A collaboration between the History Book Festival and the Lewes Public Library, this monthly discussion group focuses on books featured at this year's Festival and those to be featured at the 2019 Festival. The group is open to all lovers of history and meets at the Library (111 Adams Avenue, Lewes).

This month's book is "Run the Storm” by George Michelsen Foy

ABOUT RUN THE STORM

On October 1, 2015, the SS El Faro, a massive American cargo ship disappeared in Hurricane Joaquin, a category 4 storm. The ship, its hundreds of shipping containers, and its entire crew plummeted to the bottom of the ocean, three miles down. It was the greatest seagoing US merchant marine shipping disaster since World War II. The massive ship had a seasoned crew, state-of-the-art navigation equipment, and advance warning of the storm. It seemed incomprehensible that such a ship could sink so suddenly. How, in this day and age, could something like this happen?

Relying on Coast Guard inquest hearings, as well as on numerous interviews, George Michelsen Foy brings us “the most insightful exploration of this unthinkable disaster” (Outside), a story that lasts only a few days, but which grows almost intolerably suspenseful as deep-rooted flaws leading to the disaster inexorably link together and worsen. We see captain, engineers, and crew fight for their lives, and hear their actual words (as recorded on the ship’s black box) while the hurricane relentlessly tightens its noose around the ship. We watch, minute by minute, all that is happening on board—the ship’s mysterious tilt to one side, worried calls to the engine room, ship-to-shore reports, the courage of the men and women as they fight to survive, and the berserk ocean’s savage consumption of the massive hull. And through it all, the pain and ultimate resilience of the families of El Faro’s crew. Now with a new afterword, this “tour de force of nautical expertise” (Ocean Navigator) is a masterwork of stunning power.

Author George Michelsen Foy will join the discussion by Skype.

Registration is requested.
Sign up online or by calling the library at 302-645-2733, or stopping by the Circulation Desk.
Walk ins are welcome. Copies of Run the Storm will be available at the library circulation desk.

Purchase "Run the Storm" at Browseabout Books.
http://bit.ly/buy_run_the_storm
Copies will be available at the library circulation desk.