A crew of Dutch explorers, including navigator William Barents, get icebound in the arctic circle in Nova Zembla in 1596. The crew spends 10 months stuck in the arctic, fighting for their lives through polar night, scurvy, and polar bears. When they finally leave Nova Zembla in June of 1597, they do so in two small open boats and row their way back to Russia, 1600 miles.

This is Katie’s pick, and we promise, after this, we’ll be reading some less serious books for a little while