An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean, Antarctic Survivor by Michael Smith (Collins Press, £12.99 in UK)

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Tom Crean was the strong, silent type, the Quiet Man of Antarctic exploration. He spent more time in the South than either Scott or Shackleton; he was in the search party which found Scott's frozen body, and in the open boat in which the bedraggled remnants of Shackleton's Endurance expedition crossed the Southern Ocean; throughout it all he remains an enigma, a man of extraordinary equanimity who treated all his colleagues with unflappable good humour and kindness. Besides telling a ripping yarn, this is a handsome, large-format paperback, generously illustrated both with images of Crean as a Kerry husband and father, and with the Australian photographer Frank Hurley's justly famous images from the ice.