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Erebus by michael palin7/22/2023 ![]() Listening to the author reading his own words added a whole new dimension for me. Where do you start? Bill Bryson, no mean teller of a travelling tale, was bowled over by this book and exclaimed “Beyond terrific. This is a wonderfully evocative and epic account, written by a master explorer and storyteller. To help tell the story, he has travelled to various locations across the world - Tasmania, the Falklands, the Canadian Arctic - to search for local information, and to experience at first hand the terrain and the conditions that would have confronted the Erebus and her crew. And he vividly recounts the experiences of the men who first stepped ashore on Antarctica's Victoria Land, and those who, just a few years later, froze to death one by one in the Arctic wastes as rescue missions desperately tried to reach them. ![]() He explores the intertwined careers of the men who shared its journeys: the dashing James Clark Ross who charted much of the 'Great Southern Barrier' and oversaw some of the earliest scientific experiments to be conducted there and the troubled John Franklin, who at the age of 60 and after a chequered career, commanded the ship on its final, disastrous expedition. Now Michael Palin - former Monty Python stalwart and much-loved television globetrotter - brings this extraordinary ship back to life, following it from its launch in 1826 to the epic voyages of discovery that led to glory in the Antarctic and to ultimate catastrophe in the Arctic. Its whereabouts had been a mystery for over a century and a half. It was broken at the stern and covered in a woolly coat of underwater vegetation. ![]() In September 2014 the wreck of a sailing vessel was discovered at the bottom of the sea in the frozen wastes of the Canadian Arctic. ![]() In 1854 the two ships left from the British harbour to go missing after 2 years of travel, leaving behind mystery and unanswered questions.ġ70 years later, in 2014, the remains of Erebus were found by an underwater archaeological team, bringing up once more the interest for both her life and her last journey.Random House presents the audiobook edition of Erebus, written and read by Michael Palin. This very good result brought the possibility of a second mission: finding the “northern passage” above Canada. The latter travel was extremely successful: a three years journey in and out of the freezing southern ice, full of science experiments, land mapped and botanic discoveries. Many teams from different countries tried to map the unfriendly Antarctic, mainly for scientific reasons, and the equally dangerous Arctic, looking for the commercially handy “northern passage” that everybody hoped could be found.Įrebus and her sister ship Terror ventured to both Arctic and Antarctic. Plot (with the same kind of spoilers you would find on the back cover of the book!)ĭuring the XIX century there were still plenty of areas of our world unknown to us. Palin wrote a bunch of books, following his travel documentaries, and in 2019 he released Erebus, the story of a ship, mixing up his love for history and travels. He is mainly linked to his roles with the Monty Python but the list of shows he took part in is almost endless. He’s an English comedian, producer, writer and television presenter. Michael Palin is a famous character known for his TV career more than for his books, even though he wrote many. Review: “Erebus – The story of a Ship” – Michael Palin – Arrow Books (2019) The author
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