An Unsung Hero
Tom Crean – Antarctic Survivor
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An Unsung Hero
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Narrated by:
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Gerry O'Brien
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By:
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Michael Smith
About this listen
Tom Crean was the farmer’s son from Kerry who sailed on three major expeditions to the unknown Antarctic over a century ago. He served with both Captain Robert Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton, spent longer on the ice than either and outlived them both.
But Tom Crean returned to Ireland and never spoke about his exploits, taking his incredible story to the grave – until the publication of An Unsung Hero, which unearthed his story and saw him rightfully placed amongst the annals of the great explorers.
©2009 Michael Smith (P)2021 Bolinda PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
Ejnar Mikkelsen was devoted to Arctic exploration. In 1910 he decided to search for the diaries of the ill-fated Mylius-Erichsen expedition, which had set out to prove that Robert Peary’s outline of the East Greenland coast was a myth, erroneous and presumably self-serving. Iver Iversen was a mechanic who joined Mikkelsen in Iceland when the expedition’s boat needed repair.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Accent
- By Sarabeth on 03-03-22
By: Ejnar Mikkelsen, and others
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Shackleton
- The Biography
- By: Sir Ranulph Fiennes
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
In 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton's attempt to traverse the Antarctic was cut short when his ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice. The disaster left Shackleton and his men alone at the frozen South Pole, fighting for their lives. Their survival and escape is the most famous adventure in history. Shackleton is a captivating new account of the adventurer, his life, and his incredible leadership under the most extreme of circumstances.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Armchair Quarterbacks View?
- By jack rogers on 03-07-25
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The Lost Men
- The Horrowing Saga of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party
- By: Kelly Tyler-Lewis
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed south aboard the Endurance to be the first to cross Antarctica. Shackleton's endeavor is legend, but few know the astonishing story of the Ross Sea party, the support crew he dispatched to the opposite side of the continent to build a vital lifeline of food and fuel depots.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Just OK
- By Michael on 05-17-07
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The Man Who Ate His Boots
- The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage
- By: Anthony Brandt
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 289
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 245
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 245
The enthralling and often harrowing history of the adventurers who searched for the Northwest Passage, the holy grail of 19th-century British exploration. After the triumphant end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British took it upon themselves to complete something they had been trying to do since the 16th century: Find the fabled Northwest Passage, a shortcut to the Orient via a sea route over Northern Canada. For the next 35 years the British Admiralty sent out expedition after expedition to probe the ice-bound waters of the Canadian Arctic in search of a route.
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5 out of 5 stars
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They don't get any better than this
- By Christopher on 08-15-14
By: Anthony Brandt
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Left for Dead
- Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
The best-selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters tells the story of a wild encounter between an American sealing vessel, a shipwrecked British brig, and a British warship in the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812. Fraught with misunderstandings and mistrust, the incident left three British sailors and two Americans including the captain of the sealer, Charles H. Barnard abandoned in the Falklands for eighteen months.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great history
- By Pullman on 07-31-24
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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The Worst Journey in the World
- By: Apsley Cherry-Garrard
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 20 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 717
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 532
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 529
This gripping story of courage and achievement is the account of Robert Falcon Scott's last fateful expedition to the Antarctic, as told by surviving expedition member Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Cherry-Garrard, whom Scott lauded as a tough, efficient member of the team, tells of the journey from England to South Africa and southward to the ice floes. From there began the unforgettable polar journey across a forbidding and inhospitable region.
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4 out of 5 stars
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What a story!
- By A. Massey on 05-25-04
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Fatal North
- Murder and Survival on the First North Pole Expedition
- By: Bruce Henderson
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 128
It began as President Ulysses S. Grant's bid for international glory after the Civil War - America's first attempt to reach the North Pole. It ended with Captain Charles Hall's death under suspicious circumstances, dissension among sailors, scientists, and explorers, and the ship's evacuation and eventual sinking. Then came a brutal struggle for survival by 33 men, women, and children stranded on the polar ice.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An average reader says 10
- By Barbara on 11-10-16
By: Bruce Henderson
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Race for the South Pole
- The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen
- By: Roland Huntford
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 198
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 170
For the first time ever Roland Huntford presents each man's account of the race to the South Pole in their own words. In 1910, Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen set sail for Antarctica, each from his own starting point, and the epic race for the South Pole was on. 2010 marks the centenary of the last great race of terrestrial discovery. For the first time Scott's unedited diary entries run alongside those of Amundsen and Bjaaland, never before translated into English.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great account, might be better in hard copy
- By Error9312 on 05-24-22
By: Roland Huntford
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South
- The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
- By: Sir Ernest Shackleton
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 234
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 209
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 209
As war clouds darkened over Europe in 1914, a party led by Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to make the first crossing of the entire Antarctic continent via the Pole. But their initial optimism was short-lived as ice floes closed around their ship, gradually crushing it and marooning twenty-eight men on the polar ice. Alone in the world's most unforgiving environment, Shackleton and his team began a brutal quest for survival.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This is a must read.
- By Charles on 10-01-12
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Endurance
- An Epic of Polar Adventure
- By: F.A. Worsley, Patrick O’Brian - preface
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 14
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 12
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Story5 out of 5 stars 12
"You seriously mean to tell me that the ship is doomed?" asked Frank Worsley, commander of the Endurance, stuck impassably in Antarctic ice packs. "What the ice gets," replied Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition's unflappable leader, "the ice keeps." It did not, however, get the ship's twenty-five crew members, all of whom survived an eight-hundred-mile voyage across sea, land, and ice to South Georgia, the nearest inhabited island.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best narration possible for this
- By Amazon Customer on 08-19-24
By: F.A. Worsley, and others
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N-4 Down
- The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia
- By: Mark Piesing
- Narrated by: Matt Jamie
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
Triumphantly returning from the North Pole on May 24, 1928, the world-famous exploring airship Italia — code-named N-4 — was struck by a terrible storm and crashed somewhere over the Arctic ice, triggering the largest polar rescue mission in history. Helping lead the search was Roald Amundsen, the poles’ greatest explorer, who himself soon went missing in the frozen wastes. Amundsen’s body has never been found, the last victim of one of the Arctic’s most enduring mysteries....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting and entertaining
- By 2451 on 09-01-21
By: Mark Piesing
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A Land So Strange
- The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca
- By: Andres Resendez
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,519
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,152
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,154
In 1528, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: Delayed by a hurricane, knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, and ultimately doomed by a disastrous decision to separate the men from their ships, the mission quickly became a desperate journey of survival. Of the 300 men who had embarked on the journey, only four survived - three Spaniards and an African slave.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A worthwhile listen
- By Blake on 07-10-13
By: Andres Resendez
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Astor
- The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,271
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,151
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,150
From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A family first made, then destroyed by wealth.
- By Barbara W. on 09-23-23
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
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Wanderlust
- An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age
- By: Reid Mitenbuler
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 232
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 201
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Story5 out of 5 stars 201
Deep in the Arctic wilderness, Peter Freuchen awoke to find himself buried alive under the snow. During a sudden blizzard the night before, he had taken shelter underneath his dogsled and become trapped there while he slept. Now, as feeling drained from his body, he managed to claw a hole through the ice only to find himself in even greater danger: his beard, wet with condensation from his struggling breath, had frozen to his sled runners and lashed his head in place, exposing it to icy winds that needed only a few minutes to kill him. If Freuchen could escape that, he could escape anything.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazingly in-depth look at an amazing person.
- By Dave on 06-18-23
By: Reid Mitenbuler
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The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins
- Australia's Greatest Explorer
- By: Peter FitzSimons
- Narrated by: Robert Meldrum
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived. The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography, then sailing for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner - all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Written for a juvenile audience
- By P. Wendell on 04-21-25
By: Peter FitzSimons
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Empire of Ice and Stone
- The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk
- By: Buddy Levy
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 395
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 348
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Story5 out of 5 stars 347
In the summer of 1913, the wooden-hulled brigantine Karluk departed Canada for the Arctic Ocean. At the helm was Captain Bob Bartlett, considered the world’s greatest living ice navigator. The expedition’s visionary leader was a flamboyant impresario named Vilhjalmur Stefansson hungry for fame. Just six weeks after the Karluk departed, giant ice floes closed in around her. As the ship became icebound, Stefansson disembarked with five companions and struck out on what he claimed was a 10-day caribou hunting trip. Most on board would never see him again.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My Second Favorite Polar Exploration Book
- By Than on 02-23-24
By: Buddy Levy
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The Last Viking
- The Life of Roald Amundsen
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 477
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 422
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 420
The Last Viking unravels the life of the man who stands head and shoulders above all those who raced to map the last corners of the world. In 1900, the four great geographical mysteries - the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole - remained blank spots on the globe. Within twenty years Roald Amundsen would claim all four prizes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding.
- By Leon Miller on 12-01-15
By: Stephen R. Bown
Well told account of this shy hero
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Incredibly Engrossing
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Tom Crean: Modern day Bear Grills
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The fearless of a hero who truly was unsung and persevered under the mist challenging circumstances!
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One of Ireland’s and the world’s finest explorers.
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Well read, compelling for Shackletonians
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Must listen for all polar exploration aficionados
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FABULOUS...!!! A must read...
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Riveting
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Great adventure story.
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