Oh man, this book. Erik Larson is a master of creative non-fiction, and I thoroughly enjoyed his previous books Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts, even if I found the former overly populist and the latter dry. He manages to navigate the two extremes well in general, and they are exceptionally well balanced in this book. His skill is here, as always, finding the personal in the impersonal, bringing a richness to stories time has reduced to facts and […]
The Dodds in Berlin
I am trying so hard to hit my cannonball before I leave town on Saturday, since I know I’ll finish several books on my trip but won’t have internet access to post my reviews. Unfortunately, Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts took me a full week to finish due to its dense subject material and rather dry writing. “Like most people, I acquired my initial sense of the era from books and photographs that left me with the impression that the world of then had no […]
Tragedy at war on the high seas
I have a vague memory of one, lonely sentence in my high school history text book declaring the sinking of the Lusitania as one of the reasons the United States eventually joined WWI. The interesting stuff is always in the details, but like most high school history courses, there weren’t any more details. Then I noticed Dead Wake (2015) by Erik Larson. I’d read The Devil in the White City, and even though Larson’s narrative style was sometimes distracting, it was a fascinating story. I figured it […]
Historical footnote brought vividly to life by a master of non-fiction writing
Erik Larson (Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck to name a few) writes non-fiction that reads like a novel, enthralling the reader and keeping them up page-turning with the same intensity as a beach read thriller. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania is no exception. History tells us on May 7 1915 a German submarine attacked and sank the British cruise liner, RMS Lusitania, on a voyage from New York City to Liverpool with several hundred American citizens on board. This act […]
Met you on a midway at a fair last century.
I, somehow, didn’t know anything about the Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair. I don’t know how that happened, because the World’s Fair was a turning point in American culture–and it sounds like it was awesome. The 1893 World’s Fair introduced us to Ferris Wheels, AC current, the Pledge of Allegiance, Shredded Wheat, Pabst Blue Ribbon, zippers, Juicy Fruit, the word “Midway,” Columbus Day, and that snake charmer song that is still a national earworm. It hosted Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and, […]
Berlin Before the War
Three Stars Who doesn’t want to start the year with a book about pre-WW II Nazi Germany? I mean, what better way to ease into an attempted double cannonball? Despite the subject matter, this book is not a challenging read. I read Mr. Larson’s book about the Chicago World’s Fair (Devil in the White City) either last year or the year before and found it to be good but tough to get through. This book flowed better, although it didn’t really end. I mean, obviously, it […]