from amazon;

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly commits the perfect murder.

With his unparalleled narrative skills, Erik Larson guides us through a relentlessly suspenseful chase over the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.

the problem with this book is that the two stories are barely connected. the inventor who's invention changed communication & the first fugitive that was caught using the invention.

i think this format of different stories that share a connection worked better in larson's the devil in the white city, because it all related to the chicago world's fair in 1893. and in isaac's storm, where it all connected to the galveston hurricane of 1900.

i think this book would've been better if it was just about the crippen murder or marconi's life and work on his wireless telegraph system.

BTW the name crippen sounded familiar. i remembered this show i watched (back when we had netflix) called murder maps. i looked it up & they did an episode on that case.

full title; Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

from goodreads;

September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history--and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devastating personal tragedy.

Using Cline's own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man's heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac's Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.

this is by the same author as the devil in the white city. this book, while not as interesting as that other, does a good job of getting into why the loss of life from this hurricane was so bad. it's a combination of arrogance on the part of people thinking they could master the weather (they believed setting a forest on fire could bring rain), distrust in the observations of people in cuba (the head of the weather service thought they were a combo of spanish dramatics & ignorant natives) & building a city on a sandbar on the edge of the ocean. when i told my brother about the sand bar he was reminded of the bible quote; "....a foolish man who built his house on sand. the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (i looked it up, it's Matthew 7:24-27)

the book came out in 1999 and at the end talked about how people were becoming complacent in regards to hurricanes. some of that led to the great loss of life katrina hurricane in 2005. the book also mentioned a recent (in that time) study that said that if a hurricane hit the new york/new jersey area it could flood the subways & kill commuters. hurricane sandy in 2012 did flood the subways, but lucky they were already closed.

from booklender.com (originally from amazon?)

Charity and Sylvia is the intimate history of two ordinary women who lived in an extraordinary same-sex marriage during the early nineteenth century. Based on diaries, letters, and poetry, among other original documents, the research traces the women's lives in sharp detail. Charity Bryant was born in 1777 to a consumptive mother who died a month later. Raised in Massachusetts, Charity developed into a brilliant and strong-willed woman with a passion for her own sex. After being banished from her family home by her father at age twenty, she traveled throughout Massachusetts, working as a teacher, making intimate female friends, and becoming the subject of gossip wherever she lived. At age twenty-nine, still defiantly single, Charity visited friends in Weybridge, Vermont. There she met Sylvia Drake, a pious and studious young woman whose family had moved to the frontier village after losing their Massachusetts farm during the Revolution. The two soon became so inseparable that Charity decided to rent rooms in Weybridge. Sylvia came to join her on July 3, 1807, commencing a forty-four year union that lasted until Charity's death.

Over the years, the women came to be recognized as a married couple, or something like it. Charity took the role of husband, and Sylvia of wife, within the marriage. Revered by their community, Charity and Sylvia operated a tailor shop employing many local women, served as guiding lights within their church, and participated in raising more than one hundred nieces and nephews. Most extraordinary, all the while the sexual potential of their union remained an open secret, cloaked in silence to preserve their reputations. The story of Charity and Sylvia overturns today's conventional wisdom that same-sex marriage is a modern innovation, and reveals that early America was both more diverse and more accommodating than modern society imagines.

to explain this; "Charity took the role of husband, and Sylvia of wife, within the marriage." charity is listed first in tax records and in the census, which didn't record the names of women and dependents until 1850. she bought sylvia a ring, which she presumably used as a wedding ring (men didn't really wear them until WW2 when the were pushed as a reminder of wives left behind for married me serving). all the domestic chores were handled by sylvia, since charity hated them. both of them sewed & mended clothes to make a living.

it is a very interesting read. chairty was the aunt of poet & long time editor of the new york post william cullen bryant and was a poet herself, as were several members of her family. it also briefly touches on lesbian history in america after the revolution and how the bryant & drake families were influential members of their community. as well how difficult it was for an unmarried woman to be independent during the late 1700s & 1800s.

the full title is, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of G*psy Rose Lee.

From Amazon;

America was flying high in the Roaring Twenties. Then, almost overnight, the Great Depression brought it crashing down. When the dust settled, people were primed for a star who could distract them from reality. Enter Gypsy Rose Lee, a strutting, bawdy, erudite stripper who possessed a gift for delivering exactly what America needed. With her superb narrative skills and eye for detail, Karen Abbott brings to life an era of ambition, glamour, struggle, and survival. Using exclusive interviews and never-before-published material, she vividly delves into Gypsy’s world, including her intense triangle relationship with her sister, actress June Havoc, and their formidable mother, Rose, a petite but ferocious woman who literally killed to get her daughters on the stage. Weaving in the compelling saga of the Minskys—four scrappy brothers from New York City who would pave the way for Gypsy Rose Lee’s brand of burlesque and transform the entertainment landscape—Karen Abbott creates a rich account of a legend whose sensational tale of tragedy and triumph embodies the American Dream.

If you've seen the musical G*psy, forget that, it was the sanitized version. One the only things they got right was Rose's mother was the ultimate stage mother, but 1000 times worse in real life. And she might have killed at least one person.

A very interesting look not only at the life of GRL, but the world of Burlesque as it was in the first part of the 20th century. and has a few chapters interspersed about the biggest promoters of burlesque in NYC, the Minsky brothers. (an infamous raid on one of their theaters inspired a movie called The Night They Raided Minsky's.)

They only thing I didn't like is the book wasn't linear, each chapter jumping from the "modern" era of the '40s to the early years of GRL's life or the Minsky's rise in the business.

But over all, I really enjoyed this book. as I did the others I've read by the author; Sin in the Second city; Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul & Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War.