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Title details for Sinkable by Daniel Stone - Available

Sinkable

Obsession, the Deep Sea, and the Shipwreck of the Titanic

by Daniel Stone
Daniel Stone
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
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2 of 2 copies available
From the national bestselling author of The Food Explorer, a fascinating and rollicking plunge into the story of the world’s most famous shipwreck, the RMS Titanic
 
On a frigid April night in 1912, the world’s largest—and soon most famous—ocean liner struck an iceberg and slipped beneath the waves. She had scarcely disappeared before her new journey began, a seemingly limitless odyssey through the world’s fixation with her every tragic detail. Plans to find and raise the Titanic began almost immediately. Yet seven decades passed before it was found. Why? And of some three million shipwrecks that litter the ocean floor, why is the world still so fascinated with this one?
    In Sinkable, Daniel Stone spins a fascinating tale of history, science, and obsession, uncovering the untold story of the Titanic not as a ship but as a shipwreck. He explores generations of eccentrics, like American Charles Smith, whose 1914 recovery plan using a synchronized armada of ships bearing electromagnets was complex, convincing, and utterly impossible; Jack Grimm, a Texas oil magnate who fruitlessly dropped a fortune to find the wreck after failing to find Noah’s Ark; and the British Doug Woolley, a former pantyhose factory worker who has claimed, since the 1960s, to be the true owner of the Titanic wreckage.
    Along the way, Sinkable takes readers through the two miles of ocean water in which the Titanic sank, showing how the ship broke apart and why, and delves into the odd history of our understanding of such depths. Author Daniel Stone studies the landscape of the seabed, which in the Titanic’s day was thought to be as smooth and featureless as a bathtub. He interviews scientists to understand the decades of rust and decomposition that are slowly but surely consuming the ship. (It is expected to disappear entirely within a few decades!) He even journeys over the Atlantic, during a global pandemic, to track down the elusive Doug Woolley. And Stone turns inward, looking at his own dark obsession with both the Titanic and shipwrecks in general, and why he spends hours watching ships sink on YouTube.
    Brimming with humor, curiosity and wit, Sinkable follows in the tradition of Susan Orlean and Bill Bryson, offering up a page-turning work of personal journalism and an immensely entertaining romp through the deep sea and the nature of obsession.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 16, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593585702
      • File size: 239595 KB
      • Duration: 08:19:09

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 6, 2022
      Journalist Stone (The Food Explorer) examines in this incisive and entertaining history how the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 has captured the public’s imagination. Though Stone dives deep into technical matters, including how icebergs form, the “downblast effect” that occurs when a sinking ship pulls a column of water behind it, the limitations of sonar technology, and the survival rates of men, women, and children in maritime disasters, the book’s most intriguing sections spotlight obsessives who have devoted their lives to the subject. Massachusetts jeweler Edward Kamuda formed the first Titanic fan club in 1960, convincing 75 of the ship’s 87 living survivors to join. Oklahoma oilman Jack Grimm spent most of the 1970s and much of his fortune in an ill-fated attempt to find the wreck, while Doug Woolley, a former pantyhose factory worker whose great-aunts allegedly had tickets to sail on the Titanic but backed out when they “had the same dream about disaster striking the ship,” has claimed ownership of what’s left of the passenger liner since the 1960s. Colorful personalities, astute cultural analysis, and fascinating details about the science of shipwrecks and the mechanics of salvage operations make this a must-read for Titanic buffs.

    • Library Journal

      December 1, 2022

      Obsession is the overriding theme of this book about the sinking of the Titanic and the event's establishment as the world's most well-known shipwreck. Former National Geographic staffer Stone (The Food Explorer) revisits familiar and documented facts about the sinking--the ship's construction, events and mistakes made during the voyage, and the forensic deconstruction of all that was known at the time. With the aid of time and technology, Stone investigates and reports, not only about the events surrounding the Titanic but why the mysteries that surround her continue to captivate the world's attention, including notable men of their time who proposed audacious and impossible methods to raise her intact. And, with over three million shipwrecks at the bottom of the world's oceans, Stone delves deeper into the reasons why ships sink, dispelling myths and focusing on other wrecks whose loss of life far surpasses the lives of the affluent Golden-Age ocean liner. Stone narrates his own material as he chronicles the lengths he was prepared to go for authentic research, new source materials, and firsthand interviews, all to understand why the Titanic continues to capture people's imaginations. VERDICT Impeccably researched, this is a must-listen for Titanic enthusiasts of all ages.--Laura Brosie

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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