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Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
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Publisher's summary
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania
“Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR
“Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. Martin
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.
Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.
It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.
Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.
Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo
Critic reviews
"Larson is one of the modern masters of popular narrative nonfiction...a resourceful reporter and a subtle stylist who understands the tricky art of Edward Scissorhands-ing narrative strands into a pleasing story...An entertaining book about a great subject, and it will do much to make this seismic event resonate for new generations of readers."—The New York Times Book Review
"Larson is an old hand at treating nonfiction like high drama...He knows how to pick details that have maximum soapy potential and then churn them down until they foam [and] has an eye for haunting, unexploited detail."—The New York Times
"In his gripping new examination of the last days of what was then the fastest cruise ship in the world, Larson brings the past stingingly alive...He draws upon telegrams, war logs, love letters, and survivor depositions to provide the intriguing details, things I didn't know I wanted to know...Thrilling, dramatic and powerful."—NPR
Featured Article: The Best Nonfiction Audiobooks to Jump into Right Now
The best nonfiction audiobooks take involved, often intimidating subjects and reinvigorate them with sharp narration so you can stay focused and on track. In this list, we’ll share our picks for some of the best nonfiction audio out there, encompassing a wide array of topics—from the entire history of humanity to astrophysics to the American prison system. Engage with some of the most fascinating, deeply human real-life stories our catalog has to offer.
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One of the largest, fastest, and most beautiful ships in the world, the Andrea Doria was en route to New York from Italy. Departing from the United States was the much smaller Stockholm. On the foggy night of July 25, 1956, 53 miles southeast of Nantucket, the Stockholm sliced through the Doria's steel hull. Within minutes, the sea was pouring into the Italian liner. Eleven hours later, she capsized and sank into the ocean.
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Thorough Account of the Tragedy
- By Admiralu on 10-22-21
By: Alvin Moscow
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The Wolf
- How One German Raider Terrorized the Allies in the Most Epic Voyage of WWI
- By: Richard Guilliatt, Peter Hohnen
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1916, a nondescript freighter left Germany carrying 465 submarine mines, 16 torpedoes, eight cannons, 1,400 shells, a seaplane, and 346 men who believed they were embarking on a suicide mission. That ship became known to Allied forces as the Wolf, and by the time it returned to Germany more than a year later, it was home to more than 800 men, women, and children from 25 different nations, including its own crew.
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Too little sea action.
- By Joseph on 05-02-12
By: Richard Guilliatt, and others
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Other Side of the Night
- The Carpathia, the Californian and the Night the Titanic Was Lost
- By: Daniel Allen Butler
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A few minutes before midnight on April 14, 1912, the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic, on her maiden voyage to New York, struck an iceberg. Less than three hours later she lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. While the world has remained fascinated by the tragedy, the most amazing drama of those fateful hours was not played out aboard the doomed liner. It took place on the decks of two other ships, one 58 miles distant from the sinking Titanic, the other barely 10 miles away.
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The Other Side of the Night
- By Amazon Customer on 04-19-15
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Indianapolis
- By: Lynn Vincent, Sara Vladic
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the Philippine Sea when she is sunk by two Japanese torpedoes. For the next five nights and four days, almost 300 miles from the nearest land, nearly 900 men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 will survive. Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own.
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As good as In Harm's Way but different
- By tru britty on 07-13-18
By: Lynn Vincent, and others
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So Close to Home
- A True Story of an American Family’s Fight for Survival During World War II
- By: Michael J. Tougias, Alison O’Leary
- Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On May 19, 1942, a U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico stalked its prey 50 miles away from New Orleans. Captained by 29-year-old Iron Cross recipient Erich Würdemann, the submarine set its sights on the freighter Heredia with 59 souls onboard. Most of the crew were merchant seamen, but there were also a handful of civilians, including the Downs family, consisting of the parents, Ray Sr. and Ina; along with their two children, eight-year-old Ray Jr., nicknamed "Sonny", and 11-year-old Lucille.
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Couldn't Stop Listening
- By Reader7347 on 03-08-18
By: Michael J. Tougias, and others
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Miracles on the Water
- The Heroic Survivors of a World War II U-Boat Attack
- By: Tom Nagorski
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
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Overall
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Story
An unforgettable story of children in wartime, of heroism at sea, and - above all - of courage and the power of the human spirit. On September 17, 1940, at a little after 10 at night, a German submarine torpedoed the passenger liner S.S. City of Benares in the North Atlantic. There were 406 people on board, but the ship's prized passengers were 90 children whose parents had elected to send their boys and girls away from Great Britain to escape the ravages of World War II. They were considered lucky, headed for quiet, peaceful, and relatively bountiful Canada.
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Riveting history
- By appreciative reader on 05-21-17
By: Tom Nagorski
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A Man and His Ship
- America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the S.S. United States
- By: Steven Ujifusa
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At the peak of his power, in the 1940s and 1950s, William Francis Gibbs was considered America's best naval architect. His quest to build the finest, fastest, most beautiful ocean liner of his time, the S.S. United States, was a topic of national fascination. When completed in 1952, the ship was hailed as a technological masterpiece at a time when "made in America" meant the best.
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Good read and lots of great history on naval engineering history in the 20th century
- By Amzbuyer on 01-03-24
By: Steven Ujifusa
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How to Survive the Titanic
- The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
- By: Frances Wilson
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On the terrifying, chaotic night of April 14, 1912, while the Titanic was sinking, Bruce J. Ismay, the ship's owner, made a decision that would save his life - and end it. Ismay boarded a lifeboat meant for women and children, and within days became The Most Talked-of Man in the World. Branded a coward, he became a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Joseph Conrad's legendary eponymous character, Lord Jim.
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Not especially uplifting, but quite good
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-12
By: Frances Wilson
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Iron Dawn
- The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History
- By: Richard Snow
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
No single sea battle has had more far-reaching consequences than the one fought in the harbor at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in March 1862. The Confederacy, with no fleet of its own, built an iron fort containing 10 heavy guns on the hull of a captured Union frigate named the Merrimack. The North got word of the project when it was already well along, and, in desperation, commissioned an eccentric inventor named John Ericsson to build the Monitor, an entirely revolutionary iron warship.
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Good book about an underreported area of the civil war
- By Brian on 11-09-16
By: Richard Snow
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Wolf of the Deep
- Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama
- By: Stephen Fox
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In July 1862, Confederate Captain Raphael Semmes took command of a secret new warship. At the helm of the Alabama, he became the most hated and feared man along the Union coast, as well as a Confederate legend. Now, with unparalleled authority, depth, and a vivid sense of the excitement and danger of the time, Stephen Fox describes Captain Semmes's remarkable wartime exploits.
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Wolf of the Deep
- By Sammi on 08-18-07
By: Stephen Fox
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Submarine Commander
- A Story of World War II and Korea
- By: Paul R. Schratz
- Narrated by: John N. Gully
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A fascinating personal memoir of underwater combat in World War II, told by a man who played a major role in those dangerous operations. Frank and beautifully written, this book will be of lasting value as a submarine history by an expert and as an enduring military and political analysis.
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Engrossing Memoir
- By Jean on 12-24-15
By: Paul R. Schratz
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Voyagers of the Titanic
- Passengers, Sailors, Shipbuilders, Aristocrats, and the Worlds They Came From
- By: Richard Davenport-Hines
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Late in the night of April 14, 1912, the mighty Titanic, a passenger liner traveling from Southampton, England, to New York City, struck an iceberg four hundred miles south of Newfoundland. Its sinking over the next two and a half hours brought the ship—mythological in name and size—100 years of infamy.
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Thorough, panoramic
- By Tad Davis on 04-10-12
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For Crew and Country
- The Inspirational True Story of Bravery and Sacrifice Aboard the USS Samuel B. Roberts
- By: John Wukovits
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On October 25, 1944, the Samuel B. Roberts and 12 other vessels stood between Japan’s largest battleship force ever and MacArthur’s transports inside Leyte Gulf. Facing more than 20 Japanese vessels - including the 70,000-ton Yamato - the 1,200-ton Samuel B. Roberts turned immediately to action, churning straight at the enemy in a near-suicidal attempt to deflect the more potent foe and buy time for MacArthur’s forces.
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Well Done Naval Story of the Samuel B. Roberts
- By David on 05-15-13
By: John Wukovits
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Wreck of the Carl D.
- A True Story of Loss, Survival, and Rescue at Sea
- By: Michael Schumacher
- Narrated by: Gary D. MacFadden
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On November 18, 1958, a 623-foot limestone carrier - caught in one of the most violent storms in Lake Michigan history - broke in two and sank in less than five minutes. Four of the 35-person crew escaped to a small raft, to which they clung in total darkness, braving 30-foot waves and frigid temperatures. As the storm raged on, a search-and-rescue mission hunted for survivors, while the frantic citizens of nearby Rogers City, Michigan, anxiously awaited word of their loved ones' fates.
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A harrowing story of survival and loss
- By Ron T on 03-25-16
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Castles of Steel
- Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
- By: Robert K. Massie
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 40 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The predominant image of this first world war is of mud and trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, poison gas, and slaughter. A generation of European manhood was massacred, and a wound was inflicted on European civilization that required the remainder of the twentieth century to heal.
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Stick With It!
- By Matt on 09-22-12
By: Robert K. Massie
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The Other Side of the Night
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Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.
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Futurists insist that AI will soon eclipse the capacities of the most gifted human mind. What hope do we have against superintelligent machines? But we aren't really on the path to developing intelligent machines. In fact, we don't even know where that path might be. Erik Larson takes us on a tour of the landscape of AI to show how far we are from superintelligence and what it would take to get there.
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dead wrong after 2 years
- By K. Lyon on 07-11-23
By: Erik J. Larson
What listeners say about Dead Wake
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- Sara
- 03-05-16
Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
This amazing book offers a 360 degree birds-eye view of the history of these WWI events from multiple perspectives. A harrowing, engaging and throughly shocking story that kept me hanging on each word. I think Brick did a great job with the narration.
The book skillfully blends the cold dispassionate stories of U-boat attacks and the use of chemical weapons contrasted with the blind trust of the passengers of the Lusitania traveling into a war zone and the manipulative nature of the Admiralty and Room 40 trying to draw America into the war. A full picture is painted and a deeper understanding of life in the WWI years is made deftly available to the reader.
Recommended to history lovers who enjoy blow by blow accounts that place a human face on distant events. Truly a story of senseless murder on the high seas. Many questions are left unanswered in this retelling of negligence vs conspiracy theory incident vs random coincidence. Be forewarned not for the faint of heart. Wow.
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74 people found this helpful
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- Mel
- 03-13-15
'A Deed for Which a Hun Would Blush'
On May 1, 1915, the Lusitania departed from New York on the return leg of her 101st voyage. Six days later, 11 miles off the coast of Ireland, the Lusitania was struck by a German torpedo at 2:10 p.m. and within 18 minutes (the Titanic took 2 hr. 40 min.) the Lusitania slid into the water. A NY newspaper's headline read “A Deed for Which a Hun Would Blush, a Turk Be Ashamed, and a Barbary Pirate Apologize.”
The seeds of disaster may have been sown before the Lusitania even left NY when the Cunard Line and the passengers chose to brush aside the official warnings from the German Embassy. Kaiser Wilhelm had declared 8 months earlier that the North Sea was now a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, were liable to be sunk without warning. Adding heft to the facts that Larson presents, are the damning little mistakes and coincidences, plus the what-if's. He strategically lays out the pending disaster and shows how relevant it all is -- how 5 min. either way could have changed history. And, at times it felt like everything conspired against the Lusitania.
Historians have flirted with the notion of a conspiracy orchestrated by Winston Churchill to prod a neutral United States into the war in Europe. While Larsen doesn't set out to prove or disprove that notion, the information he gives does push the reader in one of those directions. Citing comments by King George V: “Suppose they should sink the Lusitania with American passengers aboard?” and Churchill: “For our part, we want the traffic [from America] - the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.” And naval historian, the late Patrick Beesly's interview with the Imperial War Museum in London: “there was indeed a plot, however imperfect, to endanger the Lusitania in order to involve the United States in the war.” I suppose a conclusion here calls for a higher form of deductive reasoning than if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck.
Balancing the facts with the human elements and the political theater, Larson keeps the integrity of history, but gives it an easily held timeline and some pizazz -- even though we know what's coming, Larson's signature is skillful telling that builds anticipation. (Though his talent can occasionally be an impediment, as in having to read over pages of the ship's manifest. The minutiae at times is more a curiosity than it is interesting.)
What happened adds up to more than just a series of horrible coincidences. : Why wasn't there a military escort into the Channel; why was a boat responding to the mayday ordered to turn around; why did *Room 40* not let the Lusitania know the information they had decoded; and...why were approximately four million rounds of U.S.manufactured Remington .303 bullets in the Lusitania's hold? Larsen puts the questions in your mouth, but don't expect him to give any answers. Not a lot of new information, but it's still history like only Larsen does history.
Scott Brick's talents seem well suited reading this kind of book.
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60 people found this helpful
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- L. O. Pardue
- 03-15-15
What a Ride!
Erik Larson has done it again. I knew that the sinking of the Lusitania was one of the causes for America's entrance into WWI, but was never curious enough to find out more details. With Larson’s fascinating reenactment of all the facts, he was able to show how so many people had a unique part of the history of the tragedy of the Lusitania. Larson’s facts and anecdotes about President Wilson, Churchill, the German U20 pilot, the Lusitania capain and so many of the passengers and crew made for a full history of events. He also gave me a clear view of life in 1915.
Larson has done this brilliant re-telling before with his many history books of which “The Devil in the White City” is my favorite. If you have any interest in history, be sure to get this audiobook. I enjoyed it immensely.
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54 people found this helpful
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- Jerry Morelock
- 03-16-15
Too Much Fluff
I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out just exactly what Woodrow Wilson's love life had to do with the Lusitania sinking. And not just a little is included; I now know more than I ever knew or wanted to know about the subject.
Seems like Larson uses the same method most of my tenured sociology profs used in their publications--namely, cram those suckers full of anything even remotely related to the subject and re-use long phrases and statistics over and over. Padding, I think is the term. Of course, I for damsure know the rate at which water comes through an open porthole, and for that I'm thankful.
Seriously though, I really think the book would have been much better trimmed down to somewhere between maybe half and two-thirds of its length. But maybe Larson was paid by the word. Thank goodness for Mr. Brick, whose narration alone kept me from skipping the first half of the book entirely.
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53 people found this helpful
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- Katherine Brown
- 03-13-15
Superb story teller
Where does Dead Wake rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I only read Non Fiction. This book is one of the better books I have read about a historical subject matter.
Who was your favorite character and why?
No particular character was a favorite. It was just the overall book.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, and I did it was that good.
Any additional comments?
This is not dry reading. I felt like it was story hour. It reminded me of how glued I was as little kid when my mother would read me a really good story. Larson lays out all the information and historical facts surrounding the Lusitania. The facts are interesting, some I did not already know about the Lusitania.
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44 people found this helpful
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- Max
- 03-22-15
Larson writes history that reads like fiction
But it's not fiction. I wasn't sure I'd be interested in the Lusitania, but but I enjoyed Larson's other books so much, I thought "he might be able to do this one". I wasn't disappointed. From the logs of the U boat captain, British naval and government records, and diaries and statements of passengers, Larson weaves a narrative that reads as easily as good fiction. I put him in the category of Doris Kearns Goodman and Laura Hillenbrand.
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26 people found this helpful
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- 6catz
- 04-09-15
Fascinating, haunting
Yet another extraordinary Erik Larson book that proves that history can be as dramatically riveting as any work of fiction, especially in the hands of a brilliant storyteller. I've not been a Scott Brick fan in the past, but he does a fine, understated reading here. This is on par with Larson's best previous work (Devil in the White City, In the Garden of the Beasts). Well worth the credit!
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- Aaron
- 03-31-17
U-Boats. Sinister. Fascinating
I am a 33 year old male without formal education. I adore history books if the story holds my attention, but I'm usually a fiction reader. Dead Wake got me off good!!!!
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- Seneca
- 03-21-15
Crashingly Tedious Narration
What did you like best about Dead Wake? What did you like least?
The narration is hideous. Is it too much to ask that a sentence such as 'Kenneth poured himself a glass of water' doesn't get read to the audiobook listener as if it's 'Kenneth poured himself a beaker of blood'?
Would you be willing to try another book from Erik Larson? Why or why not?
I think I'm done.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
The whole Keith Morrison dolorous act is just so overdone, it makes the book unread (listen-) able.
Do you think Dead Wake needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
The 100 year anniversaries of WW1 will no doubt give us plenty of better books.
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- S. Yates
- 04-13-18
Larson excellent, blends big themes with humanity
Larson is in fine form, weaving together the small details of the passengers and crew of the Lusitania, a history of the ship, an overview of international relations, a truncated bit of biography of President Wilson during WWI before the US entered the Great War, a peak into Great Britain's Room 40 as it secretly read Germany's encrypted messages, and an exploration of the captain of submarine U-20 on the patrol that would bring it into a fateful meeting with the Lusitania. Where the fate of the ship is so widely known, Larson must work hard to build the suspense. He does this ably by making sure the reader is introduced to enough individuals to make their journey across the Atlantic fraught, as you begin to wonder who will and won't survive, and start picturing the agony that passengers and crew would feel if separated from siblings, lovers, spouses, friends, or children.
As Larson puts together the larger picture and sets the scene, we range from German U-boat captains, to a widowed Woodrow Wilson, to a pugnacious Winston Churchill, to a ship's crew lacking extensive experience. He lets us in on the reasons for various passengers' trips, describes the treasures they brought with them, and what they hoped for out of the Atlantic crossing. Interspersed with the intensely human details are lovingly rendered descriptions of the ship, and worrying revelations about the German's intentions toward Atlantic shipping and the uneven protection offered by the British Admiralty in response. The reader gets a very focused examination of a small part of World War I, seeing how warfare was beginning to change, how targets that were not wholly military were being stalked and that civilians were quickly becoming casualties.
With disaster looming, the reader knows that the Lusitania is speeding toward Britain but that its final destination will not be a dock but a sinking. At least 80% of the book covers the lead up to that disaster. And when the torpedoes strike, the reader is likewise struck with how luck (good for the U-boat, bad for the Lusitania) plays such a role in the event. Larson's description of the 18 minutes between torpedo strike and ultimate sinking are gripping, harrowing, and somber. He recounts impossible decisions: do you first rescue your sleeping child one deck below or your playing toddler one deck above; do you take the step off of the rail even though you can't swim; is there time to retrieve a life vest; should you search the ship for loved ones or get onto a lifeboat; do you lift one more floating person into a raft and risk capsizing it? Through use of interviews and written accounts by survivors, as well as diaries from passengers, Larson has masterfully recounted events (and personalities) leading up to the event, the reality of the sinking ship and struggle for life itself, and the aftermath.
And that aftermath manages to be troubling, confusing, mournful, and hopeful at once. Most troubling was the British Admiralty's immediate decision to try to blame the entire event on Captain Turner (the man in charge of the Lusitania), despite the fact that the Admiralty itself ignored some clear warnings and did not provide basic escorts for the Lusitania's protection. Suggested reasons abound, ranging from conspiracies to try to force America's hand and make them join the war to too jealously protecting intelligence to mere ineptitude. For the passengers themselves, after the sinking it meant waiting for rescue in cold water (some dying of hypothermia), finding out that companions had died, having to identify bodies. And for relatives of the passengers, there was a long wait to get word, and rife confusion where some where told their loved ones had died when they were in fact alive, or worse, that they were alive when they were actually dead. But for all the despair, there were fortunate reunions, husbands and wives, and two brothers in the crew. And of course bittersweet moments where some, but not all, of a family survived, or one person surviving where a companion perished. Despite the tragedy and some British strategists' beliefs that the 100+ deaths of American citizens would drive the country out of its isolationism, it would be years yet before America entered the war. Regardless, the sinking of the Lusitania was bellwether of changing norms and, when America finally did get off the fence, still something that struck the heart of the nation.
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