The white darkness
(Book)

"This work originally appeared in The New Yorker on February 12 and 19, 2018." --Title page verso.

Henry Worsley was a devoted husband and father and a decorated British special forces officer who believed in honor and sacrifice. He was also a man obsessed. He spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Shackleton never completed his journeys, but Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. He was related to one of Shackleton's men, Frank Worsley, and collected artifacts from their treks. He was determined that he would succeed where Shackleton had failed. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the desolate landscape, physical exhaustion, and hidden crevasses. Yet when he returned, he felt compelled to go back. On At age 55, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone. Illustrated with more than 50 photographs, this is a story of courage, love, and a man pushing himself to the extremes of human capacity.