Reviews
I found parts of this books dragged, especially the rivalries and relationships between all the weather scientists, but the descriptions of destruction were unparalleled as was the clearly immense research that supported this book (as evidenced by the 50+ pages of notes). Here's to 2017, the year of embracing non-fiction!
"Few asked the obvious question: If the bureau had done such a great job, why did so many people die?" Unfortunately, a confluence of ego, hubris, and ignorance is not a good combination for a coastal city. At nearly every stage of this storm's journey (which you can revisit here), people not wanting to admit they were wrong, that other people knew better, or that anything was amiss in their great state of prosperity hindered any sort of advance warning that Galveston might have had. The result was catastrophic damage, something like 8-10,000 people dead, and survivors that had to pick up the pieces. I thought this was an incredibly compelling book that outlined the day-by-day progress of the storm and all the points of failure along the way. We also got a brief historical writeup beforehand about hurricane detection in history, which I thought was really interesting as well. The beef between Columbus and Bobadilla and the ending that story had was especially delicious. There's an incredible amount of notes and sources at the end too, which were also interesting to flip through. If you're a weather enthusiast looking for hard science, maybe pass this one up, though. Everything's kept at a basic level, which is great for keeping the ley person engaged and on board. If you're looking for a compelling historical look at an epic disaster, though, definitely give this a look.
Horribly boring.
Larson tells the incredible story of hubris, disaster, and loss behind the fall of Galveston as America's premier Gulf Coast city from the perspective of several residents, most notably Issac Cline who oversaw the nascent Weather Bureau office there. Well-paced and immersive, it's an entertaining read.
I was incredibly disappointed by this book. The Galveston tragedy was one of those events that I learned about as a fact but have not had a chance to learn any details. I hoped that this book would provide those details. On one hand this book provided those details. On the other hand, Larson's narrative squandered potential historical narrative gold by wandering all around the point and "focusing" his narrative on a single employee of the nascent Weather Bureau. I put "focusing" in quotes for a reason. More than half of this book completely ignored Isaac Cline. That half did not solely discuss the storm although that made up a part of it. No, that half found itself scattered throughout the Isaac-centered portions. Sometimes Larson discussed random boat captains who were caught in the storm. Sometimes Larson discussed other people who found themselves caught up in the disaster. In fact, Larson spent an entire chapter telling the background for a couple that he failed to mention much further than the first third of the book. I cannot recall if he even mentioned their ultimate fate. Although well sourced, Larson wrote an abysmally terrible historical narrative. I recommend that people avoid this book entirely.
I feel like I can’t review this because I’m just not an avid reader of this genre, but it wouldn’t be fair for me to rate it low just because of that! I think it’s a good book actually, I just struggled to really get into it. (I read this for school so that’s why I read it in the first place)
Shocking, and yet I wanted more of the personal stories post the storm. Erik Larson is an amazing writer.
Fascinating as per usual for Larson. I learned a fair amount and now want to write a trivia round about this in some way shape or form...or at least a question.
