Close to Shore - Michael Capuzzo

 Sub-title: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916

I'd left this book at a rental condo many years ago and had not had a chance to read more then a few pages. I picked it up recently again and am glad that I did.  It's the story of a great white shark that terrorized the New Jersey shore just as the U.S. entered into WWI.  The story shifts from the shark's perspective who ends up "close to shore" because of errant ocean currents and the innocent well-to-do beach goers who get attacked.  In a time when news took many hours to reach the city from the beach front, the initial attacks were scoffed at.  The shark ended up entering a creek and attacking a young boy.  A good read that took me back to a simpler time unprepared for tragedy.

Published: 2002  Read: September 2024  Genre: History

Dead Wake - Eric Larson

Sub-title: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

I've enjoyed many other books by this author - in fact, I've read this one before, back in 2015! I'm just adding some notes from reading this time around.  I have to go look for his latest writing!

Quotes/Comments

"Lothrop Withington was on the ship, an authority of genealogy with a special expertise in Salem, Massachusetts."

"Elbert Hubbard, author of an inspirational essay..." A Message to Garcia."

"Wilhelm Uno Meriheina, a race car driver...had been born in Russia in the Duchy of Finland (which became independent in 1917)"

Published: 2015  Read: April 2024  Genre: History

Dead Wake - Erik Larson

Subtitle: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

I read this for one of my book clubs, though it seems I've been on an "oceans" kick of late.  I really enjoyed the author's earlier books: In the Garden of the Beast, Isaac's Storm and The Devil in the White City.  This one did not disappoint.

The Lusitania was an ocean liner in the early 1900's that was sunk on a voyage from New York City to Liverpool on May 17, 1915, during World War I, before the Americans joined the fighting.  Almost 1200 people died and two years later America joined the war.

The story goes back and forth between the passengers on the ship, President Woodrow Wilson's state of mind after the death of his wife earlier in the year and its effect on his response to the tragedy, and the German U-boat captain and crew.  It's a fascinating slice of history and a fresh reminder of the atrocities that are committed when countries wage war.

I was expecting to find a list of the passengers and where they were from but it was not included in the book.  I found one at a site dedicated to the ship---had to check for ancestors!

Published: 2015  Read:  January 2016  Genre: History

update: re-read in 2024

The Paris Wife - Paula McLain

I picked this up at the used bookstore because I'd read a blogger's review.  I hadn't known that it was the story of Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley and had passed it over before.  Hadley was almost six years older when they met in their 20's.  Their marriage was spent mostly in Paris during the jazz age, among friends like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald.  They had a son (one of three sons of Hemingway; he had two others with his second wife) and she was his muse during the writing of his novel, The Sun Also Rises.

I enjoyed reading of how passionate Hemingway was about writing and how much he struggled to write and get published.  At one point his wife brings all his writing to him and loses the valise carrying the papers.  It was a crushing blow and seems to have been a turning point in a relationship that was already deteriorating.

Hadley is portrayed as a traditional woman who lived a sheltered life and never embraced the wild, reckless life of the 1920's after WWI.  She was his steady anchor as he threw himself into life, running with the bulls in Paloma, skiing in the Alps, drinking in Paris.

A good read.


Published: 2011  Read: November 2015  Genre: Historical fiction