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Sitting on a Keg of Dynamite
- Father Bill, Texas City, and a Disaster Foretold
- Narrated by: Kirk Winkler
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
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Sitting on a Keg of Dynamite
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Publisher's summary
On April 16, 1947, the French vessel SS Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, exploded in the port of Texas City, just north of Galveston, Texas. Nearly 600 people died instantly, and property damage reached catastrophic proportions. The Texas City disaster remains, to date, the worst industrial accident in US history. Among those killed was William Roach, a Roman Catholic priest known affectionately as Father Bill.
Sitting on a Keg of Dynamite, by historian John Neal Phillips, tells the remarkable story of Father Bill’s life and premature death against the backdrop of the rapid growth—and near destruction—of an American industrial city.
Phillips pieces together previously unknown details of Father Bill’s story to present a well-rounded portrait of the man who is today revered as a hero. Born in Philadelphia, Roach attended seminary in Arkansas before he went on to serve as parish priest for St. Mary of the Miraculous Medal in Texas City. Father Bill was an outspoken advocate for poor and working-class citizens, fair wages, and workplace safety.
One evening, as Phillips vividly recounts, Roach sat on the church steps, looking out at the strange orange-yellow light created by hydrocarbon gas flares emerging from nearby oil refineries. “I feel like I’m sitting on a keg of dynamite,” he told parishioners who were passing by. His premonition proved prophetic. When a fire erupted onboard the Grandcamp, Father Bill hurried to the docks to lend assistance. It was then that the ship detonated.
The book is published by University of Oklahoma Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
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- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 24 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
Here, witness Chicago's growth from a desolate fur-trading post in the 1830s to one of the world's most explosively alive cities by 1900. Donald Miller's powerful narrative embraces it all: Chicago's wild beginnings, its reckless growth, its natural calamities (especially the Great Fire of 1871), its raucous politics, its empire-building businessmen, its world-transforming architecture, its rich mix of cultures, its community of young writers and journalists, and its staggering engineering projects.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A STORY THAT TRIES TOO HARD....AND FAILS
- By The Louligan on 02-01-15
By: Donald L. Miller
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The Cubans
- Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times
- By: Anthony DePalma
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Anthony DePalma
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story5 out of 5 stars 43
Cubans today, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the Castro regime, are hesitantly embracing the future. In his new book, Anthony DePalma, a veteran reporter with years of experience in Cuba, focuses on a neighborhood across the harbor from Old Havana to dramatize the optimism as well as the enormous challenges that Cubans face: a moving snapshot of Cuba with all its contradictions as the new regime opens the gate to the capitalism that Fidel railed against for so long.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The real Cuba
- By Tinkerbell on 10-11-20
By: Anthony DePalma
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The Ground Breaking
- An American City and Its Search for Justice
- By: Scott Ellsworth
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
Over the course of less than 24 hours in the spring of 1921, Tulsa’s infamous “Black Wall Street” was wiped off the map - and erased from the history books. Official records were disappeared, researchers were threatened, and the worst single incident of racial violence in American history was kept hidden for more than 50 years. But there were some secrets that would not die. A riveting and essential new book, The Ground Breaking not only tells the long-suppressed story of the notorious Tulsa race massacre.
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5 out of 5 stars
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excellent
- By BoxerBran on 09-29-22
By: Scott Ellsworth
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Fulfillment
- Winning and Losing in One-Click America
- By: Alec MacGillis
- Narrated by: Danny Gavigan
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 202
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Story4 out of 5 stars 170
Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Missing some important angles
- By D. Zimmerle on 08-19-21
By: Alec MacGillis
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Strangers in Their Own Land
- Anger and Mourning on the American Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,846
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,625
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,609
In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country - a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Performance undercuts thesis
- By married, one tall dog, one smelly dog on 01-02-17
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This Is Chance!
- The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together
- By: Jon Mooallem
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 174
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 145
In the spring of 1964, Anchorage, Alaska, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis - the largest, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. This Is Chance! is the thrilling, cinematic story of a community shattered by disaster - and the extraordinary woman who helped pull it back together.
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4 out of 5 stars
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amazing story
- By Dani L on 02-07-21
By: Jon Mooallem
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The White Devil's Daughters
- The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown
- By: Julia Flynn Siler
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
During the first hundred years of Chinese immigration - from 1848 to 1943 - San Francisco was home to a shockingly extensive underground slave trade in Asian women, who were exploited as prostitutes and indentured servants. In this gripping, necessary book, best-selling author Julia Flynn Siler shines a light on this little-known chapter in our history - and gives us a vivid portrait of the safe house to which enslaved women escaped.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Well researched
- By Qats reads on 08-05-19
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The Buried
- An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 286
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 245
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Story5 out of 5 stars 244
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Fascinating, Funny, and Moving Account of Egypt
- By Jefferson on 07-23-19
By: Peter Hessler
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A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear
- The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears)
- By: Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 585
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 502
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 504
Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road. When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Author's Political Biases Shine Through
- By Frank on 12-20-20
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Fire in Paradise
- By: Alastair Gee, Dani Anguiano
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 93
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Story5 out of 5 stars 91
There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. Fire in Paradise is a dramatic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A gripping view of an American tragedy
- By Kalutha on 06-30-20
By: Alastair Gee, and others
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Floodpath
- The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles
- By: Jon Wilkman
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story5 out of 5 stars 51
Driven by eyewitness accounts and combining urban history with a life-and-death drama and a technological detective story, Floodpath grippingly reanimates the reality behind LA noir fictions like the classic film Chinatown. In an era of climate change, increasing demand on water resources, and a neglected American infrastructure, the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam has never been more relevant.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible story
- By C. Jackson on 04-07-21
By: Jon Wilkman
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Storm of the Century
- The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
- By: Willie Drye
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
In 1934, hundreds of jobless World War I veterans were sent to the remote Florida Keys to build a highway from Miami to Key West. The Roosevelt Administration was making a genuine effort to help these down-and-out vets. But the attempt to help them turned into a tragedy. The supervisors in charge of the veterans misunderstood the danger posed by hurricanes in the low-lying Florida Keys. The hurricane that struck the Upper Florida Keys on the evening of September 2, 1935, is still the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the US.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Solid history. Sometimes too much detail.
- By D. Frrazier on 01-23-23
By: Willie Drye
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
- The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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Mitch, Please!
- How Mitch McConnell Sold Out Kentucky (and America Too)
- By: Matt Jones, Chris Tomlin - contributor
- Narrated by: Matt Jones, Chris Tomlin
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 371
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 340
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Story5 out of 5 stars 336
They say all politics is local. In 2020, Mitch McConnell will have served five full terms as a US Senator. Thirty years. The Senate Majority leader's power is as undeniable as it is infuriating, and the people of Kentucky have had enough. Led by Matt Jones, they (and they alone) have the power to oust him from office. How did Jones, a local boy turned attorney turned sports radio host come to shine the brightest light on McConnell's ineptitude?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By Danielle Purcell on 04-10-20
By: Matt Jones, and others
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Self Made
- Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
- By: A'Lelia Bundles
- Narrated by: A'Lelia Bundles
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
The daughter of slaves, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then - with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women - everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: Building a storied beauty empire from the ground up that would be run by four generations of Walker women until its sale in 1985.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Please read the book and not rely on the Netflix series
- By Sweet Pea's Mommy on 04-27-20
By: A'Lelia Bundles
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Black Death at the Golden Gate
- The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague
- By: David K. Randall
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
For Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King, surviving in San Francisco meant a life in the shadows. His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn't noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin - a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown while doctors examined Wong's tissue for telltale bacteria. If the devastating disease was not contained, San Francisco would become the American epicenter of an outbreak that had already claimed 10 million lives worldwide.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Plague, Racism, Public Health..a toxic mix.
- By Steve Adams on 07-11-19
By: David K. Randall
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Panama Fever
- By: Matthew Parker
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, William Dufris
- Length: 17 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
The building of the Panama Canal was one of the greatest engineering feats in human history. A tale of exploration, conquest, money, politics, and medicine, Panama Fever charts the challenges that marked the long, labyrinthine road to the building of the canal. Drawing on a wealth of new materials and sources, Matthew Parker brings to life the men who recognized the impact a canal would have on global politics and economics.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book, marginal narrator
- By CmH - HB, CA on 06-02-08
By: Matthew Parker