Icebound

Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World

De: Andrea Pitzer

Narrado por: Fred Sanders

In the bestselling tradition of Hampton Sides’s In the Kingdom of Ice, a “gripping adventure tale” (The Boston Globe) recounting Dutch polar explorer William Barents’ three harrowing Arctic expeditions—the last of which resulted in a relentlessly challenging year-long fight for survival.

The human story has always been one of perseverance—often against remarkable odds. The most astonishing survival tale of all might be that of 16th-century Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of sixteen, who ventured farther north than any Europeans before and, on their third polar exploration, lost their ship off the frozen coast of Nova Zembla to unforgiving ice. The men would spend the next year fighting off ravenous polar bears, gnawing hunger, and endless winter.

In Icebound, Andrea Pitzer masterfully combines a gripping tale of survival with a sweeping history of the great Age of Exploration—a time of hope, adventure, and seemingly unlimited geographic frontiers. At the story’s center is William Barents, one of the 16th century’s greatest navigators whose larger-than-life ambitions and obsessive quest to chart a path through the deepest, most remote regions of the Arctic ended in both tragedy and glory. Journalist Pitzer did extensive research, learning how to use four-hundred-year-old navigation equipment, setting out on three Arctic expeditions to retrace Barents’s steps, and visiting replicas of Barents’s ship and cabin.

“A resonant meditation on human ingenuity, resilience, and hope” (The New Yorker), Pitzer’s reenactment of Barents’s ill-fated journey shows us how the human body can function at twenty degrees below, the history of mutiny, the art of celestial navigation, and the intricacies of building shelters. But above all, it gives us a firsthand glimpse into the true nature of courage.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Narrator Fred Sanders's grave voice and understated performance work well for this grim and brutal history of Arctic exploration. In the sixteenth century, Dutch explorer William Barents set out three times from Amsterdam to search for a northeastern passage through the Arctic to China. Everyone made it home the first time. The second time, Barents lost crew members to polar bear attacks, drowning, and a mutiny. The third expedition was a disaster, with the ship lost and the crew forced to overwinter in the Arctic. Sanders's narration is quiet and grim, a style that makes the grisly polar bear attacks easier to handle."

Extraordinary survival story

While the author had to draw largely on the day to day log entries, the story came alive with animated prose and a real feel for the struggles of the crew.

A slog

Although books on polar exploration are my favorite genre, this one was a real slog. Three stars for the amount of research done to produce this much (excruciating) detail. Narrator was a good one to fall asleep to at night, which I did over the course of forcing myself to continue this book to the end.

Fascinating story told as if you were there

This visceral tale of hardship and death that took place 500 years ago feels if if you're following along today. The research, writing, and narration are all great and it was suspenseful even as a historical piece with a fixed outcome.

Made me appreciate the simple things

While listening I imagined being there and what the brave sailors went through on a good day let alone the desperate situation they were in. Amazing any of them survived to tell the story and build a legend.

Stick with it!

Stick with it! I thought it started very slowly; I almost gave up. The actual accounting of their time in the Arctic was fascinating and awe inspiring!