The endurance of the human spirit or The Halifax Disaster

It's a little unsettling to me that prior to reading Curse of the Narrows I had never heard of the explosion that caused so much devastation in Halifax, Nova Scotia on December 6, 1917. When the munitions ship, Mont Blanc, collided with the Belgian Relief vessel, Imo, on that fateful day none of the inhabitants in Richmond could have predicted the loss that their town would incur. I have to admit that at the outset of this book I was struggling to comprehend what was occurring as much of the language was 'nautical' in nature which I've always found confusing. However, once Mac Donald began discussing the 'human element' I was hooked. Basically, the entire town was decimated in a matter of moments and thousands were killed, injured, orphaned, and made homeless. Oppenheimer used the statistics from the blast to calculate the effects of an atomic bomb (and used these calculations to create the bombs used in Nagasaki and Hiroshima). One of the unique factors in this event was that there was an historian on the ground that immediately began rounding up accounts and taking interviews in order to preserve the details of the day and the days and months preceding it. I highly encourage any fans of history (in particular WWI-era) to give this book a try. Additionally, the Appendix and Notes at the end of the book were absolutely phenomenal which is always one of my favorite parts in any nonfiction work and if you aren't reading these I highly encourage you to do so. :-D

Next up is Horrorstor (imagine the last 'o' has those little dots over it) by Grady Hendrix. I'm already impressed with the book based on its packaging (yeah, yeah don't judge a book blah blah blah) because it looks like a retail catalog. The reason for this is that the setting for the book is a furniture superstore called Orsk. When five employees agree to spend the night in the store to discover who is causing havoc each night they discover more than they had bargained for. O_O It's a horror story in a furniture store! (I am genuinely wary of mannequins so I really hope they don't turn out to be the baddies in this.) I can't wait to report back to you guys with my review!!

Now did John Murray say that or was it John Murray? Wait, maybe it was John Murray.

As you'd expect from a book which has the word 'dynasty' in the title The Seven Lives of John Murray: The Story of a Publishing Dynasty was chock full of DATA. SO MUCH DATA. As you'd expect, there's a lot of history wrapped up in a publishing agency which was opened in 1768 and lasted until 2002. Full disclosure: I had never heard of John Murray Publishing (or so I thought until I unearthed this blog entry I had written in 2010). You might not have either but you've definitely heard of some of the authors they've published throughout the years. For instance, John Murray II (you're maybe getting the meaning behind the book title right about now) published Lord Byron, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott. John Murray III brought Charles Darwin on board for his work On the Origin of Species which you may have heard about... Throughout its many years, the agency was well-known for its educational material such as medical textbooks, history books, and general science books. When the company was taken over this was what was deemed most viable although the Murray Archive which contained scores of correspondence and manuscripts from a variety of authors and other personages (what?) was valued at £45 million. O_O If you're interested in publishing or simply like to know historical facts about a company that lasted more than 200 years then you can't go wrong with this book.

This next book was recommended to me by a dear friend/adopted Grandpa who told me it was right up my street. (He's probably right.) The book is called Curse of the Narrows by Laura M. Mac Donald and it chronicles the horrifying disaster that occurred in Halifax, Nova Scotia on December 6, 1917 and the days that followed. When a munitions ship collided with another ship at harbor the results were absolutely catastrophic. Not only was there a massive explosion but a tsunami and snow storm were also triggered. Mac Donald utilized resources left from the explosions's official historian as well as other primary documents from the period to craft this nonfiction work. I can't wait!