“Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.� (p. 238).
Erik Larson is a master craftsman when it A COMPELLINGLY GOOD READ.
“Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.� (p. 238).
Erik Larson is a master craftsman when it come to writing nonfiction more compelling than most novels. Borrowing heavily from personal diaries of people close to the seats of power, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz offers an authentic-feeling, up close and personal look at the day to day lives of extraordinary folks, under incredible circumstances.
Recommendation: I highly recommend this story.
“AND SO, WITH FAMILY TURMOIL, civic trauma, and Hitler’s deputy falling from the sky, the first year of Churchill’s leadership came to an end.� (p. 483).
“The ship was one of the most distinctive on the high seas, and a prize of the first order. He [Capt. WaltCOMPREHENSIVE, COMPELLING AND ILLUMITATING.
“The ship was one of the most distinctive on the high seas, and a prize of the first order. He [Capt. Walther Schwieger, commander of German U-Boat #U-20] was near despair: this one ship, by itself, would have given him his best monthly tonnage count of the war.� (p. 224)�
Randomness, happenstance, and an uncountable bevy of butterfly effects. But for at least two delays in leaving New York. But for running on only three of its four engines. But for multiple banks of fog. But for Captain Schwieger’s decision to turn home, without ever reaching his planned patrol area. But for a last minute change of course. But for the British navy’s failure to provide any escort� this book would never have happened.
There was never any reasonable expectation that that one torpedo and that enormous ocean liner would ever converge at the same place at the same moment. But, despite the incredible odds against it, we know they did.
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Eric Larson is another of Larson’s great, in depth, expositions of some of the more esoteric phenomena of history. Another human tragedy that just should not have happened. Even in wartime.
Recommendation: I highly recommend this book.
“IN THE END, Schwieger’s attack on the Lusitania succeeded because of a chance confluence of forces.� (p. 320)
“The Public Weal Transcends the Interests of the Individual.”—page 272
Erik Larson is, I believe, the Ken Follett of histoENLIGHTENNG AND ENTERTAINING.
“The Public Weal Transcends the Interests of the Individual.”—page 272
Erik Larson is, I believe, the Ken Follett of historical non-fiction. He writes some of the best, most incredible, most interesting, most readable, most enjoyable, off-the-wall historical stories I’ve ever read. His goodreads.com profile says that he was born in 1954 in Brooklyn, New York; yet he writes with compelling authority and with an engaging and convincing sense of time and place, of times and places very far removed from 1950s/1960s Brooklyn.
In ‘The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin,� Larson offers an insightful glimpse of the early days of Hitler’s reign, in the 1930s; and of a most incredible paradigm switch, made by the German population, fostered by rhetoric and terror.
Recommendation: If Erik Larson writes it: Read it to learn and enjoy.
“Now on his walks through the Tiergarten Dodd saw that some benches had been painted yellow to indicate they were for Jews. The rest, the most desirable, were reserved for Aryans.”—page 369
Adobe Digital Editions [ePub], 467 pages, on loan from . ...more
Only non-fiction could yield such an original and incredible line as: “…John Ellis, a village hairdresser who moonlighted as hangman.� [pg. 371:] Who Only non-fiction could yield such an original and incredible line as: “…John Ellis, a village hairdresser who moonlighted as hangman.� [pg. 371:] Who could make up such a character?
Erik Larson’s ‘Thunderstruck� is a sterling ‘whodunnit� (even though we know ‘whodunnit�) set at the precise moment when the world began to shrink. It is also an engaging and enlightening biographical sketch of Guglielmo Marconi, the man whose obsession, dedication and hubris would launch the technology that would bring about worldwide instant communication.
I was very impressed by the sophistication of forensic medicine in 1910; especially in detecting the presence of poison in human tissue. [The St. Mary’s Cat, pgs. 351 � 353:] I was also pleased to finally learn of a use for the Heaviside Layer [pg. 383:], other than as a final refuge for ascending ‘Cats� in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of that name.
As I’ve said, this story was “engaging and enlightening,� and very entertaining.
Finally, whatever happened to ‘swooning�? [pg. 363:] You just don’t seem to hear of anyone ever fainting anymore.
Recommendation: Read it soon. This is non-fiction history and mystery that reads like a novel.
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