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After the Storm : True Stories of Disaster and Recovery at Sea
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by John Rousmaniere
Sales Rank: 936545
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Discount: 22 %
$0.36
At Amazon
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Paperback: 338352 pages
Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press; 2 edition September 16, 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0071427929
ISBN-13: 978-0071427920
Product Dimensions:
8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
In his latest, Rousmaniere (Fastnet, Force 10; The Annapolis Book of Seamanship) reconstructs 12 tales of sea wrecks and near-misses from captains' logs and eyewitnesses, which are as sad as they are compelling to read. The poet Shelley's romance with the sea (and his life) comes to an end from careless sailing and a black squall; an African-American church congregation is decimated when the side-wheeler Portland rolls in Massachusetts Bay; during the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, sailors of the supply ship Pollux teeter between heroism and madness while their ship breaks apart on a rocky shelf. But as the title indicates, this book is more than a simple curio of casualty. Having survived his own brush with a watery death in 1979, Rousmaniere arrays in these remarkable stories a study of the reactions to sudden calamity, be they acts of sheer heroism, mute observation or a helpless slide into panic, and the lasting misfortune of those who survive the dead. The book is not without religious overtones, and peppered throughout are insightful digressions into biography, literary criticism and the composition of popular hymns. At once ominously desperate and unerringly hopeful, this book is a wise, generous read. Photos and maps not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
Rousmaniere, the author of 18 books, sailed in the 1979 Fastnet Race in which five boats were sunk and 15 sailors died in a storm near England. He has gathered here 10 electrifying true stories that describe disasters at sea. They contain what he identifies as the five elements of a storm: its demanding weather; the seamanship needed to cope with it; the intense stress it places on victims and survivors; the beliefs that play a part in it at every stage; and the consequences of storms for the victims' community. Included are the chronicle of the schooner Ariel, on which Percy Shelley was killed in 1822; the story of the passenger steamer Portland, which sunk in 1898 in Massachusetts Bay, killing almost 200 people; and the wreck of the supply ship Pollux off the coast of Newfoundland during World War II. Every item is engrossing reading. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Customer Reviews & Comments
This review is from: After the Storm : True Stories of Disaster and Recovery at Sea (Hardcover)
Be forewarned if you purchase "After the Storm" expecting it to be another in the recent spate of books recounting tales of nautical disasters. It does focus on ten seperate instances of seaborne mayhem dating from the 1820s to the 1990s. But instead of including straightforward narrative accounts, author John Rousmaniere is more concerned with the literary and spiritual aspects of such events. The common thread that runs through these tales is that for the most part they all either affected or were commented upon by notable literary personalites, from Mary Shelley to Robert Louis Stevenson to Joseph Conrad and others. So much so that the accounts of the disasters themselves take a back seat to describing their social, psychological, religious and even political effects. All in all there is nothing necessarily wrong with Rousmaniere's approach, except that its appeal will be limited to the interest that the reader has in the exteraneous subject matter. Unfortunately, the book's subtitle, "True Stories of Disaster and Recovery at Sea," leads one to believe that it is a collection of adventure tales, which is really not the case. Overall, I would recommend that potential readers closely scrutinize the summaries of this book's subject matter to determine if it will appeal to them.
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After the Storm : True Stories of Disaster and Recovery at Sea
Discount: 22 %
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