88 pages 2 hours read

Erik Larson

Isaac's Storm

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1999

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Introduction

Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

  • Genre: Nonfiction; weather
  • Originally Published: 1999
  • Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
  • Structure/Length: Prologue, 6 parts; approx. 336 pages; approx. 8 hours, 46 minutes on audio
  • Central Concern: On September 8, 1900, a monster hurricane destroyed the seaside town of Galveston, Texas, killing 6,000 people in the greatest natural disaster in American history. Larson chronicles the struggle of Isaac Cline, meteorologist for the US Weather Bureau, and his deadly miscalculation that devastated the town and ultimately killed his wife.
  • Potential Sensitivity Issues: Extreme weather destruction; death

Erik Larson, Author

  • Bio: Born in 1954 in Brooklyn, New York; journalist and nonfiction author; studied Russian History at the University of Pennsylvania and  graduated summa cum laude; graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; inspired to pursue journalism by the movie All the President’s Men; featured writer for Time and The Wall Street Journal; stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Atlantic Monthly; has taught nonfiction writing at San Francisco State University, University of Oregon, and the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars
  • Other Works: The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities (1992); Lethal Passage (1994); The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (2002); The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020)
  • Awards: Louis J.

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