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Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania Audiobook
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(3.86) - 7 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.
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"This novel is excellent. It provides a helicopter perspective of The Lusitania sinking, by telling not only the story of the ship & passengers, but of the u boat, war trenches and US President. It is detailed without being overwhelming and it flows like fiction. The narration is clear and even toned, which perfectly suits the topic. My only criticism is that I didn't feel I got to know the passengers very well. Whilst the post-torpedo description was moving, I wanted more connection to them."
— Sue Sew (5 out of 5 stars)
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“Factual and personal to a high degree, the narrative reads like a grade-A thriller.”
— Booklist (starred review) -
"[Larson] has always shown a brilliant ability to unearth the telling details of a story and has the narrative chops to bring a historical moment vividly alive. But in his new book, Larson simply outdoes himself…What is most compelling about Dead Wake is that, through astonishing research, Larson gives us a strong sense of the individuals—passengers and crew—aboard the Lusitania, heightening our sense of anxiety as we realize that some of the people we have come to know will go down with the ship. A story full of ironies and ‘what-ifs,’ Dead Wake is a tour de force of narrative history.”
— BookPage, Top Pick -
“Larson once again demonstrates his expert researching skills and writing abilities, this time shedding light on nagging questions about the sinking of the Lusitania… An intriguing, entirely engrossing investigation into a legendary disaster…Compared to (others)…Larson’s is the superior account.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
“Using archives on both sides of the Atlantic, Larson describes the Lusitania‘s ominous delayed departure and its distressing reduced speed. He vividly illustrates how these foreboding factors led to terror, tragedy, and ultimately the Great War. Verdict: Once again, Larson transforms a complex event into a thrilling human interest story. This suspenseful account will entice readers of military and maritime history along with lovers of popular history.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
“This comprehensive history reads almost like a novel, and that’s exactly how Scott Brick narrates it. He adds emphasis where needed, goes quieter when appropriate, and varies his pacing effectively. His narration doesn’t get in the way of the writing—it enhances it. Yet during the sometimes dry and lengthy history sections early in the work, he carries listeners along. In print, readers might be tempted to skim or even skip these passages, but Brick makes them easy to listen to. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile -
“With a narrative as smooth as the titular passenger liner, Larson delivers a riveting account of one of the most tragic events of WWI… Larson crafts the story as historical suspense by weaving information about the war and the development of submarine technology with an interesting cast of characters…Larson convincingly constructs his case for what happened and why, and by the end, we care about the individual passengers we’ve come to know.”
— Publishers Weekly
Awards
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A BookPage Top Pick for March 2015
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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A New York Times Editor’s Choice
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A March 2015 LibraryReads Pick
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A New York Times bestseller
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A Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2015 for Nonfiction
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A 2015 Library Journal Best Audiobook
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A 2016 Winner for the ALA Listen List for Outstanding Audiobook Narration
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A 2015 LibraryReads Favorites of the Favorites selection
Dead Wake Listener Reviews
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Marian Stanton, 9/6/2021
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Tim Stenson, 7/5/2021
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kemp smith, 6/4/2021
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Thomas Holland, 3/6/2020
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" I really found this book enjoyable from the history of the Lusitania, U boat 20, and world war 1/11. What I didn't like about the book as the author seemed to go into extreme detail as to the background and story lines of the passengers of the Lusitania. Many of the stories were the story lines behind these individuals were uneventful and didn't add to the main subject of the book. "
— Will, 4/26/2016 -
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Linda Shirk, 11/29/2015
About Erik Larson
Erik Larson is the author of six previous national bestsellers—The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac’s Storm—which have collectively sold more than ten million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries.
About Scott Brick
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.