Book Club Discussion for Madhouse At The End Of The Earth by Julian Sancton

Congratulations! Hope you are having a fantastic honeymoon.

Please don't forget to let us know your new address so your book doesn't get delivered to the wrong address :-) 

I hope to join you tonight (if I finish work in time) but will be driving so not able to talk so here is my review of this book.

Madhouse at the End of the Earth wasn’t really my cup of tea. It is clearly very well researched, and the story of the Belgica expedition should have been fascinating, but I found it slow going and struggled to become fully absorbed in it.

There were a lot of crew members, nationalities and clashing personalities to keep track of, and I often found myself forgetting who was who. Many of the men seemed stubborn, poorly prepared and determined to make an already difficult situation even worse. The growing tension, isolation and effects on their mental health were interesting, but I never felt particularly connected to most of the characters.

Frederick Cook was the exception and, for me, the most interesting person in the book. He appeared practical, resourceful and genuinely concerned about the crew’s wellbeing. He understood that their minds needed looking after as much as their bodies, and his attempts to improve morale made him seem more capable and compassionate than many of those officially in charge.

The later information about Cook also added an unexpected layer to his character and made me reconsider my initial impression of him. Without giving anything away, his wider story is complicated, surprising and rather sad. It raises questions about ambition, reputation and whether someone can be both admirable and deeply flawed.

Although I appreciated the extraordinary story and the enormous amount of research behind it, the book never completely came alive for me. Sadly, my attention drifted away long before the ship did. An impressive account, with Cook as its most fascinating and complicated character—just not the book for me.

4/10 sink

Thank you!

I may not make it back from work in time for tonight’s meeting. I really struggled reading this book, but i kept going back and preserved and i did finish it!  Once the ship prep was done i got more into the story and I was fascinated by the descriptions of how the isolation and food shortages affected all of them and the lengths they took to survive! 

not my go to kind of book but would recommend swim 6/10

Hi there. I won’t be able to join this evening as need to get cat from vet’s and get her settled back in again and cared for! I also found it slow going, particularly at first few chapters (as mentioned by Annielou) it did then start to flow better. But, my god, what a shambles organisation wise! Unusually for me I haven’t finished it yet (obviously other things going on!) but I will actually finish it as it has interesting moments and even if, right now, it feels more like a lesson in what not to do… A slightly grudging swim as I can tell a lot of research went into this and it should have been absolutely gripping, but so far it isn’t.

I’m really sorry I won’t be able to make it to the meeting tonight as I’ve got work, but I hope you all have a lovely evening!

I have to say, Madhouse at the End of the Earth wasn’t really a book for me. I found the subject matter interesting in parts, and I can definitely appreciate the amount of research that went into it, but I struggled to really get into the story and found it quite slow in places.

I’d probably give it 3/10. That said, I think a lot of it probably comes down to the fact that this just isn’t my usual genre, so I’m not sure I was ever going to love it! I’m glad I gave it a go though, and it was definitely interesting to read something completely outside my normal comfort zone.

I’d be really interested to hear what everyone else thought and whether you enjoyed it more than I did! ️

I didn’t get the chance to finish this book as it was too much of a slow burn for me. It’s not my sort of book so I don’t have a review. I will be on the call though! But unable to attend the one next month as I’m at a work event ️

I would love to have a change in the sort of book maybe a romance as that’s my sort of genre ️

I couldn’t make the meeting, apologies. 
I found this book quite hard going, there was a lot of information given in the first chapters and lots of names that made it quite hard for me to keep track. 
I thought the authors use of descriptive language was good, could really picture the ship and sounds of the sea.

I didn’t finish the book before the meeting but will plough on through as I hate giving up on books. 

Thank you to everyone who came along to the book club meeting last evening, it was lovely to see you all. 

This book was definitely a marmite read, as it was either really enjoyed or really not! This one got some high scores for the Anchor score out of 10 but also some low scores, which unfortunately brought the score down quite low to 4.69 Anchors. It also SANK with 17 votes, but 13 voted Swim and 2 chose to float.

I'm so sorry I missed this, no excuses, no wonderful trips away, just completely forgot even though I'd genuinely been looking forward to it.  
I surprised myself and actually really enjoyed the book.  I was expecting some dry interpretation of historical events and, apart from the first few chapters which dragged a bit, I thought the way the characters were brought to life was really effective. I became really absorbed in the tension and emotion - I knew most of them would survive because the blurb at the back of the book mentioned what they did next! - but I kept wondering how they would survive and what ingenuity they would come up with.
It led me asking questions like, 'Who was the hero?' or 'Were any of them heroes in here?'.  They all had failings but, Cook seemed to be the one who saved them in many ways.  I was also asking myself what it takes to be a real leader, what qualities a leader needs and, the extent to which you need to hide the truth to preserve morale.  I wondered how many politicians there are today who are similar to De Gerlache, weak and putting their personal vanity and pride before anything else, caring less about the impact!
A definite swim from me and I hope you had a great get together. Teresa