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Title: Isaac's Storm : A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson ISBN: 0-375-70827-8 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 11 July, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.16 (191 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Isaac's Strom Book Review
Comment: Russell Monllos
BOOK REVIEW
Isaac's Storm written by author Erik Larson was a different book then I had ever read before. It was thrilling, exciting, and suspenseful at the same time. Isaac Cline was a very interesting character because he was a meteorologist and it was he who the people looked to for advice throughout the book. The deadliest hurricane in America made its surprising destruction with no warning which made the book more and more suspenseful. I enjoyed the book but it took a while to get into it. The beginning to me was slow but picked up later around the middle of the book. It was this quote that made we want to continue to read every page until I knew what would happen to Galveston if and when the storm hit. "The storm swells were increasing in magnitude and frequency and were building up a storm tide which told me as plainly as through it was a written message that great danger was approaching."
I agreed with this book because another part which made it more interesting and meaningful to me was they included actual letters and messages that were sent back in forth form Galveston to the Untied States Weather Bureau located in that time in Washington DC. To me that made the book more factual and more enjoyable to read. This was a book based on the theme of survival. The hurricane came as a surprise and left thousands dead and destroyed most of the city. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody wanting to read a action book based on a true story which will make you amazed on how a town back in the1900's could survive such a huge natural disaster.
285
Rating: 4
Summary: Nature and Hubris Collide
Comment: On September 8, 1900, a storm roared into Galveston, Texas - a storm that still has the dubious honor of causing U.S. History's greatest loss of human life due to natural disaster. I had heard very little, if anything about this tragedy or the circumstances leading to the egregious death toll, until very near its centennial. According to interviews in relation to the release of this book, this was Erik Larson's experience as well. It was only in doing research on another matter that he stumbled across descriptions of the Great Galveston Storm of 1900, and being an irrepressible weather hound, he was instantly obsessed. This is his readers' good fortune.
How the magnitude of this storm could have been so tragically misread is something that is still debated among meteorologists, but Mr. Larson shows quite clearly the confluence of human error, arrogance and politics that created an environment ripe for just such a catastrophe. Competing weather bureaus, the concern about causing "undue panic" only to have the storm be less severe than predicted (observers weren't even allowed to use the word "hurricane"), among other things, all added up to a situation that caused the deaths of between 6,000 and 10,000 people.
Along with the individual stories taken from oral histories of the survivors, which left me torn between tears and anger, I got a thorough, yet concise history of how hurricane prediction grew from mere observation of storms as they happened, to understanding of conditions that were conducive to a storm's creation. It is history and science, quickly-paced and very interesting; knowledge imparted before I was even aware I was learning something. Very sneaky, that Larson.
As much as I hate to use the phrase "reads like a novel," this book truly does. It is accurate without being dry, and moving without being exploitative. It sheds much needed light on Isaac Cline and his storm, and I'm glad that Erik Larson was distracted from his original research and led down the path to Galveston.
Word of warning - some of the stories are necessarily speculative, given the amount of time that has passed, but Larson explains his reasons and the credibility of his choices in his extensive notes. Also, natives of Galveston and descendants of the survivors will likely take issue with the less than stellar portrayal of Isaac Cline. I suspect Larson's take on Cline's actions on September 8 is relatively close to the truth, but I don't think it will sit well with some.
Rating: 5
Summary: Would be a fantastic Steven Speilberg movie
Comment: I haven't been so involved in a book in a long time. It was wonderful to read and it gave me a new interest in hurricanes. The author puts so much factual research in with the story telling. I could not put it down.
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Title: The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson ISBN: 0609608444 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 11 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: A Weekend in September by John Edward Weems ISBN: 0890963908 Publisher: Texas A&M University Press Pub. Date: December, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.47 |
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Title: The Windows of Heaven: A Novel of Galveston's Great Storm of 1900 by Ron Rozelle ISBN: 1881515273 Publisher: Sam Houston State Univ Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester ISBN: 0066212855 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Great Galveston Disaster: Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times by Paul Lester ISBN: 1565547845 Publisher: Pelican Pub Co Pub. Date: March, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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