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Thunderstruck
- Narrated by: Bob Balaban
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's summary
Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, "the kindest of men", nearly commits the perfect crime.
With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.
Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the 20th century.
Gripping from the start, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.
Critic reviews
"Larson has a knack for creating genuine suspense in his writing, and his latest is thoroughly enthralling." (Booklist)
"Splendid, beautifully written.... Thunderstruck triumphantly resurrects the spirit of another age." (Publishers Weekly)
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The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
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No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
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Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.
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Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
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Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage
- The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World
- By: Hugh Brewster
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Titanic has often been called "An exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era", but until now, her story has not been presented as such. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner's most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing. Employing scrupulous research, he accurately depicts the ship's brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers.
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Lots of interesting details
- By Rachel on 10-16-18
By: Hugh Brewster
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Chief Engineer
- Washington Roebling, the Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: Erica Wagner
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, but after John Roebling's sudden death, Washington Roebling built what has become one of American's most iconic structures - as much a part of New York as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Yet, as recognizable as the bridge is, its builder is too often forgotten - and his life is of interest far beyond his chosen field. It is the story of immigrants, of the frontier, of the greatest crisis in American history, and of the making of the modern world.
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Monumental
- By charles mueller on 07-09-19
By: Erica Wagner
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The Italian Secretary
- By: Caleb Carr
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the Alienist series returns with a chilling elaboration on the Sherlock Holmes canon, as the famed detective investigates a pair of gruesome murders, which cast an otherworldly shadow as far as Queen Victoria herself.
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A True Delight for the Holmes Enthusiast
- By Sagar on 06-03-05
By: Caleb Carr
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The Wright Brothers
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story behind the story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.
On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright's Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why?
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Disappointing
- By Sara on 07-10-16
By: David McCullough
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The Colony
- The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles on Molokai
- By: John Tayman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1866, 12 men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then 40 more, and then 100 more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious.
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Interesting
- By Matt on 10-31-06
By: John Tayman
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Voyage of the Damned
- A Shocking True Story of Hope, Betrayal, and Nazi Terror
- By: Max Morgan Witts, Gordon Thomas
- Narrated by: Chris Kayser
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is a meticulous reconstruction of a tragic episode in the history of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. The SS. St. Louis left Hamburg in May of 1939 with 937 Jewish refugees on board who thought they had bought visas to enter Cuba. Refused entry in Cuba and the United States the ship eventually had to turn around and return to Europe. The voyage to freedom was in the end nothing more than a roundabout journey to the concentration camps.
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No propaganda more damning than the truth
- By Buretto on 10-29-20
By: Max Morgan Witts, and others
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The Witch of Lime Street
- Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World
- By: David Jaher
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1920s are famous as the golden age of jazz and glamour, but it was also an era of fevered yearning for communion with the spirit world, after the loss of tens of millions in the First World War and the Spanish-flu epidemic. A desperate search for reunion with dead loved ones precipitated a tidal wave of self-proclaimed psychics - and, as reputable media sought stories on occult phenomena, mediums became celebrities.
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Houdini, Conan Doyle and Marjorie
- By Blue Dragonfly on 10-11-15
By: David Jaher
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Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
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The Woman Who Smashed Codes
- A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies
- By: Jason Fagone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
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Captivating Biography
- By Jean on 11-20-17
By: Jason Fagone
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50 Children
- One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany
- By: Steven Pressman
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria. But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles - both in Europe and in the United States - Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children.
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I didn't want it to end
- By David Shear on 05-07-14
By: Steven Pressman
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Labyrinths
- Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis
- By: Catrine Clay
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.
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Carl plays center stage
- By Sparrowhawk on 12-23-16
By: Catrine Clay
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Mary Churchill’s War
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In 1939, seventeen-year-old Mary found herself in an extraordinary position at an extraordinary time: it was the outbreak of World War II and her father, Winston Churchill, had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; within months he would become prime minister. The young Mary Churchill was uniquely placed to observe this remarkable historical moment, and her diaries—most never published until now—provide an immediate view of the great events of the war, as well as intimate moments with her father. These diaries also capture what it was like to be a young woman during wartime.
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Love Mary Soames
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Simple Courage
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Drawing on historical documents and contemporary accounts and on exclusive interviews with Carlsen's family, Delaney opens a window into the world of the merchant marine. With deep affection, and respect, for the weather and all that goes with it, he places us in the heart of the storm, a "biblical tempest" of unimaginable power. He illuminates the bravery and ingenuity of Carlsen and the extraordinary courage that the 37-year-old captain inspired in his stalwart crew.
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Well written and read
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Henry Worsley spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th-century polar explorer who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape and life-threatening physical exhaustion. He soon felt compelled to go back. In 2015, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone.
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Will Patton's narration
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The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel
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September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.
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Great book!
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What listeners say about Thunderstruck
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- Wild Wise Woman
- 11-21-15
Passable story related by a terrible reader
I'm a big fan of Bob Balaban. I've never heard his read an audiobook before, but have listened to him in Audible plays and seen much of his TV and film work. So I was painfully disappointed by his clumsy narration.
I re-listened to Devil in the White City earlier this year, and was eager to have a similar experience with another Larson book. But Balaban's rushed reading, his klutzy mispronunciation, as well as ambient noise or echo in the early chapters, ruined the attempt. I made it about 30% in, but I'm going to ask for a refund. Even as the story is concerned, I find myself terribly bored by the Marconi tales and anxious to get back to Dr. Crippen. This particular mash-up feels very strained.
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- ZacharyKindle Customer
- 12-04-16
Thunderstruck
What made the experience of listening to Thunderstruck the most enjoyable?
Feeling the tension of Marconi, and the ignorance of Belle, and the love between the two.(No spoilers)
What was one of the most memorable moments of Thunderstruck?
When they talk about the retrieval of Belle
Which character – as performed by Bob Balaban – was your favorite?
Dr. Crippen
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I couldn't it was to long. I read it in a day.
Any additional comments?
Erik Larson is such a fine writer. I would love to sit down and talk with him sometime. Please write about WW 2- Pearl Harbor, Edward 6, Titanic etc
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- dender
- 07-29-21
keeps your attention throughout until the end
this is an extraordinary historical book because it's also almost a thriller at the same time. Very good read!!!
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- Stephanie
- 09-09-15
Same as Devil in the White City
If you enjoyed Devil in the White City you'll love this: same format, same in-depth reporting, same time period, same contrast between industry and crime.
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- Tim
- 04-28-15
Thunderstruck is a winner
After listening to and enjoying Dead Wake I decided to try another Erik Larson book. I must admit if my history book would have read like a Larson book I would have done much better in school. I enjoyed the way the story played out and the connections were made. This is an excellent book and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in history.
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- doctor bob
- 05-27-21
mystery like you have never read before
if you've never heard of the Crispin murders, you're about 100 years behind! Larson should be listened to in his first paragraph, he is dedicated to detail and anything he writes on you will become an expert in.
in this case he reviews an internationally known favorite mystery, that has had a number of books written on it before, and that even Alfred Hitchcock and other luminaries have incorporated into some of their movies.
this is ostensibly about a murder, you'll only get a glimpse of it in the first couple of chapters. then you will go on an unrelenting quest for understanding about the physics and politics of wireless transfer in the early part of the 1900s. the central character for most of the book is Marconi, who developed the technology or at least applied it. his contemporaries considered him to be a tinkerer and not a true scientist. the book reveals the war between the elites and the practitioners that go on even today in medicine and science. the academics of the day considered people like Edison to be tinkerers, and people who took scientific knowledge and turned it to their own benefits. it's a lucky thing that Marconi persisted, if you finish this book you'll know more about electromagnetism, hertz waves, another gobblinggook not only to the few people in the world that understand the history of science. you'll be challenged to keep up if you're not that scientifically interested, and in some ways it's about science the same way that the Queen's Gambit is about Chess. the connection is there but you don't know have to know anything about it.
one measure of a book is to see if it continues challenging you after you're finished. if you tell your neighbors and friends about this book you'll know you're hooked on the detail associated with Edwarian times and politics.
I recommended as an exercise in thinking, and those of you who are looking for a fast action murder mystery won't find it here. what you will find is a story that captivated the entirety of Europe during a period where ships at sea were mostly isolated. while everyone in Europe knew what was going to happen, it was a daily event in English media because the public knew as a whole what the murderer did not. it showed the efficiency of wireless transfer which was actually after the telephone and telegraph had been invented. you will think it's the greatest book you've ever read or he'll drop it after 5 minutes. either way you'll have an exposure to an exceptional author.
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- Lineas Pottebaum
- 01-08-22
Another great book from Larson
I love Larson's books and this one was no exception. I enjoy the way he intertwines major historical events with the personal stories of people who lived through the events. I would recommend it to Larson fans and to anyone who enjoys learning about history in an entertaining way. Readers who appreciate historical fiction and have not read Larson, would likely find "Thunderstruck" very interesting. His character development is excellent and most of his books move at a good pace. To be fair, there were a few points where this one dragged. The only other minor criticism is that I would have appreciated more details on how the "wireless" worked from a technical perspective.
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- J. Burcham
- 01-18-22
For lovers of historical detail, scientific discov
Many (most?) readers may find the buildup to the amazing revelations in the final 25% of the story too much of a slog...unless the reader truly revels in historical details and the trial-and-error of scientific discovery. I, for one, am fascinated by Marconi's journey and eventual recognition with a Nobel Prize in Physics. The story of Crippen, meanwhile, was only impactful to me once I realized the gravity of what he had done and had almost escaped.
The performance is narrated by Bob Balaban, an American actor whose roles in Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration, played an unfortunate bias in my enjoyment of the production. I kept picturing him as one of those mockumentary characters and although he is excellent at what he does, my brain distracted me.
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- Stasie
- 03-20-15
Not my favorite Larson novel
I've always enjoyed Erik Larsons novels but this one was a little slow and dragged out. It almost gave too much detail bordering on boring at times.
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- Robert H. Cooper III
- 04-19-24
Larson is a good story teller who is able to weave contemporaneous narratives into a spell-binding page turner.
I found the staccato reading of the book to grate on me after a period of time
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