Please join us for a discussion and signing with bestselling author Hampton Sides for his new book, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette, as part of our Salon@615 series.THIS EVENT WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE DEAD POETS SOCIETY ROOM AT MONTGOMERY BELL ACADEMY.Ticket Information:This is a ticketed event and you can reserve your tickets online by visiting www.Salonat615.org two weeks prior to the event. A limited number of advance tickets will be available online for a $2.50 service fee per ticket.Advance tickets guarantee your seat up to 10 minutes prior to show time, at which time empty auditorium seats will be filled with stand-by guests.A limited number of free tickets will be available on-site on the day of the event. We recommend that you arrive early for the on-site ticket line.About In the Kingdom of Ice:With twists and turns worthy of a thriller, In The Kingdom of Ice is a spellbinding tale of heroism and determination in the most unforgiving territory on Earth.In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: the North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans, although theories abounded. National glory would fall to whoever could plant his flag upon its shores. James Gordon Bennett, the eccentric and stupendously wealthy owner of The New York Herald, had recently captured the world's attention by dispatching Stanley to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone. Now he was keen to re-create that sensation on an even more epic scale. So he funded an official U.S. naval expedition to reach the Pole, choosing as its captain a young officer named George Washington De Long, who had gained fame for a rescue operation off the coast of Greenland. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever." The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached and the crew abandoned the ship. Less than an hour later, the Jeannette sank to the bottom, and the men found themselves marooned a thousand miles north of Siberia with only the barest supplies. Thus began their long march across the endless ice--a frozen hell in the most lonesome corner of the world. Facing everything from snow blindness and polar bears to ferocious storms and frosty labyrinths, the expedition battled madness and starvation as they desperately strove for survival. About Hampton Sides:Hampton Sides is an award-winning editor of Outside and the author of the bestselling histories Hellhound on his Trail, Blood and Thunder, and Ghost Soldiers.About Salon@615:Salon@615 presents bestselling authors free to the public through a unique partnership between the Nashville Public Library, Humanities Tennessee, Parnassus Books and the Nashville Public Library Foundation. Together, we nurture and celebrate the literary life of Nashville by presenting author talks and book signings to our community.Since its inception in early 2011, Salon@615 has become a regular and vital author reading series on Nashville’s cultural calendar.
