Endurance

The questions

1. He keeps the troublemakers close to his own tent on purpose. Would you have that instinct, or would you push them away?
2. The expedition fails completely at its stated goal. Is it still a success? By whose measure?
3. Lansing lets the diaries argue with each other. Which crew member did you trust most as a narrator?
4. The men keep routines going on the ice: football, haircuts, a banjo. Why does that work, and where have you seen it work?
5. Shackleton takes five men and leaves twenty-two behind on Elephant Island. Was that leadership or abandonment?
6. The boat journey to South Georgia is the most dangerous thing in the book, and he does it himself. When should the boss take the worst job?
7. Nobody dies. How much of that was judgment and how much was luck? Be specific.
8. The men go straight back to a world war. What do you make of the way the book handles that in a paragraph?
9. Name a moment in your own life that needed a Shackleton and did not have one.

Running the night

• Pick the night before anyone leaves the last meeting. A fixed weeknight beats a good date.
• Text the sheet's first question two days ahead. It is the only prep anyone will do.
• Something to eat that does not need a plate on a lap.
• One person keeps time. Ninety minutes, then the book talk stops.
• Start with the round: one sentence each on where they got to. No apologies allowed.
• End by naming the next book and the next date out loud.

For this bookPrint the crew list and pass it around. Half the meeting will be arguing about who they would have been.

BringThe book, something to write with, and the one passage you underlined.