Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

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.

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Dead Wake tells the story of the the passenger liner, Lusitania. The narrative takes a slight deviation from Larson’s usual style. Instead of weaving together two distinct historical events, Larson weaves together the perspectives and experiences of those connected to the Lusitania and its fateful last journey, including the captain of the Lusitania, William Thomas Turner; the captain of the U-boat, Schwieger; the British intelligence office in charge of tracking the activities of the German U-boats; President Wilson of the United States; and the passengers and crew who would lose their lives when the ship foundered. The result is an exciting and suspenseful narrative. I even learned some new things about the Lusitania! Definitely worth a read.

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men--Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication--whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, "the kindest of men," nearly commits the perfect crime.

With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.

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Erik Larson is one of my favorite historical writers. I love how he often combines two seemingly unrelated stories into one. In this case, he chronicles the development of wireless technology by Guglielmo Marconi and combines it with the story of Hawley Crippen, a medical man who commits murder. Although historical nonfiction, Thunderstruck reads more like a narrative and lacks the stereotypical “textbook” feel of other historical nonfiction. It is not simply a recounting or list of facts, but rather a story told using facts. Having said that, it is clear that the book is thoroughly researched, and I suppose Larson does take some artistic license, but for the most part the story appears to stay true to verifiable facts. This is the third book by Larson that I have read, and I will definitely be picking up more in the future.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Devil in the White City weaves together the story of the World's Fair that was held in Chicago in 1893 and the tale of a serial killer who used the Fair to lure in his victims. This is the second book that I have read by Erik Larson and I have to say that I really enjoy his writing style. Some people criticize this style of writing as sensationalism and question it's historical value. I, however, find it entertaining and engaging.

Let's face it. History can be boring. I think all of us can recall a high school history teacher who spent their time boring us to tears. We are always looking for ways to make history "come alive," and I think that Larson accomplishes this quite well. Yes, I do think that there is some sensationalism and I'm sure that Larson had to take some creative license. Nevertheless, his work is also meticulously researched. His citations are primary sources and he mentions in his notes that he does not use the internet to do research. The result is a book that reads more like a mystery novel than a dry historical narrative.

For all you history buffs out there, I recommend that you give Larson a chance.

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson has been sitting on my "to read" shelf for quite awhile. As a history buff, the 1930s and 1940s have always been some of my favorite historical decades to study, and I have read widely in this area, both fiction and non-fiction. This book chronicles the lives of the Dodd family in Berlin, after William Dodd is chosen to be the U.S. ambassador to Germany. Dodd and his family arrive in Berlin just as Hitler is rising to power.

I loved how Erik Larson approached writing this book. If you are looking for a dry, boring recounting of historical events, then this is not the book for you. Larson's narrative is highly engaging and almost reads like a fiction novel would. Instead of the events being described by a removed narrator, they are presented through the perspectives of the "characters," so the reader gets the feeling of experiencing the events as they happen. This puts an interesting twist on the book, especially for anyone who has studied this era. You already knows what happens - hindsight is a beautiful thing - but for the people of that time period, Hitler's grand plan was not always so obvious. It was interesting to see how people reacted to Hitler, to see the signs that were missed or ignored, knowing already how the whole thing plays out.

The book is largely confined to the Dodd family, so some of the bigger players like Hitler play a smaller role, because Dodd's interactions with the dictator were limited. However, you do get to meet some of the leading Nazis of the time, as well as some of Germany's writers, journalists, and politicians who were alive at the time. It's through the stories of these people that one can really start to understand what it was like to live in Berlin during this period and the effects that Hitler's policies and ideas had on Germany. It is a fast read, and I was not disappointed.