Isaac's Storm

I've been requesting this book from Audible for three years and its finally here! It's a great story and a wonderful listen. I've both read the book and listened to this version a dozen times over. I actually put it on my iPod and drove through Galveston using it as a sort of guided tour.

The narrator is excellent. Highly recommended as a chilling story about a family fued, the history of the National Weather Service and the Texas Gulf Coast, as well as one monster of a storm. The Daily News in Galveston has a good companion web site once you've finished the book. Good stuff!

I picked this book because I loved Devil In The White City by Erik Larson and wanted his earlier work. Erik has a rare talent of making non-fiction read like fiction. This book is outstanding. AND to think how timely it is with the aftermath of Katrina and how politics got in the way of managing that disaster.

I highly recommend this and Larson's other book if you haven't gotten that one yet.

This is an well written, well paced account of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane that struck without warning and completely swamped the island city one September day. This audio version is abridged so some of the more gruesome, and pendantic, details were left out, but the story still provides a vivid recounting of harrowing experiences of the survivors of this spectacular disaster. A hurricane is nothing to celebrate, and Isaac's Storm tells you why. If you enjoy such survivor accounts against Mother Nature's fury, then you will enjoy this one, too.

Non-fiction Drama: a random pick for me that I enjoyed. I had never heard this story before. It goes into details of the early U.S. weather service, its failings and how egos got in the way of predicting a colossal hurricane in Galveston. The focus is on one individual who worked for the service but was not heard in time. The description of the hurricane is the best part. The tale has a long lead-in that seems very well researched and fleshes out the life and time of Isaac Cline. Knowing ahead of time what is going to happen kept me interested. I like a true a story more than one made-up.

Erik Larson is the next David McCullough! Loved The Devil in The White City and Isaac's Storm did not disappoint. I was vaguely familiar with the Galveston Hurricane and this book makes me want to read more about it. A thoroughly entertaining and informative listen. Highly recommend it. Thunderstruck is next on my list.

I liked the Devil and the White City a lot and this one is even better. Although the story is less gruesome in some ways, it's still a chilling acount of what happened to Galveston. It's a good and excellent read.

The story is what you would expect – a calamity of terrible proportions. The author clearly did all the necessary homework and digging to get as much material as possible. The result is a complete start to finish story of everything that happened during this terrible event.

There isn’t a whole lot of really deep character development, though there is an attempt to get you sucked into the life of the weather forecaster and his family. I didn’t really buy into that in the end. The book stands on it’s own as a very complete history. It is not a novel, but it is extremely interesting, and of curse, sad.

I was a little disappointed towards the end but overall it was worth the read. If nothing else it shows how recently in history we didn't know what was going on! (Do we now?)
Good reader.

I had heard about this storm only recently, about the time of Hurricane Katrina, and really had no idea of its enormity. To hear about it from first hand experiences of those individuals who were there and survived it, was amazing. The book was well paced and read like fiction even though it was non-fiction, which is to say it was a very enjoyable story. It put a well deserved fear of the power of the weather in us!

The pace of the story was very effective. It built slowly, and then climaxed with the horrible storm.

Not sure.

We listened to this book on a long drive and it was effective that way, so yes.

The Narrator uses needless sarcasm to emphasize subtle points which spoils the tone of the writing. I enjoyed this book inspite of the narration. In the future I will avoid books read by this person. I give it two stars for "tolerable".