ISAAC'S STORM: The Drowning of Galveston: The Drowning of Galveston, 8 September 1900 - Softcover

Larson, Erik

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007292112 ISBN 13: 9780007292110

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2008

Synopsis

Read by the author
3 cassettes, approx. 5 hours

Now a New York Times bestseller, Isaac's Storm is the superb narrative of the extreme hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on a late summer day in 1900, leaving at least 8,000 people dead.  On that day, a wall of water surged across the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the burgeoning city of Galveston.  The nameless hurricane remains the deadliest natural dissaster in American history, its final toll greater than the combined tolls of the Johnstown Flood and the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906-- yet the event has all but dissappeared from natural memory.

Isaac Cline, one of the first professional weathermen emplyed by the government, has gone on record as declaring that no storm could damage Galveston.  Such fears, he wrote, were "an absurd delusion."  By the time the hellish event was over, Cline would see whole portions of the city scraped clean of all structures and all life, and would himself endure an unbearable loss.

The other main character is the storm itself.  Issac's Storm tracks the hurrican from its birth as a small plume of warm air over Africa, through its journey across the ocean as it drinks in vast amounts of energy, to its arrival at the unsuspecting city.  The audiobook describes how the city, especially its children, welcomed the storm and the great deep-ocean swells that it cast upon their beach--until extraordinary things began to happen.

Isaac's Storm is based on our latest understanding of the physics and meteorology of hurricanes, on Cline's own formal reports and detailed personal account of the storm, as well as the recollections of scores of other witnesses.  It is an unforgettable and timely story of the conflict between human hubris and the last great uncontrollable force--a cautionary tale for the millennium.

About this title

Review:

Reading in his signature dispassionate style, narrator Edward Herrmann brings an eerie calm to this powerful chronicle of the deadliest storm ever to hit the United States--a huge and terribly destructive hurricane that struck land near Galveston, Texas in September of 1900. Author Erik Larson re-creates the events leading up to the disaster in astonishing detail, tracing the thoughts and actions of Isaac Cline, a scientist with America's burgeoning U.S. Weather Bureau. Cline's unwavering confidence--"In an age of scientific certainty one could not allow one's judgment to be clouded..."--blinds the meteorologist to the deadly onslaught about to be unleashed. Herrmann's calculated performance reflects the impending doom and dangers inherent to an unquestioned and absolute faith in science. (Running time: 5 hours, 3 cassettes) --George Laney

Review:

"The best storm book I've read, consumed mostly in twenty-four hours; these pages filled me with dread. Days later, I am still glancing out the window nervously. A well-told story."-- Daniel Hays, author of My Old Man and the Sea

"Isaac's Storm so fully swept me away into another place, another time that I didn't want it to end. I braced myself from the monstrous winds, recoiled in shock at the sight of flailing children floating by, and shook my head at the hubris of our scientists who were so convinced that they had the weather all figured out. Erik Larson's writing is luminous, the story absolutely gripping. If there is one book to read as we enter a new millennium, it's Isaac's Storm, a tale that reminds us that there are forces at work out there well beyond our control, and maybe even well beyond our understanding."-- Alex Kotlowitz, author of The Other Side of the River and There Are No Children Here

"There is electricity in these pages, from the crackling wit and intelligence of the prose to the thrillingly described terrors of natural mayhem and unprecedented destruction. Though brimming with the subtleties of human nature, the nuances of history, and the poetry of landscapes, Isaac's Storm still might best be described as a sheer page turner."-- Melissa Faye Greene, author of Praying for Sheetrock and The Temple Bombing

"Superb...Larson has made [Isaac] Cline, turn-of-the-century Galveston, and the Great Hurricane live again." --The Wall Stret Journal

"Erik Laron's accomplishment is to have made this great-storm story a very human one--thanks to his use of the large number of survivors' accounts--without ignoring the h urricane itself." --The Boston Globe

"Vividly captures the devastation." --Newsday

"This brilliant exploration of the hurrican's deadly force...tracks the gathering storm as if it were a character...Larson has the storyteller's gift of keeping the reader spellbound." --The Times-Picayune

"With consumate narrative skill and insight into turn-of-the-century American culture...Larson's story is about the folly of all who believe that man can master or outwit the forces of nature." --The News & Observer

"A powerful story...a classic tale of mankind versus nature." --The Christian Science Monitor
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0007292112
• ISBN 13: 9780007292110
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384