Today, I did something unusual.
I turned on the TV.
It was BookTV, one of the best channels out there (ok, now you know how weird I am).
But even better, it was the 2004 National Book Festival, sponsored by the Library of Congress and Laura Bush. I watched Nathaniel Philbrick pitch his book, Sea of Glory, about an interesting scientific voyage. It's not just a book about a voyage; it's the story of Wilkes, the leader of the ship, who broke down mentally and completely reinvented his leadership methods, from a friendly guy to what he called A Martinet. The officers couldn't bear the new hardship of a reinvented, harsh leader. But they couldn't speak against him. However, one officer, the brother of General John Reynolds, from Lancaster, PA, kept a secret journal, writing 250,000 words over 4 years. So we have a non-censored story of the voyage.
On this voyage, they discovered Antarctica. The only problem? Several other nationalities did it at the same time.
This book is definitely on my to-read list.