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Erebus


In the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, HMS Erebus undertook two of the most ambitious naval expeditions of all time.

On the first, she ventured further south than any human had ever been. On the second, she vanished with her 129-strong crew in the wastes of the Canadian Arctic.

Her fate remained a mystery for over 160 years.

Then, in 2014, she was found.

This is her story.


I liked that the book took a different slant, to tell the story of the ship, from her construction to her fateful ending, rather than that of the men who sailed her. Their stories are told, but they’re not the main event.

Her story started in June of 1826 in a shipyard in Wales. Her first years weren’t auspicious; she would spend the first thirteen years of her life patrolling the Mediterranean. But in 1839 she would be refitted and paired with Terror for James Ross’s Antarctic expedition. Though it was Terror that had sailed in the ice, Erebus was bigger and newer, so was made the flagship.

They would return to England in 1843 and be refitted for their voyage north to find the Northwest Passage. They wouldn’t succeed, but they would become two of the most celebrated ships of their time.

Interspersed with the story of the ships (it’s as much Terror’s story as Erebus’s, is the author’s voyages as he revisited many of their more famous ports of call.

A solid and well-researched book, and a must-read for anyone interested in Arctic and Antarctic exploration.






Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry
2. Polaris (Alex Benedict #2) by Jack McDevitt
3. How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
4. Mikhail Baryshnikov's Stories From My Childhood: Beloved Fairy Tales from the Queen to Cinderella by Mikhail Baryshnikov
5. The Fateful Lightning (Civil War: 1861-1865, Western Theater #4) by Jeff Shaara
6. Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
7. The Petticoat Men by Barbara Ewing
8. Lily Pond: Four Years with a Family of Beavers by Hope Ryden
9. Running with the Demon (The Word & The Void #1) by Terry Brooks
10. The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (Giants #2) by James P. Hogan
11. Ararat (Ben Walker #1) by Christopher Golden
12. If It Bleeds by Stephen King
13. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White Jr.
14. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
15. Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell Adventurer, Adviser to Kings by Janet Wallach
16. Snowblind by Christopher Golden
17. Women of Ashdon (Bridges Over Time #3) by Valerie Anand
18. Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt
19. The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
20. The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa (translated by Nick Caistor)
21. Roses are White by Lesley Lambert
22. Giants' Star (Giants #3) by James P. Hogan
23. Duma Key by Stephen King
24. Magic In My Shoes by Constance Savery
25. The Breach by M.T. Hill
26. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
27. In the Region of the Summer Stars (Eirlandia #1) by Stephen R. Lawhead
28. Later by Stephen King
29. The Bone Doll's Twin (Tamír Triad #1) by Lynn Flewelling
30. The Threshold by Marlys Millhiser
31. Echoes of Home: A Ghost Story by M.L. Rayner
32. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Talking Classics) by Oscar Wilde, Martin Shaw (Reader)
33. The Reign of Wolf 21: The Saga of Yellowstone’s Legendary Druid Pack (The Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone #2) by Rick McIntyre, Marc Bekoff
34. A Knight of the Word (The Word & The Void #2) by Terry Brooks
35. The Mummy (Ramses the Damned #1) by Anne Rice
36. City of the Lost by Will Adams
37. The Summer Queen: A Medieval Tale of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France by Elizabeth Chadwick
38. Last Train from Perdition (I Travel by Night #2) by Robert R. McCammon
39. Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
40. The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor



41. Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin




Goodreads 42


9. Read a book with a boat on the cover

Read a book with a boat on the cover - Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin (ship, boat, whatever *g*)

Date: 2021-07-28 09:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nakeisha.livejournal.com
It certainly is a different take to tell the ship's story.

Date: 2021-07-28 11:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
I thought so. And it gave a lot of the story that is usually glossed over when it comes to this ship.

Date: 2021-07-28 12:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spikesgirl58.livejournal.com
How cool. I might have to check it out! I do love Michael Paiin :DD

Date: 2021-07-29 12:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
I didn't know he was actor! It wasn't until I started looking for a website to link the book to that I found out.

Date: 2021-07-29 12:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spikesgirl58.livejournal.com
Yeah, he was with Monty Python. I first knew him from Holy Grail

Date: 2021-07-28 12:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spikesgirl58.livejournal.com
Yay, I just ordered it for myself as a birthday gift. :DD

Date: 2021-07-29 12:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
Good for you! I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I don't know how good an actor he is, but he's an excellent writer.

Date: 2021-07-29 12:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spikesgirl58.livejournal.com
He's one of my favorite actors and I love his documentaries. It arrives next week. I can't wait.

Date: 2021-07-30 12:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
I'll have to check out his documentaries. If they're anything like his writing, I'm sure to enjoy them.

Date: 2021-07-30 12:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spikesgirl58.livejournal.com
He's done so many — Pole to Pole. the Sahara, 80 Days around the World, Himalayans, Full Circle. One of my favorites is Great Rail Journeys. Such fun!

Date: 2021-07-31 12:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
Pole to Pole is on YouTube, so I might start with that.

Date: 2021-07-31 12:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spikesgirl58.livejournal.com
You won't be disappointed!

Date: 2021-07-28 01:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lee-the-t.livejournal.com
I've eyeballed this book a few times. The subject is of interest to me, as you may recall, and I love Michael Palin's travel documentaries to death, but I wasn't sure how well he could write a book. Mind you, Bill Bryson's recommendation alone (I adore Bill Bryson) should be enough for me. I guess I'll get it.

Date: 2021-07-29 12:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
As I told [livejournal.com profile] spikesgirl58, I didn't know he was an actor, so I'm coming at it from the other direction.

And, yes for Bill Bryson! I loved A Walk In the Woods, and am in the process of reading In a Sun-burned Country right now.

Oh, and, yes, I remembered this is an interest of yours, too, so I figured I'd be hearing from you. *g*
Edited Date: 2021-07-29 12:11 pm (UTC)

Date: 2021-07-29 03:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lee-the-t.livejournal.com
Well, he's a Monty Python-ite, first and foremost, to me. :-) But his travelogues are genuinely wonderful, and he did a lot of the writing for the shows. I love them and the glimpses they give into countries I'm never likely to see.

I look forward to reading the book. I wish there were more of his travelogues!

Date: 2021-07-30 12:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
I'm definitely going to have to check out his documentaries. It would be great to see the places, but watching a travelogues is the next best thing. :-)

The Mount TBR link for the book takes you to his website. Maybe there are some new ones.

Date: 2021-07-30 04:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lee-the-t.livejournal.com
Started the book. It's good stuff. A few typos/grammatical errors (I thought, once, "Didn't you go to Cambridge? You should be ashamed!") but nothing bad enough to detract from a good story. :-)

Date: 2021-07-31 12:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
Yeah, where have all the good editors gone? The writers are almost on their own.

Date: 2021-07-31 03:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lee-the-t.livejournal.com
And done. Good stuff. I admit that I'm now a bit confused, as in watching the documentary I believed that more was understood about what happened at the end than Palin's book provides. I suppose they were theorizing, but I had had the impression they knew a bit more about who was where and who did what (especially with the "hauling the boats" bit and some rivalry between Franklin and others).

Probably should go back and watch the documentary. I think Palin's book is the more recent of the two, though.

Honestly, when you think of where they went, and what with? That's insanity, not courage. Yikes. Terrifying. Someone was going to do it, though — that's how humans roll.

Date: 2021-08-01 01:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
I think, or at least it seems to me, that Palin was only presenting what could be completely proven in regards to the ship, which may be why the trip to the Antarctic is so much more detailed. What happened to the ship there was meticulously written out. The same can't be same for the Northwest Passage voyage. The book is about the ship, not about the people.

I've always thought they had to be nuts to do what they did. Wearing only wool coats into sub-freezing weather? Not me!

Date: 2021-08-01 03:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lee-the-t.livejournal.com
I mean, granted, they had pretty much state-of-the-art for their era. But to imagine it is terrifying for me. The boat is no longer than my house.160 people in my house AND supplies AND livestock AND ...

And hoping it will protect you against the Arctic? No way. The guys who took on the ways of the Inuit were far wiser (and presumably less ... ethnocentric, to put it politely).

Date: 2021-08-02 02:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
Yes, and they usually survived. What's ridiculous is that those like Franklin had the example of those who had listened to the Inuits and had had a better time of it in the Arctic.

Date: 2021-08-02 10:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lee-the-t.livejournal.com
We are Englishmen. We don't condescend to take the advice of brown persons of whatever persuasion ...

Date: 2021-08-03 11:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
Yeah, unfortunately not...to their own misfortune.

Date: 2021-08-03 02:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lee-the-t.livejournal.com
You want to smack them as they start out. But of course there's no need. Nature smacked the crap out of them, so much so you can't help pitying them.

Date: 2021-08-04 11:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
I do tend to, especially the men who were only trying to make a living. They had no say as to how things were done, and could only hope to get home alive.

Date: 2021-08-01 08:49 am (UTC)
tinny: Something Else holding up its colorful drawing - "be different" (__helge schneider free spirit)
From: [personal profile] tinny
OOoh, Michael Palin is great. I didn't know he'd written any books. But since he's always been a good storyteller with a great sense of humor, I would assume he can also tell a story in writing.

Date: 2021-08-01 01:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilda-elise.livejournal.com
Another person who knew Palin as an actor first! Honestly, I'd never heard of him, never having watched Monty Python. But the book is great and I'll probably read more of them.

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