At this post, those of you who know me well will shake your heads gently and send a tolerant look my way.

I don’t mind.  The true thing is that I am deeply, terribly, irrevocably in love with Sir Ernest Shackleton.

I read everything I can get my hands on about Sir Ernest.  I have an entire bookshelf devoted to polar exploration with a heavy emphasis on Shackleton.  When the American Museum of Natural History hosted a traveling exhibit on the Endurance expedition, I broke the rules.  Yes, me, a by-the-book gal if there ever was one, I reached across those imposing velvet ropes to sneak a touch of the James Caird.  How could I pass by the very boat in which Shackleton crossed 800 miles of open ocean to get help for his stranded men without a caress?

And yes, it’s true… my son’s first name is Shackleton.

I read this book when it came out in 2005 from Knopf but just finished re-reading it aloud to the kids.  It thrilled me as much as ever.  As told (mostly) through the eyes of Perce Blackborrow, an eighteen year old who stowed away on the Endurance (seriously), we see Shackleton at his finest.  Yes, he was strong and smart and brave, but he also had a genius for reading people, for intuiting their needs, and for finding ways to bring out the best in each man.

I could go on and on about the story of the Endurance and Shackleton himself, but I’ll restrain my crazy self and leave you with two things.  First, a quote from this compelling book:

Every day for months, they had walked with death.  They had slept beside death, swallowed it whole, laughed at it, cowered from it, taunted it, sometimes longed for it.  But death had proved to be no real match for twenty-eight ordinary men.

Second, Shackleton’s family motto:

By endurance, we conquer.

Words to live by, friends.  Words to live by.