pickInteresting history of the deadliest hurricane in history, it hit Galveston TX. It‘s incredible to see how far weather prediction has come and how much there was to learn and understand something as “simple” as the wind.
Larson has a great way of telling the history and making it feel like a story. Excellent research involved I‘m sure.
Sadly, this opening epigraph was the ONLY good thing about this book.
bailedIt's been a while since I've read a book that was so terrible that it actually made me angry. This was one of those books. It's a 389-page book that's supposed to be about the Union Carbide disaster that struck India in 1984, but the authors decided to wait until page 294 before they got to it. I'm not joking. It's as if they wanted to write about everything BUT the disaster. 😡😡😡 #2025Book4
so-so3.5⭐
I wanted to like this book more than I did. The narrator for the #audiobook had an incredibly soothing and easy to listen to voice. The firsthand accounts of the loss, devastation, resiliency, and strength were powerful. The book just felt too drawn out. If the author had condensed things a bit, which I fully believe he could have done without sacrificing the integrity of his work, then I think this would have easily been a 4-4.5 star read.
#12Booksof2024 Day 9
My favorite book of September was The House is On Fire, which I read with my IRL book club.
@Andrew65
pickI read the author‘s note first and it made this story set in deadliest urban disaster in US history at the time (1811) even more disturbing. That a slave has no obituary in local papers to document one‘s time on earth is not shocking but incredibly sad. That a white man would prefer a wife dead to disabled and could make that happen - ugh! That a slave is compelled to run into danger to save whites from death is heroism beyond measure.
