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FSogol

(46,649 posts)
Mon Oct 29, 2012, 08:41 AM Oct 2012

My storm is worse than yours

Just kidding. Attached is a reading list of great disasters:

The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson
Blizzard!: The Storm That Changed America‎. by Jim Murphy
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry

Please rec some more.

6 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
My storm is worse than yours (Original Post) FSogol Oct 2012 OP
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl Neoma Oct 2012 #1
The Children's Blizzard SheilaT Oct 2012 #2
"The Town that Died" kag Jan 2013 #3
The Great Mortality by John Kelly. SheilaT Jan 2013 #4
Have you read, "The Great Shame" by Thomas Keneally? FSogol Jan 2013 #5
No, I haven't. SheilaT Jan 2013 #6

Neoma

(10,039 posts)
1. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Mon Oct 29, 2012, 02:00 PM
Oct 2012

By Timothy Egan.

 

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)
2. The Children's Blizzard
Mon Oct 29, 2012, 10:57 PM
Oct 2012

by David Laskin. It occurred in the upper Midwest in January of 1888, a couple of months before the Blizzard of '88 in NYC. It got it's name because the day it happened, that morning was unseasonably warm, and many children went off to school without coats. A few hours later the temperature dropped precipitously, and the snow started. Many children froze to death trying to get home.

Like Isaac's Storm, it tells about the early days of the National Weather Service.

Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History by Denise Gess and William Lutz. October 8, 1871 is remembered as the date of the Great Chicago Fire. On that same date, in the woods of Wisconsin, a terrible forest fire raged, and more than 2,000 people died, nearly ten times the death toll in Chicago.

kag

(4,110 posts)
3. "The Town that Died"
Thu Jan 10, 2013, 03:04 PM
Jan 2013

I can't remember the author. It's about the explosion in the town of Halifax, Nova Scotia during WWII. I poured through it one summer. It's fascinating.

 

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)
4. The Great Mortality by John Kelly.
Sat Jan 12, 2013, 06:57 PM
Jan 2013

Excellent. Among other things, I learned that Rome was so depopulated after the fall of the Roman Empire that even a thousand years later, when the Plague struck, the city had maybe half the population it'd had a millennium before.

He also has a brand new book out about the Potato Famine, called The Graves are Walking, which I have on reserve at my library. Can hardly wait to read it.

FSogol

(46,649 posts)
5. Have you read, "The Great Shame" by Thomas Keneally?
Sat Jan 12, 2013, 09:53 PM
Jan 2013

He wrote Schindler's List. It is about the potato famine. Incredible book.

 

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)
6. No, I haven't.
Sat Jan 12, 2013, 11:29 PM
Jan 2013

I'll have to see if my library has it.

I read Schindler's List around the time it first came out, and was enthralled.

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