lansing was an American journalist and writer best known for Endurance, his account of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition. His method joined a reporter’s documentary research to the forward movement of narrative history. He interviewed ten surviving members of the expedition and consulted the journals and diaries of eight others, using those perspectives to reconstruct the ordeal in practical detail. The book follows the men from the entrapment and destruction of their ship through drifting ice, open-water journeys, and the continuing problem of rescue. Lansing’s direct, descriptive prose organizes the story around successive crises of leadership, seamanship, improvisation, and collective discipline.
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Edition and details
- Publisher
- Basic Books
- Publication year
- 2015
- Format
- Trade Paperback
- Pages
- 416
- ISBN
- 9780465062881
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 1959
- Genres and form
- Nonfiction · Biography & Memoir · History · Travel · Popular history · Survival adventure · Biography
- Editions
- 20
- Languages
- 3 (English, French, Unspecified)