The longest winter : the incredible survival of Captain Scott's lost party /

Lambert chronicles the struggle for survival of six members of Captain Robert Scott's team chosen to concentrate on scientific research and exploration at the South Pole in 1912. This so-called North Party, led by Lieutenant Victor Campbell, endured seven months of near starvation, physical exhaustion, and debilitating illness while living in an igloo dug out of a snowdrift, their food penguin meat and seal blubber. Lambert vibrantly re-creates the world in which Scott and his contemporaries lived--a world of sailing ships and sledges, in which diaries, photographs, and letters were the only reliable records of scientific achievement and daily life, and thus the astonishing story of these six men is retold largely in their own words. With many black-and-white photographs, this is a thrilling account of challenge and courage and, ultimately, survival. --George Cohen Copyright 2004 Booklist

While the 1912 British Antarctic expedition is primarily remembered for Captain Robert Scott's party perishing as it returned from its losing race to the South Pole, Lambert focuses on the amazing survival of the expedition's other lost crew. In her first book, Lambert, former editor of the World Expeditionary Association's Expedition magazine, tells the story of the six men who survived a seven-month Antarctic winter in a makeshift igloo with just over six weeks' worth of rations, eschewing dramatization for heavy use of the explorers' journals. The diary entries range from humorous to gut-wrenching, and truly show the men's raging obsession with the foulest of food ("had excellent hoosh with seal's brain... tasted rather like soaked bread"). Lambert's thrifty writing guides the men's story along as their journals convey the castaways' Britishness ("If I could at the present moment buy penny buns for a sovereign apiece, I don't think I should have much money left") and highlight the distinct personalities of each member of the group. Although Lambert's account lacks a history of the nature of polar exploration and a description of other polar survival stories, it is thorough and touching. The author's attention to detail allows her to portray the human spirit's triumph over adversity while adding another valuable text to the significant library of polar literature. Photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In 1912, Capt. Robert Scott mounted a two-pronged Antarctic scientific expedition. Scott and his party would sledge to the South Pole and back, while a Northern party would spend the summer exploring the coast. Things went wrong, and Scott's party perished, a familiar story made more poignant by Roald Amundsen's beating Scott to the pole and returning safely. The drama of Scott's fate has eclipsed the equally grueling ordeal of the Northern party, which was stranded by bad weather and had to survive seven months of the Antarctic winter on what they had brought with them for the summer months. Lambert has used the Northern party's detailed diaries, which all members were required to keep, for a chronicle of their winter survival story. The author has concentrated on the members' feelings, relationships, and analyses of their fellows. Her approach requires familiarity with the geography and the overall history of the expedition and thus would be most valuable as a supporting work rather than an introduction. For comprehensive subject collections on the region or the psychology of isolation.-Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.