Books We're Reading

Thought I'd set this up as a new topic where we can discuss what new books we're into so that that info won't end up scattered in random posts.

Good idea, furdog. I've read 2 disaster books this month--The Survivors Club, which I gave 5 stars, and The Tri-State Tornado, which I gave 3 stars. Here are my comments (from my 999 challenge thread):

THE SURVIVORS CLUB
BY BEN SHERWOOD

I finished The Survivors Club, which is a book that looks at what qualities are needed to help people survive various types of disasters. I thought it'd be a similar rehash to last year's The Unthinkable but, unlike The Unthinkable, Sherwood focused more on smaller or individual catastrophes. Yes, he did talk to airline crash survivors as well as Holocaust survivors but his focus was more on the smaller disaster--things like a man who fell off of a cruise ship and lived to tell the tale or a woman who slipped and fell while carrying her knitting and found a knitting needle impaled in her chest.

The Survivors Club is one of my favorite books of 2009 so far. If I could give it more than 5 stars, I would. However, it is NOT something that a reader can read from cover to cover in one sitting. I found it too intense, at times, for that.

I also plan to keep it on hand and refer to it as the final section includes a few tools to help the reader understand her own survivor potential. I could not get the one at the survivors club website to work but I did take the quiz elsewhere and learned that my survivor personality is Thinker.

THE TRI-STATE TORNADO: THE STORY OF AMERICA'S GREATEST TORNADO DISASTER
by Peter S. Felknor

On March 18, 1925, a powerful, nearly mile-wide tornado travelled for over 3 hours over 219 uninterrupted miles through Missouri, southern Illinois, and Indiana. Residents of many small cities and towns in the tornado's path had virtually no warning of the storm's approach. The tornado killed 689 people, mostly in Illinois. Even though it killed more people than the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and remains the deadliest tornado in American history, very little is known about it.

To try to remedy the lack of awareness, Felknor conducted a number of interviews in the early to mid 1980s with survivors of the Great Tri-State Tornado. The result was this short 1992 book about the tornado.

This was an interesting book, chock full of information about a tornado I'd only vaguely heard about. Unfortunately, it was not very well-written and consisted mainly of interview excerpts tied together with brief narrative. Nonetheless, I'd recommend it to the weather or disaster buff or anyone who wants to learn more about a little-known American disaster.

I mentioned it in another thread, but just finished reading The Good Pirates of Forgotten Bayous by Ken Wells about what hurricane Katrina did to St. Bernard Parish. New Orleans got most of the press coverage, but St. Bernard suffered greatly. It does matter, though, that there were far fewer people living in St. Bernard and, for better or worse, nearly all had boats.

I just started Miracle on the Mountain by Mike and Mary Couillard

Anyone read it??

#4 Never read that one. Please let us know what you think of it!

I am reading The Sea Shall Embrace Them: The Tragic Story of the Steamship Arctic by David W. Shaw. So far, it looks promising.

I finished The Sea Shall Embrace Them, and I'd recommend it.

On September 27, 1854, the steamship Arctic, the pride of the United States trans-Atlantic shipping & passenger fleet, sank following a collision with the French steamer Vesta on the Grand Banks.

The Sea Shall Embrace Them is the story of the Arctic; of the honorable captain who was willing (with his young son) to go down with the ship and the rebellious crewmen who were not; and of the passengers who perished because of the crew's dishonorable behavior.

It is also the story of the 19th-century Yankee trans-Atlantic shipping trade, and the battle with foreign competition (mostly in the form of the Cunard Line of Britain.) Anyone who thinks that government bailouts are a new phenomenon may be surprised to learn that the Arctic was built and operated largely with government bailout funds.

This is definitely a story worth telling, and author David Shaw tells it well. I am somewhat disappointed with the lack of footnotes/endnotes, though the author does provide a bibliography (as well as a glossary of nautical terms).

I also read The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche. (I also posted this on my 75 Challenge thread.)

For a railroad buff who is also fascinated by books about disasters, this was the perfect read.

Two Great Northern Railway trains -- one filled with passengers -- are stranded for almost a week at the railroad's summit crossing of the Cascade Mountains during a freak late-winter storm. They are parked on a narrow ledge -- between a steep mountainside above to one side, and a precipitous drop-off to the other side. And the snowpack on the slope above them is becoming more and more unstable . . .

This is Gary Krist's first venture into non-fiction, and he brings the full storytelling skills of a novelist to this true story of a railroad under siege by Mother Nature. The narrative is well-paced, vividly (but not luridly) presented, never dry. Yet his research seems thoroughly done, too, with solid endnotes explaiing his sources and how he put the story together from the historical record.

(My full review can be found here:) http://www.librarything.com/work/2654558...

I read Report from Ground Zero by Dennis Smith, which I highly recommend.

It is impossible for anyone who wasn't there to really, really grasp the reality of Ground Zero on 9/11 and the days that followed. But this book gave me a clearer glimpse than I've ever had before. It takes us into the heart and soul of the disaster at Ground Zero through the experiences of those on its front lines.

I posted a full review here:

http://www.librarything.com/work/55219/reviews/52490505

I'm several chapters into Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy and its Aftermath, by John C. Esposito, which recently arrived via Interlibrary Loan. I had read shorter accounts of the fire in several other books, but so far this has quite a bit of information of which I was not previously aware. Also, a diagram of the labyrinthine nightclub is provided, which is extremely helpful in understanding how so many people were trapped in the blaze.

There is one little format issue that I find annoying. I'll address that in my review when I'm done reading. And I'm truly disappointed by the fact that there are no footnotes/endnotes or bibliography.

Fly by Wire: The Geese, The Glide, The Miracle on the Hudson by William Langwiesche

I love disaster books and so I had high hopes for this book about Captain Sullenberger and the airplane crash earlier this year in which he landed his jet in the Hudson River. I read another book by Langwiesche years ago about 9/11 and thought it was excellent.

For this one, though, I had mixed feelings after reading it. In some ways, it was disappointing and, in other ways, it was pretty good. If you think Sully is a hero or you are an airline pilot, this might not be the book for you.

(He praises Sully but points out that ability to concentrate intently does not equal coolness under pressure and points out that a lot of the credit for the sale landing should go to the engineers who created a "fly by wire" airplane.)

The interesting parts involved general aviation issues and how the prestige of airline pilots has declined over the years. Discussions about major pilot blunders over the years (such as the Cali crash and also a French airshow crash), how the NTSB conducts hearings, how planes are evacuated were all interesting to me. A bit over my head, technically, but still interesting was how the Airbus has made "fly by wire" technology planes, which basically are semi-automatic and leave little control for the pilot, especially as to overriding.

The less than stellar parts of the book, I thought, were the parts dealing with the "Miracle on the Hudson" itself. Those parts sounded like they were slapped together quickly. Lots of long, block quotes from reports and testimony seemed like filler to me. Not much insight into Sully himself, either.

I almost got the impression that he was writing another book about aviation when this accident happened and he expanded the book to make the accident the focus.

I have been away for a while. A busy year has limited the time available for reading, and laptop problems have kept me off LT. Have done some reading in the past few weeks, though, and can recommend two new books.

The Other Side of the Night: The Carpathia, the Californian, and the Night the Titanic Was Lost by Daniel Allen Butler is a very interesting and heartbreaking investigation of two ships that were in the same area at the time the Titanic struck the iceberg. The Carpathia, under Captain Arthur Rostron, responded from a distance of approximately 50 miles and saved everyone who was still alive after 4 hours in the icy North Atlantic. The Californian, under Captain Stanley Lord, had stopped for the night due to the ice hazard. They knew the Titanic was nearby - they had sent a wireless message to warn of the ice - and officers on the Californian saw all 8 of the rockets sent up by the Titanic as a distress signal. That meant the Californian was within 10 miles - but they didn't move until the Carpathia arrived, and even then they took a circuitous route through the ice before approaching from a different direction.

I have also read The Big Burn by Timothy Egan. This is an excellent book, in spite of the stupidity of the subtitle. How can the biggest forest fire in US history "save America"? I need a bit of time before I can write a review of this one though.

>7 tymfos:

The White Cascade was excellent. 1910 must have been one hell of a year - the forest fire in The Big Burn occurred in August of that year.

#11 The Other Side of the Night sounds very interesting. Definitely one I'd like to read!

I just saw 2 TV documentaries on Nat Geo channel about the Titanic which indicated that the Californian's radio operator had turned off the ship's radio after Titanic's radio operator rudely cut off his iceberg warnings (and thus did not hear her SOS); however, they failed to mention that Californian officers saw the distress rockets. Hmmm.......

I just finished Triangle : The Fire that Changed America. It's about two thirds history of the New York Labor movement at the time of the fire, and one third actual details about the event. I found it interesting - the author tied the labor history information into the personal lives of some of the victims and I finally have a clue about Tammany Hall, which was just a "bad politics in history" thing to me before. The actual discussion of the fire was gripping, and the diagrams of the various factory floors really helped with visualizing what the workers had to contend with.

#14 That's a book I've considered getting through inter-library loan. Thanks for the info about it!

The Great Deluge, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley, published in 2006 is one of the first books to appear about Hurricane Katrina. It covers the events of the week of August 27 to Sept. 3, 2005 & is filled with anecdotes & interviews. Mr. Brinkley & his family lived in New Orleans, he did not evacuate but joined the rescue efforts. This is close to an eye-witness account & simply tells what happened without going into much politics or blame, or historical notes.

I finished Nine Minutes and Twenty Seconds by Gary M. Pomerantz, about the ASA flight 529 commuter plane crash in Georgia.

A very engrossing read, gave me a real sense of what it's like to live through a plane crash.

I finished up The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough yesterday. I enjoyed it.

The Johnstown Flood is on my (almost)-must-read for 2010 list. I'm ashamed that I've read books about so many disasters, but none about this one which happened so close to home.

Because we are nearly freezing to death I've started Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick. No dinner for me, thanks.

I read something warm (too warm!) instead: Under a Flaming Sky by Daniel James Brown. Very good book about the Hinckley firestorm.

>20 varielle:

I don't know how I managed to miss a new book on the Donner party. And so the wishlist grows...

I haven't read any disaster books in quite awhile. However, I have Rebecca Solnit's new one out from the library A Paradise Built in Hell. It is subtitled "The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster."

In it, Solnit examines why people become so altruistic and brave in the aftermath of a disaster.

Hopefully, I will get to this one soon.

Sorry to hijack, but Terri (tymfos) suggested that I post over here to let you know that the Missouri Readers group is planning a group read of When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes by Jay Feldman, starting on June 15. Anyone is welcome to join in! Thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/89311

Thanks!

I'm reading When the Mississippi ran Backwards, too. So far, so good!

I just finished Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes by Dwight Boyer, which is a book about shipwrecks, not ghosts (though he does mention some of the eerie legends of the Lakes). It's an older book, very well done, detailing a variety of kinds of shipwrecks that have happened on the Great Lakes over the years.

>26 tymfos: There is a big memorial tribute for the Great Storm of 1913 going on this year in communities along the Canadian shore of Lake Huron. In the town of Goderich, there are 40-foot banners posted to show the height of the waves. There will be several displays, tributes and services dedicated to the sailors and ships lost.

I'm reading Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 by Laura M. MacDonald. So far, I'm very impressed with the author's work.

>28 tymfos:: I read that a few years ago, and thought it was well researched. My grandmother was a survivor of the Halifax Explosion, and used to vividly describe her experience.

>28 tymfos: - I really liked that one, too. It's a good read!

Stopping by, and seeing so little activity here in the group, I decided to revive this thread by posting about some recent reads:

Le Mans '55: The Crash that Changed the Face of Motor Racing by Christopher Hilton. This wasn't just a crash -- the car went into the grandstands in pieces, killing dozens of spectators. It's a very thoughtful analysis of the accident itself, and its impact on safety in motorsports. It does a good job of placing the events in the context of their time.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson. Larson's latest work of narrative fiction manages to create suspense, even though the reader already knows that the ship is going to sink. Excellent, well-researched, well-written book. Note: the 100th anniversary of that sinking has just passed, in May.

I recently finished Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire America's Deadliest Rock Concert by John Barylick . Very well researched and very interesting.

>32 dara85: That was a very good book, I agree!

>32 dara85:

That sounds good - I'm going to look for it.

Currently reading The Mystery of Flight 427: Inside a Crash Investigation by Bill Adair, about the investigation into the terrible 737 crash outside Pittsburgh in September, 1994. I'm finding it very good, very hard to put down.

>20 varielle: & >21 Helcura: Interesting juxtaposition. I read and loved Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat, so I went looking for another of his and read Under a Flaming Sky. He was not sensationalist, but he did not shrink from awful descriptions of the burnt stumps of people left standing in clusters after the firestorm passed. I refuse to read his third title The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride.

I'm reading And Hell Followed With It: Life and Death in a Kansas Tornado by Bonar Menninger. It's very good, with a lot of emphasis on the value of preparedness in saving lives.

Currently reading The Ground Truth. It suffers from lack of good editing and page upon page of NEADS/FAA transcripts.

I've started 1 Dead in Attic about the Katrina Hurricane disaster by an award winning reporter for the Picayune.

Finished both The Legacy of Chernobyl and Midnight in Chernobyl. The latter was outstanding.

Recently re-read The Demon in the Freezer. We live in interesting times.

>40 Sandydog1: I recently read Midnight in Chernobyl, too! Excellent! This was just after reading The Only Plane in the Sky: an oral history of 9/11, also very good.

Just started The Library Book about the burning of the LosAngeles Public Library in 1986 by arson. Everything that could go wrong did.

New here. Pocket bio: Retired humanities teacher, residing in Tlaxcala, Mexico, with two dogs and six indoor cats. Passionate about literature, history, philosophy, classical music and opera, jazz, cinema, and similar subjects. Nostalgic guy. Politically centrist. BA in American Studies from Yale; MAs in English and Education from Boston University. Born in northern New Jersey. Have lived and worked in San Francisco, Chicago, northern Nevada, northeast Wisconsin, South Korea.

Serendipitously, just a few days before the Canadian wildfires hit the US news big-time, I started reading The Chinchaga Firestorm: When the Moon and Sun Turned Blue. That occurred in upper Alberta and British Columbia in 1950, the largest fire complex recorded in North America up until that time. It also dumped massive amounts of smoke into the atmosphere, with global effects.

Welcome, Patrick. Your recent read about the Chinchaga Firestorm was certainly timely!

This group has been very quiet for a long time. Maybe it's time to revive it.

Earlier this year, I read The House is On Fire by Rachel Beanland. It's historical fiction based on a real disaster I'd never heard of: the Richmond Theater Fire of 1811.

In nonfiction, I read America's First Plague: The Deadly 1793 Epidemic that Crippled a Young Nation by Robert P. Watson. The more things change, the more they stay the same. That epidemic was politicized almost as badly as the COVID-19 pandemic.

For a maritime disaster, I also read The Wager: a tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann. Interesting stuff.

>45 tymfos: Thank you!

Charles Brockden Brown’s 1799-1800 Gothic novel Arthur Mervyn contains extremely vivid descriptions of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic, which CBB had lived through. Perhaps this is mentioned in the Watson book?

>44 PatrickMurtha: I actually live not too far from Chinchaga! I must try to get that book. It sounds interesting, and a a bonus, it is local. We have had very bad fires near here this year - the Donnie Creek fire is now one of the biggest in BC wildfire history.

>47 NorthernStar: I like reading local history even if it’s not MY local history. 🙂