Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Lar

Description: Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson Now in paperback comes this bestselling narrative of the extreme hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, in 1900, leaving at least 8,000 dead in its wake. An unforgettable story of the conflict between human hubris and the last great uncontrollable force, "Isaacs Storm" offers a cautionary tale for the millennium. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The riveting true story of the Galveston hurricane of 1900, still the deadliest natural disaster in American history—from the acclaimed author of The Devil in the White City"A gripping account ... fascinating to its core, and all the more compelling for being true." —The New York Times Book ReviewSeptember 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people—and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devastating personal tragedy.Using Clines own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one mans heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Author Biography Erik Larson is the author of six national bestsellers—The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaacs Storm—which have collectively sold more than ten million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries. Review "A gripping account ... fascinating to its core, and all the more compelling for being true." —The New York Times Book Review "Gripping ... the Jaws of hurricane yarns." —The Washington Post"The best storm book Ive 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"Isaacs Storm so fully swept me away into another place, another time that I didnt 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 Larsons writing is luminous, the story absolutely gripping. If there is one book to read as we enter a new millennium, its Isaacs 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, Isaacs 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 Street Journal"Erik Larons 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 hurricane itself." —The Boston Globe"Vividly captures the devastation." —Newsday"This brilliant exploration of the hurricans deadly force...tracks the gathering storm as if it were a character…. Larson has the storytellers gift of keeping the reader spellbound." —The Times-Picayune"With consumate narrative skill and insight into turn-of-the-century American culture…. Larsons 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 Review Quote "The best storm book Ive 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 "Isaacs Storm so fully swept me away into another place, another time that I didnt 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 Larsons writing is luminous, the story absolutely gripping. If there is one book to read as we enter a new millennium, its Isaacs 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, Isaacs 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 Larons 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 hurricans deadly force...tracks the gathering storm as if it were a character...Larson has the storytellers gift of keeping the reader spellbound." --The Times-Picayune "With consumate narrative skill and insight into turn-of-the-century American culture...Larsons 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. Excerpt from Book TELEGRAM Washington, D.C. Sept. 9, 1900 To: Manager, Western Union Houston, Texas Do you hear anything about Galveston? Willis L. Moore, Chief, U.S. Weather Bureau The Beach September 8, 1900 Throughout the night of Friday, September 7, 1900, Isaac Monroe Cline found himself waking to a persistent sense of something gone wrong. It was the kind of feeling parents often experienced and one that no doubt had come to him when each of his three daughters was a baby. Each would cry, of course, and often for astounding lengths of time, tearing a seam not just through the Cline house but also, in that day of open windows and unlocked doors, through the dew-sequined peace of his entire neighborhood. On some nights, however, the children cried only long enough to wake him, and he would lie there heart-struck, wondering what had brought him back to the world at such an unaccustomed hour. Tonight that feeling returned. Most other nights, Isaac slept soundly. He was a creature of the last turning of the centuries when sleep seemed to come more easily. Things were clear to him. He was loyal, a believer in dignity, honor, and effort. He taught Sunday school. He paid cash, a fact noted in a directory published by the Giles Mercantile Agency and meant to be held in strictest confidence. The small red book fit into a vest pocket and listed nearly all Galvestons established citizens--its police officers, bankers, waiters, clerics, tobacconists, undertakers, tycoons, and shipping agents--and rated them for credit-worthiness, basing this appraisal on secret reports filed anonymously by friends and enemies. An asterisk beside a name meant trouble, "Inquire at Office," and marred the fiscal reputations of such people as Joe Amando, tamale vend∨ Noah Allen, attorney; Ida Cherry, widow; and August Rollfing, housepainter. Isaac Cline got the highest rating, a "B," for "Pays Well, Worthy of Credit." In November of 1893, two years after Isaac arrived in Galveston to open the Texas Section of the new U.S. Weather Bureau, a government inspector wrote: "I suppose there is not a man in the Service on Station Duty who does more real work than he. . . . He takes a remarkable degree of interest in his work, and has a great pride in making his station one of the best and most important in the country, as it is now." Upon first meeting Isaac, men found him to be modest and self-effacing, but those who came to know him well saw a hardness and confidence that verged on conceit. A New Orleans photographer captured this aspect in a photograph that is so good, with so much attention to the geometries of composition and light, it could be a portrait in oil. The background is black; Isaacs suit is black. His shirt is the color of bleached bone. He has a mustache and goatee and wears a straw hat, not the rigid cake-plate variety, but one with a sweeping scimitar brim that imparts to him the look of a French painter or riverboat gambler. A darkness suffuses the photograph. The brim shadows the top of his face. His eyes gleam from the darkness. Most striking is the careful positioning of his hands. His right rests in his lap, gripping what could be a pair of gloves. His left is positioned in midair so that the diamond on his pinkie sparks with the intensity of a star. There is a secret embedded in this photograph. For now, however, suffice it to say the portrait suggests vanity, that Isaac was aware of himself and how he moved through the day, and saw himself as something bigger than a mere recorder of rainfall and temperature. He was a scientist, not some farmer who gauged the weather by aches in a rheumatoid knee. Isaac personally had encountered and explained some of the strangest atmospheric phenomena a weatherman could ever hope to experience, but also had read the works of the most celebrated meteorologists and physical geographers of the nineteenth century, men like Henry Piddington, Matthew Fontaine Maury, William Redfield, and James Espy, and he had followed their celebrated hunt for the Law of Storms. He believed deeply that he understood it all. He lived in a big time, astride the changing centuries. The frontier was still a living, vivid thing, with Buffalo Bill Cody touring his Wild West Show to sellout crowds around the globe, Bat Masterson a sportswriter in New Jersey, and Frank James opening the family ranch for tours at fifty cents a head. But a new America was emerging, one with big and global aspirations. Teddy Roosevelt, flanked by his Rough Riders, campaigned for the vice presidency. U.S. warships steamed to quell the Boxers. There was fabulous talk of a great American-built canal that would link the Atlantic to the Pacific, a task at which Vicomte de Lesseps and the French had so catastrophically failed. The nation in 1900 was swollen with pride and technological confidence. It was a time, wrote Sen. Chauncey Depew, one of the most prominent politicians of the age, when the average American felt "four-hundred-percent bigger" than the year before. There was talk even of controlling the weather--of subduing hail with cannon blasts and igniting forest fires to bring rain. In this new age, nature itself seemed no great obstacle. Details ISBN0375708278 Author Erik Larson Short Title ISAACS STORM Pages 336 Language English ISBN-10 0375708278 ISBN-13 9780375708275 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2000 Subtitle A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History DOI 10.1604/9780375708275 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2000-07-11 NZ Release Date 2000-07-11 US Release Date 2000-07-11 UK Release Date 2000-07-11 Publisher Random House USA Inc Publication Date 2000-07-11 Imprint Random House Inc DEWEY 976.4139 Illustrations 2 MAPS Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:2629011;

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