In-depth study of 1900 hurricane, politics, US Weather Bureau, Galveston, tragedy ( )

An interesting and often disturbing account of the historically destructive hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas during 1900. I gave this a so-so rating, as I thought the narrative Larson created veered off into multiple directions, with too much focus on Isaac's personal life. Some chapters read more like a fictional account versus non-fiction. The inclusion of photos in the book would have been a welcome addition. ( )

The story becomes so personal. There are images I can't get out of my head. So well written ( )

Really good if the history of meteorology, evolution of government bureaucracy, and disaster stories are of interest. The latter did little for me, thus only an average book to me. ( )

I was disappointed by this highly rated book.

Very repetitious. Too many people introduced for no good reason. Obviously, the author had a wealth of material and didn't know how to reduce it to an appropriate amount.

Ultimately, I learned nothing about weather prediction - partly because:
1) I didn't know which of the dizzying array of explanations were important; and
2) The explanations were poor. If you look at a book on weather (or even your local forecast), material is presented (and heavily supplemented) with graphics. The material applies directly to maps - why not use them? Instead, it's all text. So sad that the author knows nothing about visualization. There are two maps at the front of the book but they're not particularly helpful and, indeed, the author never refers to them in the text.

In the section on sources, the author mentions that he had access to a lot of photos that showed significant things. How many photos did he include in the book? Zero.

There were some good parts. I enjoyed discussion of the early history of the National Weather Service. And the post-storm cleanup and reaction was good. But the middle (even including the terror at the height of the storm) was just too much - boring and unfulfilling.

I also didn't care for the author's writing style. For example, he would use uncommon words with no explanation. He would occasionally end paragraphs with sentences that made no sense whatsoever or needed explanation. And sometimes he would say things that were simply contradictory.

Some examples (pages reference to paperback edition):

p 48 Larson writes that in 1627, Furtenbach fired a cannon straight in the air and positioned himself underneath hoping it would land elsewhere if Galileo's theories about rotation were correct. This story is absurd for so many reasons. Does the author lack the most basic understanding of physics? (In the rear, he gives a source of a book which has a poor rating on Amazon and reviews that say it should not be relied on.)

p 50 Larson recounts Isaac giving a "cruelly detailed explanation of the Coriolis effect" seemingly subjecting us to the same followed by "A twentieth-century audience would have shot Isaac dead." That's exactly what I feel like except I want to shoot Larson because ultimately, we readers get no better explanation. Were we not supposed to struggle with that prior incomprehensible paragraph?

Would I recommend this to a friend? No. First, there are better non-fiction books. There are better non-fiction disaster books. And there are better books about weather prediction debacles. This book simply isn't anywhere near the top. ( )