Skip the first and last chapters. The second chapter tells the story, and what a story! Although you know the author survived the ordeal, his tale is riveting. Here is survival that matches anything Bear Grylls has done.

An excellent first person account of being afloat, with little hope of survival, on an ice raft and the ingenuity taken to survive forms the centre piece of this work and makes up the biggest chapter. The first chapter can be safely skipped as being a somewhat tedious tribute to the hero and his ancestory. The last part is a recollection of the hero's recovery from a rescuer's viewpoint and adds some new to what has been said already. But is the main section that remains unforgettable of its sort. One or two gruesome moments mean this is probably not recommendable for younger animal lovers.

Reading is very good although the accent adopted for the last part by the reader is less easy to understand.