I quit. This is not my cup of tea.
I am not sure, what I was expecting Berlin Alexanderplatz to be like. I guess, I wanted it to be more like something written by Dostoevskij and less like something written by James Joyce.
Maybe I will give it another try someday, but for now, I cannot bring myself to continue.

I just finished the first of nine parts and so far I am not convinced. I hate the overuse of dialect in almost all direct speeches, the plot is meh (mostly walking/driving around so far) and the language is odd.

But I'll hang on for a little bit longer.

I don't like it when authors mimic a certain dialect / sociolect in a character’s direct speech, so I really really hope, Döblin is going to drop this terrible habit soon.

A captivating and inspiring tale of exploration, human endurance and survival.

In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men set sail for the South Atlantic on board a ship called the Endurance. The expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland. In October of 1915 the ship became trapped and crushed in Ice and the crew now half a continent away from their intended base became castaways in one of the most hostile regions in the world.

I have had this book on my TBR list for quite awhile and am so glad I finally got around to reading it. I knew a little about the expedition due to the fact that one of the Crew members was an Irish Man called Tom Creen and I would have heard stories of his expeditions down the years but never actually read a book.

This is a slow burner of a read but at the same time compelling and intense. What amazing courage and stamina these men had, they must have had nerves and bodies of steel and withstand so much.
Extremely well written and while not an easy read it certainly had me on the edge of my seat.

I listened to his one on audible and the narrator Simon Prebble was excellent, although I cant help wondering if I missed photos, maps etc in the printed copy which I always find adds so much to a book.

However there is an amazing documentary filmed and photographed by one of the crew on You Tube which I have linked below.

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Highly recommend this one to readers who enjoy adventure stories.

Out of all the survival stories I have read so far, this is probably the best.

 

It´s such a grippin story, in which Lansing recounts the incredible feats of the crew while not sparing the reader the gruesome details of surviving in the most inhospitable environment imaginable. And more often than not I though it can´t get any worse for these people and then it turns out I was completely wrong. 

 

Such a great book. Highly recommended.