Great Disasters

A Best Book of 2025 from Chicago Review of Books For fans of Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School and Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, Great Disasters is a stirring debut novel about six young men coming of age, and the enduring friendships that make us who we are—even as our paths diverge. This is...

“Douglass sets a classic on fire with an inspired recasting that strips away time and all expectations." — Rita Williams-Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of A Sitting in St. James From New York Times bestselling author Ryan Douglass comes a gripping and tender reimagining of The...

Introduction read by the author. An Instant Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller The rapture is the central event in biblical prophecy. But what does it mean for us today? How can this crucial end times event draw us nearer to God in a world that is seemingly on the...

The international bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa vividly brings to life the 1906San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at...

One of AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of 2019! A New York Times Best Book of the Year A Time Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Winner From journalist Adam Higginbotham, the New York Times bestselling “account that...

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Lillian Smith Award. An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the Great Mississippi...

Twenty-four of the Buddha's most distinguished disciples are brought to life in ten chapters of rich narration. They include monks who were very close to him throughout his life, including Sariputta and Mahamoggallana; his cousin and companion Ananda; his principal women disciples, including the...

Giant earthquakes and tsunamis devastate western Oregon every 300 to 600 years. The last one hit in 1700, so we're due anytime. This informative, entertaining book tells the stories of Oregon's past floods, fires, and eruptions - including the Vanport Flood, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, and the Columbus Day Windstorm. Then it investigates the cycles behind our natural disasters and takes a look at what may happen when the next "Big One" strikes.

What if I told you that the largest radioactive accident happened in Brazil, not in Chernobyl? In Cesium 137, a summary of the real nightmare in Goiânia, the reader will find the report of the biggest accident with a radioactive source ever to occur in the world. Many readers and students know about the nuclear accident that occurred in Chernobyl, but they may not know that, a year later, in 1987, in the city of Goiânia, in Brazil, an accident as shocking as that in Chernobyl occurred. In this book, the author, Leandro Luiz, who is a physicist, explains in a clear and summarized way about...

On 10 November 1975, a modern giant vanished. The Edmund Fitzgerald, the pride of the Great Lakes fleet, was one of the largest and most respected freighters on inland waters. Loaded with iron ore and commanded by an experienced captain, she entered a violent storm on Lake Superior and never returned. All twenty-nine men aboard were lost. What happened that night remains one of the most haunting maritime mysteries in North American history. In Edmund Fitzgerald: The Night Lake Superior Took a Giant, Gordon J. MacKenzie reconstructs the final voyage in gripping detail — from departure and ...

Nineteen-year-old Greg Sestero met Tommy Wiseau at an acting school in San Francisco. Wiseau's scenes were rivetingly wrong, yet Sestero, hypnotized by such uninhibited acting, thought, "I have to do a scene with this guy." That impulse changed both of their lives. The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero's laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" ( Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon.

NUCLEAR DISASTER :: CHERNOBYL :: EXPLAINED FACTS :: WITH IMAGES :: UKRAINE :: USSR Do you really know what happened in Chernobyl? The clock read 01:23:40 in Chernobyl. But what really happened at Reactor 4 at that moment? Did the nuclear disaster end in 1986—or did it only just begin? What has humanity learned from the Chernobyl accident? Much has been said about the nuclear disaster that shook the world in 1986, but what you’ll find in this book is even more intriguing. "20 Facts You Didn't Know About Chernobyl" goes beyond the versions you learned at school or saw in TV series. The ...

The gripping story of a chemical weapons catastrophe, the cover-up, and how one American Army doctor’s discovery led to the development of the first drug to combat cancer, known today as chemotherapy. On the night of December 2, 1943, the Luftwaffe bombed a critical Allied port in Bari, Italy...

Bloomsbury presents Pearl Harbor: Japan's Greatest Disaster by Mark E. Stille, read by Christopher Ragland. A detailed re-examination of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Day of Infamy that saw the USA enter World War II. In this the first comprehensive treatment of Pearl Harbor since the...

A CITY SHAKEN TO ITS CORE The Seattle Fault traces a ragged line through the heart of the metropolitan area. Forces deep in the earth have built up tremendous pressure over eons. What if this subterranean fracture were to release its pent-up fury—tomorrow? The Great Seattle Earthquake vividly portrays electrifying moments when the land shakes, buildings and bridges crumble, and lives are changed forever. Skyscrapers shed thundering debris on people below. High in the Space Needle, a young couple watches powerful groundswells ripple like the serpent god A’yahos of native legends. A ...

An action filled short story where a couple opens a hotel on Catalina Island and it becomes popular with upscale visitors. Two couples take advantage and become unwelcome. It turns out that they are mob connected and take offense at being ejected. The resulting action encompasses the hotel, beach and most of the harbor. Not to be missed. Action at its finest.

Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like, "a roaring surf," one of them said later. Like, "a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence," said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window - "Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour.

When the Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared beneath Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, she took all twenty-nine crew members with her. No distress call was heard. No survivor witnessed the final plunge. And despite years of investigation, no single explanation has ever fully resolved what happened. This book traces the ship’s final voyage through a worsening November storm, from the industrial world that built her to the men who sailed aboard her. It examines the Fitzgerald’s design, cargo, route, weather conditions, radio messages, and the competing theories surrounding her loss—from ...

Are you tired of the constant financial pain, the nagging agitation that comes with money worries, and the overwhelming feeling that your financial life is spinning out of control? Look no further. "Mastering Personal Finance" is your beacon of hope, guiding you towards a brighter financial future. In this meticulously crafted book, we address the pain points that keep you up at night. We'll unravel the mysteries of budgeting, investing, and debt management, all in clear and easy-to-understand language. Say goodbye to the jargon-filled confusion that often surrounds personal finance, and ...

Narrated by the author: Experience the Southern California wildfires through Jacob Soboroff’s eyes—and voice. New York Times Bestseller and #1 Los Angeles Times Bestseller A "gripping, unshakeable firsthand account" (San Francisco Chronicle) of the firestorm that consumed Los Angeles, from...