Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

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

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

by Sebastian Junger

October 1991. It was "the perfect storm"--a tempest that may happen only once in a century--a nor'easter created by so rare a combination of factors that it could not possibly have been worse. Creating waves ten stories high and winds of 120 miles an hour, the storm whipped the sea to inconceivable levels few people on Earth have ever witnessed. Few, except the six-man crew of the Andrea Gail , a commercial... (more)

The Children's Blizzard (P.S.)

by David Laskin

Thousands of impoverished Northern European immigrants were promised that the prairie offered "land, freedom, and hope." The disastrous blizzard of 1888 revealed that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard, unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled, and America’s heartland would never be the same. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into... (more)

Isaac's Storm : The Drowning of Galveston

Isaac's Storm : The Drowning of Galveston

by Isaac Monroe Cline, Erik Larson

September 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 in what... (more)

Pompeii: A Novel

by Robert Harris

All along the Mediterranean coast, the Roman empire’s richest citizens are relaxing in their luxurious villas, enjoying the last days of summer. The world’s largest navy lies peacefully at anchor in Misenum. The tourists are spending their money in the seaside resorts of Baiae, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. But the carefree lifestyle and gorgeous weather belie an impending cataclysm, and only one man is worried. The... (more)

Krakatoa

The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883

by Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester , New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman , examines the legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa, which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The... (more)

Night of the Twisters

by Ivy Ruckman

When a tornado watch is issued one Tuesday evening in June, twelve-year-old Dan Hatch and his best friend, Arthur, don’t think much of it. After all, tornado warnings are a way of life during the summer in Grand Island, Nebraska. But soon enough, the wind begins to howl, and the lights and telephone stop working. Then the emergency siren starts to wail. Dan, his baby brother, and Arthur have only seconds to get to... (more)

A Night to Remember

by Walter Lord

The classic minute-by-minute account of the sinking of the Titanic , in a 50th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Nathaniel Philbrick First published in 1955, A Night to Remember remains a completely riveting account of the Titanic 's fatal collision and the behavior of the passengers and crew, both noble and ignominious. Some sacrificed their lives, while others fought like animals for their... (more)

In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden: A Novel

In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden: A Novel

by Kathleen Cambor

In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden is the story of a bittersweet romance set against the backdrop of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood -- a tragedy that cost some 2,200 lives when the South Fork Dam burst on Memorial Day weekend, 1889. The dam was the site of a gentlemen's club that attracted some of the wealthiest industrialists of the day -- Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Mellon, and Andrew Carnegie -- and served as... (more)

Young Men and Fire

by Norman MacLean

The NYT A River Runs Through It. In 1949, a crew of U.S. Forest Service Smokejumpers parachuted into a Montana forest fire. In less than an hour, all but three were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for 40 years, Maclean reconstructs the pieces print.

The Killing Sea

by Richard Lewis

Ruslan slipped away from the café and the curious onlookers. He began to run, not knowing exactly why, but instinct making him head away from the sea.... And in the distance, along the seafront of Ujung Karang, screams rose from a hundred, a thousand, mouths. Aceh, Indonesia. December 2004.Ruslan, an Indonesian boy, and Sarah, an American girl, are brought together in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami.... (more)

Blackout (Ready-to-Read)Anne F. Rockwell, Harlow Rockwell

Blackout (Ready-to-Read)

by Anne Rockwell, Harlow Rockwell

Dan and his family face hardship and danger when an ice storm causes a 3-day power failure in their town.

Gap Creek: The Story of a Marriage

by Robert Morgan

Julie Harmon works hard, "hard as a man" they say, so hard that at times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her. She is just a teenager when her brother dies in her arms. The following year, she marries Hank and moves to Gap Creek. Julie and Hank discover that the modern world is complex, grinding ever on without pause or concern for their hard work. To survive, they must find out whether love can keep... (more)

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

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

by Timothy Egan

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan’s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to... (more)

The Big Wave

by Pearl S. Buck

Kino lives on a farm on the side of a mountain in Japan. His friend, Jiya, lives in a fishing village below. Everyone, including Kino and Jiya, has heard of the big wave. No one suspects it will wipe out the whole village and Jiya's family, too. As Jiya struggles to overcome his sorrow, he understands it is in the presence of danger that one learns to be brave, and to appreciate how wonderful life can be. The... (more)

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America

by John M. Barry

An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known -- the Mississippi flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of nearly one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of blacks... (more)

Titanic : A Survivor's Story

by Archibald Gracie

This book combines two survivors' vivid accounts of the greatest maritime disaster in history. The information contained in Gracie's account is available from no other source. He provides details of those final moments, including names of passengers pulled from the ocean and of those men who, in a panic, jumped into lifeboats as they were being lowered, causing injury and further danger to life. Walter Lord,... (more)

The New Madrid Run

by Michael Reisig

The New Madrid Run - a tale of desperate survival on an altered planet: In the aftermath of a global cataclysm caused by a shift in the earth's poles, a handful of survivors face the terrible elements of a changed world as they navigate a battered sailboat from the ruins of Florida into the hills of Arkansas via a huge rift in the continent (the New Madrid Fault). They survive fierce storms and high seas pirates... (more)

Nine Lives

Mystery, Magic, Death and Life in New Orleans

by Dan Baum

The hidden history of a haunted and beloved city told through the intersecting lives of nine remarkable characters After Hurricane Katrina, Dan Baum moved to New Orleans to write about the city’s response to the disaster for The New Yorker . He quickly realized that Katrina was not the most interesting thing about New Orleans, not by a long shot. The most interesting question, which struck him as he watched... (more)

Twister Trouble (The Magic Schoolbus Chapter Book Number 5)

Twister Trouble (The Magic Schoolbus Chapter Book Number 5)

by John Speirs, Ann Schreiber

The kids in Ms. Frizzle¹s class are getting ready for the Wild Weather Show. To prepare, they take a field trip to the Weatherama Amusement Park. The class finds out just how wild weather can be when they accidentally fly right into a powerful tornado. It¹s a whirlwind of excitement!

Nation

by Terry Pratchett

The sea has taken everything. Mau is the only one left after a giant wave sweeps his island village away. But when much is taken, something is returned, and somewhere in the jungle Daphne—a girl from the other side of the globe—is the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the same wave. Together the two confront the aftermath of catastrophe. Drawn by the smoke of Mau and Daphne's sheltering fire, other... (more)

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Tags: natural disaster