Savannah from Savannah

Author: Denise Hildreth 
Genre: Fiction / Christian Lit
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004
Pages: 336
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: I'm coming home to prove something. . .to my city, to my mother, and myself.
It is a plaace known to most as Savannah. It is a place known to me as home. I wish I could you it aws my love for this city that precipitated my return. But I did not return out of mere longing for home. I returned because I have something to prove to home. I am Savannah from Savannah.

Review: This book took me a pathetically long time to read - almost 2 weeks, I believe. That is completely unheard of. I lost interest after a chapter or two and had a hard time resuming reading. However, at the end of the day, I can say I did enjoy it.

I have no plans to finish the series though.

The Johnstown Flood

Author: David McCullough
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1987
Pages: 304
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: 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 Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal.

Graced by David McCullough's remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.

The bestselling author of The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback makes available again his classic chronicle of the tragic Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood of 1889.

Review: What a tragedy, and McCullough is the best author to tell the story. Having both read this book, my fiancé and I plan to visit Johnstown in the very near future. I visited the flood museum once with an old college friend who grew up in Johnstown. However, I had no real points of reference, nor did I know much about the flood itself. It is sure to be a different experience this time.

David McCullough Books
The Pioneers
Truman

Vicksburg is the Key

Author: William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winschel
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2005
Pages: 242
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: The struggle for control of the Mississippi River was the longest and most complex campaign of the Civil War. It was marked by an extraordinary diversity of military and naval operations, including fleet engagements, cavalry raids, amphibious landings, pitched battles, and the two longest sieges in American history. Every existing type of naval vessel, from sailing ship to armored ram, played a role, and military engineers practiced their art on a scale never before witnessed in modern warfare. Union commanders such as Grant, Sherman, Farragut, and Porter demonstrated the skills that would take them to the highest levels of command. When the immense contest finally reached its climax at Vicksburg and Port Hudson in the summer of 1863, the Confederacy suffered a blow from which it never recovered. Here was the true turning point of the Civil War. This fast-paced, gripping narrative of the Civil War struggle for the Mississippi River is the first comprehensive single-volume account to appear in over a century. Vicksburg Is the Key: The Struggle for the Mississippi River tells the story of the series of campaigns the Union conducted on land and water to conquer Vicksburg and of the many efforts by the Confederates to break the siege of the fortress. William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winschel present the unfolding drama of the campaign in a clear and readable style, correct historic myths along the way, and examine the profound strategic effects of the eventual Union victory.

Review: Growing up so close to Gettysburg one can forget that not all battles were as exciting. The battle for control of the Mississippi River was key, but the battle of Vicksburg as one part of it, was anticlimatic. Grant lay seige to the city for weeks and wore the Confederates down until they had no choice but to surrender.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the "battle" were the missteps by both sides. Poor decisions were made a various times by the commanders. The South was also hampered by rampant indecision.

When one studies the civil war it's easy to see that at no point did the South truly have the upper hand.

Overall this was a tough read. Military strategy and ever-changing names made the first 100 pages or so a real challenge. However, I'm glad I stuck with it. I'd like to learn more about the civil war in the South.

Remembering Pittsburgh

~ March's theme is books with cities in the titles ~

Author: Len Barcousky
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: The History Press, 2010
Pages: 160
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: The doomed Whiskey Rebellion, the Great Fire that destroyed a third of the city in 1845 and Lincoln's speech urging residents to shun talk of secession—all have made the pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and its predecessors. Since 1786, the paper has covered local events, and reporter Len Barcousky is a part of this long tradition. This collection of his "Eyewitness" columns draws on next-day stories to tell the history of the city, from President Coolidge's almost-silent visit in 1927 to a report on the first woman hanged in Allegheny County. Join Barcousky as he vividly recounts the compelling history of the Steel City.

Review: Today Pittsburgh's role in westward expansion is minimized, if mentioned at all. Pittsburgh was the first gateway to the west and key players of the day all traveled through.

I really enjoyed reading about the Pittsburgh I've only heard about through family lore and stories.

My favorite history professor was also quoted in this book, the late Dr. David Dixon who taught at Slippery Rock University.

Gone at 3:17

Author: David M Brown and Michael Wereschagin
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Potomac Books, 2012
Pages: 328
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: At 3:17 p.m. on March 18, 1937, a natural gas leak beneath the London Junior-Senior High School in the oil boomtown of New London, Texas, created a lethal mixture of gas and oxygen in the school’s basement. The odorless, colorless gas went undetected until the flip of an electrical switch triggered a colossal blast. The two-story school, one of the nation’s most modern, disintegrated, burying everyone under a vast pile of rubble and debris. More than 300 students and teachers were killed, and hundreds more were injured.

As the seventy-fifth anniversary of the catastrophe approaches, it remains the deadliest school disaster in U.S. history. Few, however, know of this historic tragedy, and no book, until now, has chronicled the explosion, its cause, its victims, and the aftermath.

Gone at 3:17 is a true story of what can happen when school officials make bad decisions. To save money on heating the school building, the trustees had authorized workers to tap into a pipeline carrying “waste” natural gas produced by a gasoline refinery. The explosion led to laws that now require gas companies to add the familiar pungent odor. The knowledge that the tragedy could have been prevented added immeasurably to the heartbreak experienced by the survivors and the victims’ families. The town would never be the same.

Using interviews, testimony from survivors, and archival newspaper files, Gone at 3:17 puts readers inside the shop class to witness the spark that ignited the gas. Many of those interviewed during twenty years of research are no longer living, but their acts of heroism and stories of survival live on in this meticulously documented and extensively illustrated book.

Review: Impossible to put down, even when I wanted to. So much death and destruction. Haunting is an apt description. The authors have created a masterpiece of pay tribute to both the victims and the survivors.

Tinder Box

Author: Anthony P. Hatch

Genre: Non-fiction

Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2003

Pages: 240

Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: This is the one-hundredth anniversary year of the worst single building fire and the most horrible theater disaster in US history.At a Christmas week matinee December 30, 1903, more than 600 people, mostly women and children, perished in less than 30 minutes in a five-week-old theater that was advertised as being "Absolutely Fireproof" and one of the most luxurious playhouses ever built in America—the epitome of Twentieth Century luxury, comfort and safety. Rushed to completion because of corporate greed, the Iroquois opened in Chicago's Loop without exit signs, firefighting equipment, sprinkler system, fire alarm, telephone, a completed ventilation system and exterior fire escapes because city building inspectors had been paid off in free tickets and fire department and other officials looked the other way. Published warnings went unheeded. When fire broke out from a short circuit in a backstage spotlight, the panicked audience found itself locked in by untrained ushers and though leading comedian Eddy Foy begged for calm, people trampled one another in a mad dash to escape and piled up at exit doors that, even when broken open, swung in rather than out. Hundreds jumped or were pushed from the incomplete fire escapes into what became known as "Death Alley." The disaster, which for 1903 had the impact that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, stunned the world, closed theaters and ultimately resulted in fundamental changes in building and safety codes now taken for granted, such as illuminated exits signs, panic bars, doors that swing out, not in and fire retardant materials. However, questions remain as to whether today's theaters and movie houses are any safer in a panic situation, and some fire experts interviewed by the author say that another Iroquois disaster could again occur.

Review: This book caught my attention because in October 2012 a group of friends and I took a haunted ghost tour of Chicago. What had been the Iroquois Theatre was the first stop and we were able to get off the bus and walk into the alley behind the theater where so many had died more than 100 years ago. I didn't experience anything unusual, but there were orbs in many of the group's pictures.

This book itself was a grisly, but fascinating read. 

Dark Tide

Author: Stephen Puleo
Genre: History, Non-fiction
Publisher: Beacon, 2004
Pages: 280
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters was playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window-"Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!"

A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour. It demolished wooden homes, even the brick fire station. The number of dead wasn't known for days. It would be years before a landmark court battle determined who was responsible for the disaster.

Review: This was an excellent read. I cannot wait to visit Boston again and see the North End where this happened. Not only does the author describe the flood in great detail, he covers the politics and economics of the time as well.

History lovers will find this interesting.