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

The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea

Sebastian Junger · 256 pages

It was the storm of the century, boasting waves over one hundred feet high --- a tempest created by so rare a combination of factors that meteorologists deemed it "the perfect storm." When it struck in October 1991, there was a virtually no warning. "She's comin; on, boys, and she's comin' on strong." radioed Captain Billy Tyne of the Andrew Gail off the coast of Nova Scotia, and soon afterward th

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Timothy Egan · 340 pages

The Johnstown Flood

David McCullough · 302 pages

At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Ca

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917

Sally M. Walker · 151 pages

Recounts the story from World War I in which two towns were leveled and almost two thousand people killed following the collision of two warships in Halifax Harbour and a blizzard that dumped over a foot of snow in the area.

A Night to Remember

Walter Lord · 209 pages

She was the world's biggest-ever ship. A luurious miracle of twentieth-century technology, the Titanic was equipped with the most ingenious safety devices of the time. Yet on a moonlit night in 1912, the "unsinkable" Titanic raced across the glassy Atlantic on her maiden voyage, with only twenty lifeboats for 2,207 passengers. A Night to Remember is the gut-wrenching, minute-by-minute account of h

The Storm of the Century: Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America's Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900

Al Roker, William Hogeland

This Is the Story of You

Beth Kephart · 258 pages

Seventeen-year-old Mira lives in a small island beach town off the coast of New Jersey year-round, and when a devastating superstorm strikes she will face the storm's wrath and the destruction it leaves behind alone.

In the Unlikely Event

Judy Blume · 512 pages

In 1987, Miri Ammerman returns to her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to attend a commemoration of the worst year of her life. Thirty-five years earlier, when Miri was fifteen, and in love for the first time, a succession of airplanes fell from the sky, leaving a community reeling. Against this backdrop of actual events that Blume experienced in the early 1950s, when airline travel was new and

The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche

Gary Krist · 315 pages

"In February 1910, a monstrous blizzard hit Washington State. High in the Cascade Mountains near the tiny town of Wellington, two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found their railcars buried in rising drifts, parked precariously on the edge of a steep ravine. An army of the Great Northern Railroad's men worked round-the-clock to rescue the trains, but the storm was unrelenting

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Nathaniel Philbrick · 320 pages

In 1819, the 238-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage to hunt whales. Fifteen months later, the Essex was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

Jon Krakauer · 371 pages

When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10,1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had b

The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue

Michael Tougias, Casey Sherman · 224 pages

Look no further for the real-life adventure of the year! The Finest Hours is a rousing page-turner, a fascinating history, and an inspiring ode to the courage and professionalism of men who face bitter winds and black mountainous seas... all to do a dangerous job. Put it on the shelf next to The Perfect Storm. That's where it belongs -- William Martin, New York Times Best Selling author of Cape Co

The Stars Are Fire

Anita Shreve · 241 pages

"In October, 1947, after a summer-long drought, fires began near Bar Harbor and raced along the coast of Maine, ravaging two hundred thousand acres--the largest fire in Maine's history. In the southern part of the state, people were forced into the sea to escape the flames. Five months pregnant, Grace Holland is left alone to protect her two toddlers when her husband Gene joins the volunteers figh

Fatal Forecast: An Incredible True Tale of Disaster and Survival at Sea

Michael Tougias · 247 pages

A true story of catastrophe and survival at sea. One November morning in 1980, two small lobster boats set out for Georges Bank, a bountiful but perilous fishing ground 130 miles off the Massachusetts coast. The forecast was for typical fall weather--but a colossal storm was brewing to the southeast, a maelstrom the National Weather Service did not accurately locate until the boats were already in

Rushing Waters

Danielle Steel · 358 pages

"Everybody reads Danielle Steel! Now the #1 New York Times bestselling author returns with a powerful and dramatic novel that once again confirms her reputation as America's favorite storyteller"-- "A 38-year-old American interior designer based in London and her independent-minded 74-year-old architect mother; a British investment banker in New York to see his ex-wife and young children; a res

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand · 514 pages

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Se

What Stands in a Storm: Three Days in the Worst Superstorm to Hit the South's Tornado Alley

Kim Cross · 301 pages

Weaving together heart-wrenching stories with immersive reporting and dramatic storytelling, a gripping account of a weather event in April 2011 that saw a record 358 tornadoes rip through 21 states in three days shows how things that tear our world apart also reveal what holds us together. "Immersive reporting and dramatic storytelling from the middle of the horrific superstorm of April 2011, a

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston DeWalt · 372 pages

A member of a climbing team that tried to take the summit of Everest in May 1996 shares the gripping true story of what happened when another climbing group was overcome by snow, wind, and lack of oxygen.

Five Epic Disasters

Lauren Tarshis

Death On The Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster Of 1914

Cassie Brown, Harold Horwood · 243 pages

***Each year, for generations, poor, ill-clad Newfoundland fisherman sailed out 'to the ice' to hunt seals in the hope of a few pennies in wages from the prosperous merchants of St. John's.*** The year ***1914 witnessed*** the worst in the long line of tragedies that were part of their harsh way of life. For two long, freezing days and nights a party of seal hunters--***one hundred thirty-two men-

Ninth Ward

Jewell Parker Rhodes · 217 pages

"En Louisiane, tout le monde croit aux esprits. Lanesha, elle, a le don de les voir. "Tu es comme moi, ma chérie, tu as un don de double vue ", lui a expliqué Mama Ya-Ya, la sage-femme qui l'a recueillie à sa naissance. Mama Ya-Ya savait qu'un ouragan approchait, bien avant que la radio et la télévision n'en parlent. Les dégâts seront incommensurables, répète le présentateur. Tous les habitants de

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

Piers Paul Read · 318 pages

True story of a plane that crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains with 45 persons on board, only 16 survived!! The few who survived for 70 days did so by means of cannibalism !!! Very graphic, but an extremely good read to find out what us humans will do to survive !! God puts these young people to the extreme test!!

Salvage the Bones

Jesmyn Ward · 274 pages

They heard it on the radio. A hurricane is coming, threatening the town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. Esch's hard-drinking father can feel it in his bones. Esch and her brothers are trying to help prepare, but there are other worries too. Skeetah is watching his prized pit bull, helpless as her new litter dies one by one. Randall, when not preoccupied with basketball, is busy looking after the you

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans

Don Brown · 96 pages

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina's monstrous winds and surging water overwhelmed the protective levees around low-lying New Orleans, Louisiana. Eighty percent of the city flooded, in some places under twenty feet of water. Property damages across the Gulf Coast topped $100 billion. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-three people lost their lives. The tale of this historic storm and the dro