August CultureCAT: Impact of Natural Disasters

August CultureCAT: Impact of Natural Disasters



Natural disaster (from wikipedia): “A natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the Earth; examples include floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other geologic processes. A natural disaster can cause loss of life or property damage, and typically leaves some economic damage in its wake, the severity of which depends on the affected population's resilience, or ability to recover and also on the infrastructure available.”

Suggestions:

Fiction:
Trapped / Michael Northrop (blizzard)
Ashfall / Mike Mullin (volcano)
Pompeii / Robert Harris (volcano)
The Rift / Walter Jon Williams (earthquake)
After the Quake / Haruki Murakami (earthquake)
Mother of Storms / John Barnes (hurricane)

Nonfiction:
These are ones I’ve read:
Isaac's Storm / Erik Larson (hurricane)
Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster / Maura Hanrahan (tsunami)
Category 5: The Story of Camille… / Judith A. Howard (hurricane)
The Children's Blizzard / David Laskin (blizzard)
Storm Kings: the Untold History of America's First Tornado Chasers / Lee Sandlin

This was in my city, just a few years ago:
The Flood of 2013 / Calgary Herald (flood)

And others I’ve not read:
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded / Simon Winchester (volcano)
The Johnstown Flood / David McCullough (flood)
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927… / John M. Barry (flood)
A Crack in the Edge of the World... Simon Winchester (earthquake)
The Perfect Storm Sebastian Junger (hurricane)
Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens / Patricia Lauber (volcano)
Drowned city: Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans / Don Brown (hurricane)
Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado / Nancy Mathis (tornado)

And don't forget to update the wiki:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/2017CC_CultureCAT#August

Haven't yet chosen what I'll read for this, either. I know there's a tornado book I'd like to get to, but I don't think my library has it, so I might get on the ball and do an ILL. I'll take a closer look at what else I've got as an option soon.

I'll be counting Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster, for this challenge, on your recommendation :)

I'm going to read David Welky's The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937.

>3 rabbitprincess: Yay! Hope you like it!

I have a few options from my tbr for this. I'll have to see what my library has, but my options include:

The End: Natural Disasters, Manmade Catastrophes, and the… by Marq de Villiers
Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber

I have three books on forest fires on MT TBR and since it's shaping up to be another brutal fire season here (a friend's ranch home just narrowly missed being burned although quite a bit of their pasture land is gone), I think I'll go with one of them.

I'll probably go with Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire. It's the one that's been livning on the shelves the longest.

I was already planning on reading The Personal History of Rachel DuPree so very happy to hear that it will fit this Cat! I am also planning on reading Five Days At Memorial by Sheri Fink.

This should be the month to finally read Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.

I didn't know it when I started the book, but consequences of a natural disaster are an important plot development in The legion of flame, so I am counting it here.

I just read When the Rain Came, a 31-page pamphlet written by Earl Swift commemorating the 30th anniversary of the impact of Hurricane Camille on Nelson and Rockbridge Counties in Virginia which killed approximately 125 in Nelson and 23 people in Rockbridge County. This pamphlet was reprinted from the newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot which ran the story in serial form Aug. 15th through Aug. 22, 1999. It provides a combination of an explanation of the forces which created the storm and why it did some much physical damage, and accounts of the experiences of some of the people who survived; many of whom lost most of their family members. It also provided then current pictures of some of the survivors and gave an update on them, which by now is 18 years old. Although this story was interesting, it cannot compare to Roar of the Heavens, a full-length book by Stefan Bechtel (published in 2006), which tells the story of Camille both on the Gulf Coast and Nelson County. Moreover, I attended anniversary events in Nelson County in 2009 for the 40th anniversary, and heard the two Raines brothers who had lost their parents and three siblings in the storm tell about their experiences.

I'm reading Isaac's Storm by Erik Larsen right now. It was a very slow start for me. I got bored with the details about weather tracking. (What was I expecting? It is a book about a hurricane!). I'm about 1/3 finished and am enjoying it.

I have completed Five Days At Memorial by Sheri Fink for this theme.

I finished David Welky's The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937. It was excellent, I definitely recommend it. 4.5/5.

>15 LibraryCin: Glad you enjoyed it! It's my favourite by Larson!

I'm tentatively planning on reading No Ordinary Heroes: 8 Doctors, 7,000 Prisoners, and a Category 5 Hurricane, though I admit I'm running out of month... (I'd hoped to get to Zeitoun, too, but there's no chance of that happening, the month has flown by so quickly...)

But also, even if late, I have to quickly jump in and recommend two related and amazing poetry collections. Blood Dazzler is a collection in response to Hurricane Katrina, and is phenomenal. I never get tired of reading it and teaching it. Another powerful one worth looking up (but not so easily found if you're looking for used copies or wandering a bookstore) is Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami, which I also don't tire of reading/teaching, and which is in response to the Christmas Day Tsunami.

Why New Orleans Matters / Tim Piazza
3.5 stars

This book was written a very short time after Hurricane Katrina. Katrina hit at the end of August in 2005, and this book was copyrighted the same year. In Part I, the author describes the culture of New Orleans: the food, the music, the parades, Jazz Fest, Mardi Gras… He also talks about the bad side: the crime, the poverty. In Part II, he looks at the devastation caused by Katrina and contemplates the rebuilding.

I liked it. I’ve been there once, and I already wanted to go back… and the book made me want to go back even more! I was there in 2011, and most of the places I visited hadn’t been affected by the flooding. I did get to one of the affected areas that still, in 2011, mostly hadn’t been fixed up. Reading the book certainly brought back some good memories of my visit, though!

Just wanted to drop by... I'm probably not going to finish No Ordinary Heroes: 8 Doctors, 7,000 Prisoners and a Category 5 Hurricane before the month is up, but I do want to recommend it to anyone who might be interested. So far, it's incredibly readable, and really worthwhile. The problem is, it's simply too much with everything that's happening in Houston right now, and with my own city dealing with much more minor flooding. I'll finish it at some point, but probably not till next month. While the topic is up and in everyone's view, though, I wanted to drop by and recommend it.

I finished off my August reading month with The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber. This was an excellent read about a black pioneer woman, set against the backdrop of a severe drought in the Badlands of South Dakota.

>20 LibraryCin: I'll get to it, eventually!

I am a bit late with this, but during my holidays I finished Die "erschreckliche" Flut von 1634 und der Untergang von Alt-Nordstrand about a great flood in which a North Frisian island vanished in the North Sea, and Den Fluten zum Trotz which tells about the changes in the area after the big flood, when many of the survivors built a new life on the island of Föhr.

edited for touchstone