To identify her favorite book, Caddis Collaborative project architect Kelly Siu goes back to a book she read in her twenties: Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. The book tells the true story of Ernest Shackleton’s failed 1914 expedition to Antarctica.
Though Shackleton and his crew never made it to their original destination, they survived – every single one of them – a harrowing feat of bravery. As Kelly says, “Things happened at the right time, just in the nick of time.” The crew’s journey and the book Lansing wrote about their experience are both “amazing efforts,” Kelly says.
Kelly read Endurance when she was in college and reading lots of architecture books. As a counterpoint to her studies, she was getting into mountaineering and climbing. Then she encountered Endurance, what she calls “an inspirational story of surviving and enduring, of testing your limits and pushing yourself.” It was the first true-life adventure book she had ever read. It was “engaging”
These were “good qualities” that appealed to Kelly. Since she first read it years ago, Endurance has helped Kelly keep a balance in her own life between work and time off. Kelly is certain that the tale of how Shackleton and his crew made it out alive will inspire you, too!
