Items19The creator’s order
  1. 1Wager (2023)Wager (2023) 8.9/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2023In The Wager, survivors of the wreck of HMS Wager return with accounts that contradict one another. David Grann uses their published versions and the ensuing court-martial to make credibility part of the adventure. Read it for the pressure of deciding which detail to believe as each survivor tries…0
  2. 2Killers of the Flower Moon (2017)Killers of the Flower Moon (2017) 8.2/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2017Murders in the Osage Nation during the 1920s are the starting point. David Grann’s use of guardianship ledgers, probate files, and criminal case records shows how a system that controlled Osage money could be exploited. What an investigator can prove, and how much the files still leave unresolved,…0
  3. 3Say Nothing (2018)Say Nothing (2018) 9.2/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2018Patrick Radden Keefe begins with the disappearance of Jean McConville in Belfast and follows its afterlife through the Troubles. Interviews and previously unpublished records give the book several perspectives on the same years. Choose it for the tension between what people remember, what they say,…0
  4. 4Midnight in Chernobyl (2019)Midnight in Chernobyl (2019) 9.4/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2019Adam Higginbotham moves from the Chernobyl plant’s control room to the institutions that had to respond to the disaster. Letters, unpublished memoirs, archival material, and interviews give that movement a human scale. The technical explanations matter because they show what people could and could…0
  5. 5The Ghost Map (2006)The Ghost Map (2006) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2006A London cholera outbreak becomes a contest between explanations for how disease spreads. Steven Johnson follows physician John Snow and local curate Henry Whitehead through the same streets, where a map and knowledge of individual households help answer different questions. Pick it if you want to…0
  6. 6The Johnstown flood (1968)The Johnstown flood (1968) 4.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1968David McCullough gives you time to understand the South Fork Dam and the community downstream before the dam fails. His interviews with survivors help give the account of the 1889 flood its human scale. The engineering and the decisions about the dam give the disaster scenes their consequences.0
  7. 7The worst hard time (2005)The worst hard time (2005) 10.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2005Timothy Egan follows High Plains families through the Dust Bowl, when putting food on the table or waiting for rain could govern a family’s choices. Their stories keep the Depression visible at household scale while Egan explains how plowing and drought amplified the disaster. Read this for an…0
  8. 8In the Heart of the Sea (2000)In the Heart of the Sea (2000) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2000A sperm whale sinks the Nantucket whaleship Essex, leaving its crew in small boats. Nathaniel Philbrick brings in an account by cabin boy Thomas Nickerson. That point of view changes how you read the decisions of the men in charge, and the book gives enough context about whaling to make sense of…0
  9. 9The indifferent stars above (2009)The indifferent stars above (2009) 8.7/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2009Daniel James Brown follows Sarah Graves, a newly married member of the Donner Party. Starting with her departure from Illinois gives the journey a life before the disaster that usually defines it. The book works especially well for readers who want the geography and successive decisions to matter…0
  10. 10The radium girls (2016)The radium girls (2016) 7.5/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2016Workers painting luminous watch and instrument dials began to suffer illnesses tied to radium. Kate Moore follows the workers and the fight for accountability, with their own accounts helping set the pace. The book is most revealing when a medical finding or a legal obstacle changes what the women…0