The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage - Softcover

"Exotic and thrilling. . . . One of those books that can keep a reader inside for an entire weekend."
--Los Angeles Times

"Thoughtful, compassionate and meticulously researched . . . offers readers a vivid, compelling, ultimately heartbreaking history of Arctic exploration."
--The Oregonian

"A fascinating, at times thrilling, narrative."
--The Seattle Times

"Brandt is a superb and profound writer who leads us through a tale of such hardship you feel as if you've been aboard ship with them. It's no small feat to use a bit of history to illuminate the future, but Brandt pulls it off. This is narrative history at its absolute gripping best."
--Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and War

"[Brandt is a] powerful storyteller, vividly re-creating the most dramatic episodes of the nineteenth century."
--Washington Post

"A robust new history. . . . Brandt tells his story well. . . . [He] achieves a modern synthesis between the hagiography of the old days and the more recent historical revisionism."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Brandt is a well-tempered storyteller, both thoroughgoing and agile, who knows what to do with a tale of high color and noble folly."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"A rich and satisfying read, and a classic history of Arctic exploration."
--Laurence Bergreen, author of Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu

"Lively, mischievous, and dryly ironic . . . deeply satisfying fare."
--Arctic Book Review

"A well-researched account. . . . Brandt is at his best when he weaves in back stories of the politics and petty feuds that shaped much of the public perception."
--Willamette Week

"A splendid, gripping account of an astounding, unbelievable quest. . . . What Brandt brings to this mesmerizing tale is what only fine writing can deliver: fully realized sense impressions that make history come memorably alive, and an informed, sensitive analysis of historical events that puts them in larger context."
--The Independent (Hamptons)

"Anthony Brandt's account of the fatal quest for the Northwest Passage is fascinating, horrifying and inspiring. It is not just a great tale of heroic exploration, wonderfully told, but an epic voyage of discovery into the recesses of the human spirit."
--Piers Brendon, author of The Decline and Fall of the British Empire

"Brandt pens a colorful narrative full of gothic horrors, quiet daring, and petty personality clashes, and probes the social meaning of these odysseys. . . . The result is a gripping--and sometimes appalling--tale of heroism and hubris."
--Publishers Weekly