[This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review].


I was going to leave reading this book until closer to the 100th anniversary of the sinking, but couldn’t resist for more than a day or two after being given access to the galley.

This book does exactly what it says on the tin – sheds light on 101 stories or myths about the Titanic and its sinking. A surprising number of these ‘myths’ turned out to be true, or at least based quite heavily on truth.

Both a strength and a weakness of the book is the inclusion of verbatim eye-witness testimony, often transcribed from the formal enquiries that took place to make sense of how exactly the Unsinkable Ship, sank. Whilst it was fascinating to hear about conversations taking place in the lifeboats, teenage boys sneaking past officers to safety wearing bonnets and shawls, the accounts from passengers on other liners in the days afterwards, having to steam through the sea of bobbing corpses (shiver!) and other such anecdotes, the inclusion of the officers’ testimony from the court cases at times got a little dry and repetitive and I found myself scanning rather than reading.

An easy recommendation for anyone with any level of interest in the disaster – or just wants to brush up on their facts with the centenary looming.