South, by Shackleton, free ebook
- Thread starter bikedaft
- Start date
Poignard
Well-known member
Brilliant! Thanks. It's many years since I read that book and I remember enjoying it. Something to read by the fireside this winter.
Keep 'em coming!
ps it was still free 5 minutes ago.
Keep 'em coming!
ps it was still free 5 minutes ago.
ronsurf
Well-known member
Awesome! I bought it, cost nothing.
Now how do I read it. It's in my Kindle Cloud. Whatever that is....
Now how do I read it. It's in my Kindle Cloud. Whatever that is....
Poignard
Well-known member
Since nobody who has a clue what they're talking about has responded, I'll have a go!
I suggest you log into your Amazon account and find something called "Manage Your Content and Devices" then click "Your content" then select the book you have 'bought' and click "Deliver". Choose which device(s) you want it delivered to and click "Deliver". This seems to work for me.
bikedaft
Well-known member
Tho you may need to get the kindle app for your device first? I'm a bit hazy on this as i set that app up first when i got a mini ipad, and haven't needed to do it since
But if its in your cloud you can do this at your leisure
jerrytug
N/A
Kindled, thanks bikedaft you have come up trumps again. Shackleton was a sympathetic leader who consulted his crew about decisions, unlike Scott who was a hard driving bastard, in my view anyway. I can't wait to get stuck in, Jerry
Hydrozoan
Well-known member
Thanks bikedaft.
Metabarca
Well-known member
Excellent, thanks Bikedaft!
richardhilton590
N/A
I'm hoping that it's still free. Thanks for letting us know. I've wanted to reread that book some time ago but haven't had the chance to do so. I think today is a great time to start on it.
bikedaft
Well-known member
oh no its gone up to 49p 
1p for a paperback tho (+P&P)
1p for a paperback tho (+P&P)
LittleSister
Well-known member
Certainly not the view of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who spent years with Scott in the Anatarctic, who recognized (and described in perceptive detail) his weaknesses, but hugely admired and loved the man. Hard driving, yes (though drove himself even harder). Bastard, definitely not.
"Scott, who always amazed me by the amount of work he got through without any apparent effort, was essentially the driving force behind the expedition. . . He was eager to accept suggestions if they were workable, and always keen to sift even the most unlikely theories if by any means they could be shaped to the desired ends. . . . Essentially an attractive personality, with strong likes and dislikes, he excelled in making his followers his friends. . . I have never known anybody who could be so attractive when he chose.
Sledging he went harder than any man of whom I have heard [despite being described later as being 'not a very strong man physically'] . . . [yet also] had to organise distances and weights and food, as well as do the same physical work as [his companions].
His was a subtle character, full of lights and shades.
England knows Scott as a hero, she has little idea of him as a man. He was certainly the most dominating character in our not uninteresting community: indeed, there is no doubt he would carry weight in any gathering of human beings. But few who knew him realized how shy and reserved the man was, and it was partly for this reason that he so often laid himself open to misunderstanding.
Add to this that he was sensitive, femininely sensitive, to a degree which might be considered a fault, and it will be clear that leadership to such a man may be almost a martydom, and that the confidence so necessary between leader and followers, which must of necessity be based on mutual knoweldge and trust, becomes itself more difficult. It wanted an understanding man to appreciate Scott quickly; to others knowledge came with experience.
Temperamentally he was a weak man, and might easily have been an irritable autocrat. As it was he had moods and depressions that might last for weeks. . . . The man with the nerves to get things done, but sometimes he had a terrible time in doing them. He cried more easily than any man I have known.
What pulled Scott through was character, sheer good grain, which ran over and under and through his weaker self and clamped it together. It would be stupid to say he had all the virtues: he had, for instance, little sense of humour, and he was a bad judge of men. But he had a [sense of justice]. For him justice was God. . . .
And not withstanding the immense fits of depression which attacked him, Scott was the strongest combination of a strong mind in a strong body I have ever known. And this because he was so weak! Naturally so peevish, highly strung, irritable, depressed and moody. Practically such a conquest of himself, such vitality, such push and determination and withal in himself such personal and magnetic charm. He was an idle man, he told us so, he had been a poor man, and he had a horror of leaving those dependent on him in difficulties. . .
He will go down in history as the Englishman who conquered the South Pole and who died as fine a death as any man has had an honour to die. His triumphs are many - the Pole was not by any means the greatest of them. Surely the greatest was that by which he conquered his weaker self and became the strong leader whom we went to follow and came to love."
Sledging he went harder than any man of whom I have heard [despite being described later as being 'not a very strong man physically'] . . . [yet also] had to organise distances and weights and food, as well as do the same physical work as [his companions].
His was a subtle character, full of lights and shades.
England knows Scott as a hero, she has little idea of him as a man. He was certainly the most dominating character in our not uninteresting community: indeed, there is no doubt he would carry weight in any gathering of human beings. But few who knew him realized how shy and reserved the man was, and it was partly for this reason that he so often laid himself open to misunderstanding.
Add to this that he was sensitive, femininely sensitive, to a degree which might be considered a fault, and it will be clear that leadership to such a man may be almost a martydom, and that the confidence so necessary between leader and followers, which must of necessity be based on mutual knoweldge and trust, becomes itself more difficult. It wanted an understanding man to appreciate Scott quickly; to others knowledge came with experience.
Temperamentally he was a weak man, and might easily have been an irritable autocrat. As it was he had moods and depressions that might last for weeks. . . . The man with the nerves to get things done, but sometimes he had a terrible time in doing them. He cried more easily than any man I have known.
What pulled Scott through was character, sheer good grain, which ran over and under and through his weaker self and clamped it together. It would be stupid to say he had all the virtues: he had, for instance, little sense of humour, and he was a bad judge of men. But he had a [sense of justice]. For him justice was God. . . .
And not withstanding the immense fits of depression which attacked him, Scott was the strongest combination of a strong mind in a strong body I have ever known. And this because he was so weak! Naturally so peevish, highly strung, irritable, depressed and moody. Practically such a conquest of himself, such vitality, such push and determination and withal in himself such personal and magnetic charm. He was an idle man, he told us so, he had been a poor man, and he had a horror of leaving those dependent on him in difficulties. . .
He will go down in history as the Englishman who conquered the South Pole and who died as fine a death as any man has had an honour to die. His triumphs are many - the Pole was not by any means the greatest of them. Surely the greatest was that by which he conquered his weaker self and became the strong leader whom we went to follow and came to love."
I heartily recommend reading Cherry-Garrard's 'The Worst Journey in the World', a truly brilliant, beautifully written book, from which the above quotes are taken. Note the 'worst journey' of the title wasn't the summer trek to the Pole, but an earlier expedition of almost unimaginable hardship in the appalling depths of the Antarctic winter, merely to collect penguin eggs. The book does, though, cover the whole of the Anatarctic expedition from departure from England in 1910 to arrival in New Zealand in 1913.
