Voyagers of the Titanic
by Richard Davenport-Hines
Narrated by Robin Sachs
Genre: History
Publisher: Harper Audio
Publish Date: March 6, 2012
Format: Audio, 11 hours | 18 minutes
Audio Listening Level: Easy to Intermediate
Rating: 4 of 5
Everyone knows the story of the Titanic, the great ocean liner that struck an iceberg while crossing the Atlantic in 1912. When constructed it was thought to be unsinkable, but on that frigid night in the North Atlantic waters, the ship sank in two and a half hours, killing 1,517 of the 2,240 aboard.
Unlike many of the other accounts of the Titanic that focused on the sinking of the ship itself, this book provides the story behind many of the passengers on the ship, the crew and the people who built her. It’s clear the author has done exhaustive research and has uncovered the tiniest details.
We learn who was on the ship, why they were traveling, what class ticket they bought, what it cost in today’s dollars, what the passengers brought with them, what type of cargo was on the ship, what type of food was served in each dining room, who canceled their voyage after having already bought tickets, who booked at the last minute and why. These are just a few of the many details recounted. We get a tour of the ship, hear what the rooms were like, what amenities were provided for the passengers, what they did upon boarding, what a typical day was like for those in each class (1st, 2nd or 3rd). The ship sounded glorious with one exception, if the weather turned foul and the seas were rough, the passengers were uncomfortable despite their exquisite surroundings.
We learn heartbreaking details of families separated as decisions were made on who went into the lifeboats, learn how the crew handled the situation and get a general feel of the conditions on the ship. First hand information from survivors and conversations overheard by them was also detailed. Families arrived at the port in New York to meet the Carpathia, the rescue ship, with hope that their loved one had survived. As I listened one of the things that kept coming to mind was how much communication and transportation has changed in the 100 years since the disaster. Many of the initial reports and media coverage were inaccurate.
Told in a serious documentary style, Robin Sachs’ powerful narration is easy to listen to. It’s a fascinating and absorbing account of the many individuals who’s lives were touched by the catastrophe. The many, many facts and figures recited are too overwhelming to be recalled offhand unless you have a fantastic memory but the individual, personal stories will resonate with the listener. Titanic history buffs who want to absorb every detail and note every fact would appreciate having a print copy of book.
As I’ve mentioned when reviewing other non-fiction audiobooks, I miss having photographs, charts, maps, drawings and any other reference materials that would enhance my understanding of the story. More audio books are being produced with this type of information included in a pdf file but sadly this one did not.
In spite of the lack of visual reference material this is still a wonderful book. Non-fiction is often an easier choice than fiction for those new to audio and I recommend giving this one a listen.
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Source: Review copy.
© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
I enjoy watching birds anywhere, anytime, but April has to be my favorite month. The migrants have returned from their winter homes, the males are brightly colored in breeding plumage and the trees haven’t leafed out yet making it easier to see and photograph the birds.
Yesterday I came across a pair of Wood Ducks and for the first time I was able to get good photos of them. The male, on the left, has his breeding plumage of bright green and iridescent chestnut. In the late summer the male will lose his bold colored feathers.
The Wood Duck is a migratory bird found across most of the US and southeastern Canada. Some will migrate into northern Mexico for the winter. They are not an uncommon bird but are not usually seen. Their preferred habitats are wooded swamps and freshwater marshes.
The photo on the right is the marsh they were swimming on. Unlike other ducks, the Wood Ducks nest in trees or nestboxes placed around lake margins.
Interesting Facts:
- Wood Ducks have both webbed feet for swimming and claws for perching and climbing trees.
- If a female cannot find a tree cavity or nestbox, she will lay her eggs in another duck’s nest. This is called egg-dumping and is fairly common, resulting in over twenty eggs in one nest. The host female will accept the eggs as her own.
- Within 24 hours after hatching, ducklings jump from the tree or nestbox and find their way to the water by listening to their mother’s calls.
Hopefully this pair is nesting at the marsh so I can get some photos of the ducklings. There is nothing cuter than 20 ducklings following mom around the pond.
Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.
© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
The Book of Madness and Cures
by Regina O’Melveny
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Publish Date: April 3, 2012
Format: Hardcover | 336 pages
ISBN: 9780316195836
About the Book
Gabriella Mondini is a rarity in 16th century Venice: a woman who practices medicine. Her father, a renowned physician, has provided her entrée to this all-male profession, and inspired in her a shared mission to understand the secrets of the human body.
Then her father disappears and Gabriella faces a crisis: she is no longer permitted to treat her patients, women who need her desperately, without her father’s patronage. She sets out across Europe to find where-and why-he has gone. Following clues from his occasional enigmatic letters, Gabriella crosses Switzerland, Germany and France, entering strange and forbidding cities. She travels to Scotland, the Netherlands, and finally to Morocco. In each new land she probes the mystery of her father’s flight, and open new mysteries of her own. Not just mysteries of ailments and treatments, but ultimate mysteries of mortality, love, and the timeless human spirit.
About the Author
Regina O’Melveny’s poetry has been published widely in literary journals, garnering several prizes. She grew up at the edge of pungent chaparral in La Mesa, California, and chose to enroll at Callison College–a school of International Studies at the University of the Pacific–almost solely based upon the fact that the second year would be spent in India. Thus began her many extended travels that would later inspire The Book of Madness and Cures, her first novel. She lives in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
Giveaway Information
The publisher has generously offered two copies for giveaway.
- Contest is open to those with an address in the US or Canada.
- To enter leave a comment. It is not necessary to be a subscriber or follower to enter but new subscribers are always welcome.
- For an extra entry, tweet or blog the giveaway.
- The deadline for entry is Wednesday, April 25th. I will draw two winners who will be contacted by email and will have 48 hours to respond with a mailing address.
[Contest is now closed]
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© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Almost Wordless: 333 Wacker as seen from Wolf Point on the Chicago River. Reflected buildings are the Merchandise Mart, an office building and a condominium.
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Calico Joe
by John Grisham
Genre: Fiction, Sports
Publisher: Doubleday
Publish Date: April 10, 2012
Format: Hardcover | 208 pages
Rating: 4 of 5
Paul Tracey’s father, a former big-league baseball pitcher for the Mets, has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Paul hasn’t seen his father, Warren, in years. Neither has his mother or sister, not that any of them really care, for Warren Tracey was not a good father, not a nice man, and in looking back on his life, not a very good human being.
Flashback to 1973. Joe Castle was an up and coming rookie for the Cubs, a future hall-of-famer. He enthralled fans and shattered batting records hitting home run after home run. It was a magical summer until August, when the Cubs faced the Mets, and Warren Tracey threw a fastball that would change everyone’s lives forever.
The novel alternates between 1973 and thirty years later in 2003. Told from the point of view of Paul, we experience his life as a young little league player who loved baseball, kept scrapbooks and newspaper clippings of his favorite players and teams but never received encouragement or affection from his dad. Thirty years later Paul has abandoned the game he loved. Now that Warren is dying, Paul wants him to face up to what happened that summer, to find closure and perhaps forgiveness.
At only 200 pages, this is a short novel written in an easy to read style that both baseball and non-baseball fans will enjoy. Real life teams and players are mixed in with the fictional characters and it is obvious Grisham is a fan of the game. There is enough baseball detail to keep the fans happy but not so much as to overwhelm his longtime legal thriller fans.
As a long-suffering Cub fan, the descriptions of the baseball games and the players on those 1973 teams brought back many memories for me, both happy and sad, of those long ago days. Non-baseball fans bear with me here. In an Amazon Q&A Grisham admits to being a Cardinal fan. There is a huge rivalry between the Cardinal and the Cubs. So it didn’t surprise me that he made Calico Joe a player for the Cubs. One more heartbreak for the die-hard fans. Even though it was fictional, it brought back all the emotion of the real life disappointments I’ve endured following many Cub teams over the decades.
This is a charming, emotional story with a touching ending. Highly recommended.
Giveaway Information
The publisher has generously offered two copies for giveaway.
- Contest is open to those with an address in the US only.
- To enter leave a comment. It is not necessary to be a subscriber or follower to enter but new subscribers are always welcome.
- The deadline for entry is Sunday, April 22nd. I will draw two random winners. They will be contacted by email and have 48 hours to respond with a mailing address.
Contest Now Closed
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Source: Review copy.
© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Earlier this week I went on a Garden Walk at one of my favorite places, Cantigny Gardens, for a tour of the flowering trees and shrubs. Because of the exceptionally mild winter and early warm spring, the trees are blooming about one month ahead of their normal schedule. The Crabapple trees were in full bloom and provided a gorgeous array of pinks and whites. It was spectacular.
A majority of the shrubs were still flowering although a few, like the Forsythia, had already finished their display of yellow. I’m not sure what this shrub below was called but the flowers were pretty.
Below is a blossom from a Yellow Magnolia. The Pink Magnolias had all dropped their flowers, but the yellow ones still had a few blooms hanging on.
Just as I was about to get some glorious shots of a huge bed of tulips, my camera battery went dead. And I didn’t bring a spare. So that was the end of my photography for the morning. Be assured the remaining plants were beautiful, I just can’t show them to you.
Where’s Weekend Birding?
Weekend Birding has its own post today because I wanted to highlight a spectacular Bald Eagle’s nest instead of my photos. The nest had three eggs which hatched last week and live streaming video of the eaglets is available 24/7.
Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.
© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
With the availability of Ustream and YouTube there has been an explosion of free video on the internet. I have been watching live streaming video of a Bald Eagle nest.
Eggs were laid in February and now all three have hatched. Although mom eagle is still brooding them, they are lively little guys and are constantly escaping from under her feathers and stumbling about the nest.
Mom eagle does most of the child care and appears to be the one feeding the little guys. Usually dad eagle drops off a trout or some other fish and then she rips it apart into bite size pieces for the hatchlings. Eagles eat a variety of foods but the centerpiece of their diet is fish. Yesterday it was something with a long furry tail.
Needless to say, I am absolutely fascinated by this glimpse at nature in action, and an eagle’s nest is something we don’t see every day. The only eagles I have seen in person are the ones at the Wildlife Rehab Facility. I have yet to see one in the wild. We do have them in the Chicago area, but the two nests I know about are both on private property.
I have links to a few other nests with high quality cameras installed and would be happy to feature these if there is interest.
History of the Nest
In 2007 a pair of Bald Eagles built this nest in a Cottonwood tree 80 feet (25m) above the ground near the Decorah Fish Hatchery in northeast Iowa. The nest is huge. It is approximately 6 feet (1.8m) across, about 5 feet (1.5m) deep.
The pair have been together since the winter of 2007 and they have successfully hatched and fledged 2 eaglets in 2008, 3 in 2009, 3 in 2010, and 3 in 2011. It is difficult to tell the male and female apart. The female is a slightly larger.
A camera was installed in the nest in 2009 by The Raptor Resource Project and it streams live video of the nest 24 hours a day.
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© 2012 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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