For me it’s “Killer Show” by John Barylick, the story of the Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island in 2003, and its aftermath.
Barylick is the plaintiff PI lawyer who litigated on behalf of the victims and their families against an extraordinary cast list of defendants that he cobbled together. The people directly to blame a the club owners and the band and their road crew - had no money and little insurance, so he had to go after anyone even vaguely associated with it - the radio station that promoted the concert, the beer company that sponsored it, and loads of others.
There’s quite a lot of lawyer stuff in it, and he makes a half-convincing case for the innate justice of the American practice of suing everyone and everybody in situations like that.
If someone could now post “TLDR” - just to get it out of the way - gr88ful.
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Oh! I expected this to be about 'For the record'.
'Killer Show' sounds much better
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I’m looking forward to the Cameron book tbf
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Also good were “Midnight in Chernobyl” - there are a couple of other books about Chernobyl I’d like to read - and Sophie Cunningham’s “Warning”, about the terrifying Cyclone Tracy. If you want to properly give yourself the willies, google “cyclone tracy siren” and have a listen to the deliberately godawful warning siren they played all over the city as the cyclone approached. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever heard.
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Not sure if the Manson murders qualify, but 'Helter Skelter' (written by the prosecuting DA) is brilliant.
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that sounds good
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It really is. Also the best selling true-crime book in history.
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Into Thin Air first hand account if the disaster on Everest in1996
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I never knew, until just now when googling, that the band Kasabian were named after one of the Manson Family.
Speaking of bands with tasteless names, there was a briefly feted New Zealand indie band around 2001 called Carriage H. I’ve no confirmation of this, and they certainly never publicly confirmed it, from news reports of the Paddington rail crash in london. Carriage H (strictly, coach H) was the ash-strewn coach in which it was feared tens of people might have died (though it turned out nearly everyone escaped).
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Midnight in Chernobyl is on my to-read list.
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If disaster lit interests you then it’s worth checking out the longform articles of aviation writer - and former airline pilot - William Langwiesche. He’s written some engrossing stuff on air accidents, including AF447, but his best work IMO is an absolutely terrifying piece about the sinking of the Estonia.
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Does the Big Short by Michael Lewis count as a disaster book? If so that.
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"Speaking of bands with tasteless names"
See also, Mansun.
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"Into thin air is a terribly written petty one sided account of events."
I think it is pretty gripping. It does not claim to be an objective history - it is a personal account, so in that sense it is "one sided" it gives his experience of the event. I think 3 or 4 other books have been written about the event from different perspectives.
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Jurassic Park for me, Clive.
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Midnight in Chernobyl is 1.99 on kindle atm
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I forgot that Laz bloody loves a disaster
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I quite enjoyed the thread on bundle bungling if that counts?
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Meh loves Bunga Bunga shocker
The Big Short is a great book, although the best film about the financial crisis - even allowing for Margot Robbie sucking your cock with her eyes while talking you through the RMBS shitfall - is Margin Call.
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“My Struggle” by M Rhodes OBE
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If The Big Short counts then Too Big To Fail should be there also.
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Have u tried Third Man Factor? I loved it
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By John Geiger
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If we are talking financial disaster Smartest Men in the Room is good about Enron.
Las you should write a book on Summerland disaster. I still remember that thread.
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I read a good book on the Dyatlov Pass incident called Dead Mountain. Not a huge disaster I accept, but quite an interesting account of what might of happened. The place they died sounds grim AF. Was a good holiday read.
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Not quite a disaster in the traditional sense, but The last battle about the battle of Berlin by Cornelius Ryan.
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If we are talking about battles, then you have to consider
Kursk 1943: The Greatest Battle of the Second World War, by Roman Toeppel
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I really liked the perfect storm if you will accept the loss of a fishing boat as a disaster...
if you like business fvckups, have you read the book about the collapse of Finley, Kumble - I think it was called shark tank
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Armada From Athens by Peter Green.
The Sicilian Expedition was an unmitigated self-inflicted disaster by Athens and changed the course of European history as Athens subsequently lost the Peloponnesian War as a result. If it hadn't lost, the course of European history may well have been changed.
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Some good suggestions on this thread but at the same time there's a lot of "if X type of thing counts as a disaster...". Any suggestions on the core topics of air crashes, shipwrecks, earthquakes, big explosions, etc.?
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My suggestion includes shackleton and his epic journey, 9/11 and air crashes iirc.
There was a long article bladders posted about cave divers in Norway. Emphasis on the first syllable of divers. Will try to find.
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https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/magazine-36097300
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Do submarines count ? If so, Kursk Down was pretty good. Title is self explanatory. I didn't know that quite a few sailors survived the initial explosion and were writing journals and the like as the air ran out. Not a good way to go.
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Pretty sure the Kursk felt like a disaster for those involved. I've had a look around a couple of submarines and decided it wasn't for me even if things were going great never mind if something exploded.
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