An O, The Oprah Magazine Terrific Read of the Year
A Huffington Post Best Book of the Year
A New Yorker Favorite Book of the Year
A Chicago Tribune Favorite Nonfiction Book of the Year
A Kansas City Star Best Book of the Year
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Decade
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
One of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of the Year, a Christian Science Monitor Best Nonfiction Book, a Newsday Top 10 Books pick, a People magazine Top 10 pick, a Good Reads Best Book of the Year, and a Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book
A National Book Critics Circle Award finalistIn 2004, at a beach resort on the coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala and her family--parents, husband, sons--were swept away by a tsunami. Only Sonali survived to tell their tale. This is her account of the nearly incomprehensible event and its aftermath.
Every year around the globe, people cross paths with avalanches--some massive, some no deeper than a pizza box--with deadly results. Avalanche expert Jill Fredston stalks these so-called freaks of nature, forecasting where and when they will strike, deliberately triggering them with explosives, teaching potential victims how to stay alive, and leading rescue efforts when tragedy strikes.
In Snowstruck, Fredston draws on decades of personal experience to take "avalanches out of the statistical realm and into the human one" (Skiing Magazine): a skier making what may prove his final decision, a victim buried so tightly that he can't move a finger, rescuers racing both time and weather, forecasters treading the line between reasonable risk and danger. Fredston brings to life the awesome forces of nature that can turn the mountains deadly--and the equally inexorable forces of human nature that lure us time and again into treacherous terrain.
When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers's riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun's roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy -- an American who converted to Islam -- and their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible. Like What Is the What, Zeitoun was written in close collaboration with its subjects and involved vast research -- in this case, in the United States, Spain, and Syria.
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist The captivating and definitive account of the Great Lisbon Earthquake--the most consequential natural disaster of modern times. On All Saints' Day 1755, tremors from an earthquake measuring approximately 9.0 or perhaps higher on the magnitude scale swept furiously toward Lisbon, then one of the wealthiest cities in the world and the capital of a vast global empire. Within minutes, much of the city lay in ruins. A half hour later, a giant tsunami unleashed by the quake smashed into Portugal's coastline and barreled up the Tagus River, carrying countless thousands out to sea. To complete Lisbon's destruction, a hellacious firestorm then engulfed the city's shattered remains, killing thousands more and incinerating much of what the earthquake and tsunami had spared. Drawing on a wealth of new sources, the latest scientific research, and a sophisticated grasp of European history, Mark Molesky gives us the gripping, authoritative account of the Great Lisbon Earthquake disaster and its impact on the Western world--including descriptions of the world's first international relief effort, the rise of a brutal, yet modernizing, dictatorship in Portugal, and the effect of the catastrophe on the spirit and direction of the European Enlightenment.
Killing hundreds and leaving a city in ruins, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 stands as one of the greatest natural disasters in American history. But the aftermath of the quake?the fires that raged across the city for days and claimed the lives of thousands more?was an all too human disaster whose story has remained largely untold. Until now.
Employing the same vivid prose and storytelling skill that made his "Report from Ground Zero" a national bestseller, Dennis Smith reconstructs those harrowing days from the perspective of the people who lived through them. Smith draws on hundreds of individual accounts and official documents to unearth the true story of the fires?from the corrupt officials who left the city woefully unprepared for disaster, to the militia officers who enforced martial law with deadly force, to the individual heroes who battled the blaze and saved untold lives. "San Francisco Is Burning" is a thrilling disaster tale that brings a lost chapter of history back to riveting life. BACKCOVER: ?Riveting.?
?"The Washington Post"
?So riveting it is enraging? Smith?s] message is the one that matters most.?
?"San Francisco Chronicle"
?A finely woven human story of tragedy, death, heroism and blunder?This book is an eye-opener in many ways, and a good read, to boot.?
?The Associated Press
The 2011 devastating, tsunami-triggering quake off the coast of Japan and 2010's horrifying destruction in Haiti reinforce the fact that large cities in every continent are at risk from earthquakes. Quakes threaten Los Angeles, Beijing, Cairo, Delhi, Singapore, and many more cities, and despite advances in earthquake science and engineering and improved disaster preparedness by governments and international aid agencies, they continue to cause immense loss of life and property damage. Earthquake explores the occurrence of major earthquakes around the world, their effects on the societies where they strike, and the other catastrophes they cause, from landslides and fires to floods and tsunamis. Examining the science involved in measuring and explaining earthquakes, Andrew Robinson looks at our attempts to design against their consequences and the possibility of having the ability to predict them one day. Robinson also delves into the ways nations have mythologized earthquakes through religion and the arts--Norse mythology explained earthquakes as the violent struggling of the god Loki as he was punished for murdering another god, the ancient Greeks believed Poseidon caused earthquakes whenever he was in a bad mood or wanted to punish people, and Japanese mythology states that Namazu, a giant catfish, triggers quakes when he thrashes around. He discusses the portrayal of earthquakes in popular culture, where authors and filmmakers often use the memory of cities laid to waste--such as Kobe, Japan, in 1995 or San Francisco in 1906--or imagine the hypothetical "Big One," the earthquake expected someday out of California's San Andreas Fault. With tremors happening in seemingly implausible places like Chicago and Washington DC, Earthquake is a timely book that will enrich earthquake scholarship and enlighten anyone interested in these ruinous natural disasters.
#Sandy is a book of iPhone photos of Hurricane Sandy captured by photographers Benjamin Lowy, Stephen Wilkes, Ed Kashi VII, Hank Willis Thomas, 13th Witness, Richard Renaldi, Michael Christopher Brown, Wyatt Gallery, Ruddy Roye and others.
