<![CDATA[A Night to Remember]]>

false <![CDATA[A Night to Remember]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170593623m/61834.jpg 61834 28 James Cameron's 1997 Titanic movie is a smash hit, but Walter Lord's 1955 classic remains in some ways unsurpassed. Lord interviewed scores of Titanic passengers, fashioning a gripping you-are-there account of the ship's sinking that you can read in half the time it takes to see the film. The book boasts many perfect movie moments not found in Cameron's film. When the ship hits the berg, passengers see "tiny splinters of ice in the air, fine as dust, that give off myriads of bright colors whenever caught in the glow of the deck lights." Survivors saw dawn reflected off other icebergs in a rainbow of shades, depending on their angle toward the sun: pink, mauve, white, deep blue--a landscape so eerie, a little boy tells his mom, "Oh, Muddie, look at the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it." A Titanic funnel falls, almost hitting a lifeboat--and consequently washing it 30 yards away from the wreck, saving all lives aboard. One man calmly rides the vertical boat down as it sinks, steps into the sea, and doesn't even get his head wet while waiting to be successfully rescued. On one side of the boat, almost no males are permitted in the lifeboats; on the other, even a male Pekingese dog gets a seat. Lord includes a crucial, tragically ironic drama Cameron couldn't fit into the film: the failure of the nearby ship Californian to save all those aboard the sinking vessel because distress lights were misread as random flickering and the telegraph was an early wind-up model that no one wound. Lord's account is also smarter about the horrifying class structure of the disaster, which Cameron reduces to hollow Hollywood formula. No children died in the First and Second Class decks; 53 out of 76 children in steerage died. According to the press, which regarded the lower-class passengers as a small loss to society, "The night was a magnificent confirmation of women and children first, yet somehow the loss rate was higher for Third Class children than First Class men." As the ship sank, writes Lord, "the poop deck, normally Third Class space ... was suddenly becoming attractive to all kinds of people." Lord's logic is as cold as the Atlantic, and his bitter wit is quite dry. 1230097 1955 A Night to Remember total:628|5:169|4:258|3:166|2:26|1:9| 628 2436 808 83 4 1 false false Fri Jul 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 01 07:01:48 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 05:29:03 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Oct 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 14 03:56:28 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 14 04:02:41 -0700 2009
I've always been interested in stories about the Titanic and this is a good one. The author...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu May 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 03 02:10:30 -0700 2009 Thu May 07 22:43:33 -0700 2009
The book itself only takes place during the sinking of the Titanic (which took about 3 or so hours) and the rescue effort of the Carphatia to the Titanic's small amount of survivors.

While reading this I ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jul 24 21:02:27 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 08:06:08 -0700 2009 Many A Night to Remember should be on the bookshelves of anyone interested in the true story of Titanic. Published in 1955, highly renowned maritime historian Walter Lord was able to share actual experiences of those who survived this tragic event in the North Atlantic roughly 40 years earlier. Unlike se...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Dec 16 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 17 07:16:03 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 17 07:33:30 -0800 2008
This book was listened to with rapt attention by two of ...more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Oct 11 10:15:14 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 10:19:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Mar 02 03:59:53 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 02 04:07:43 -0800 2009
I read this after reading David McCullough speak of it. It's not long, not in-depth, yet even though I knew how it would end, I still sat and shook my head, h...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Apr 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 17:12:14 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 19:17:41 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 06 10:24:25 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 06 10:35:18 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jun 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 06:03:50 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 06:09:33 -0700 2009
R...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 20:09:37 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 20:15:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jun 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Dec 22 08:08:07 -0800 2007 Thu Jun 12 07:29:50 -0700 2008 Wikipedia entry, histor...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Oct 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 16 16:23:06 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 08 16:15:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun May 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 07 15:27:41 -0700 2009 Wed May 20 05:55:50 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1979 Mon May 05 15:50:04 -0700 2008 Mon May 05 15:54:47 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Oct 01 13:05:10 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 01 13:07:27 -0700 2009 Titanic gives all the details: the heroism, the selfishness and selflessness, the tragedy, the preventable waste of lives. Anyone with the least interest in the story will enjoy finding out what survivors saw and remembered, and how their experiences changed them.more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Apr 25 06:09:34 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 22 14:08:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Wed Jul 01 18:35:12 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 11:05:48 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Jul 14 12:38:23 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 14 12:41:23 -0700 2009 1 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Mon Jun 29 23:06:25 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 16:32:54 -0700 2009 When the ship hits the berg, passengers see "tiny splinters of ice in the air, fine as dust, that give off myriads of bright colors whenever caught in the glow of the deck lights." Survivors saw dawn reflected off other icebergs in a rainbow of shades, depending on th...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=61834