Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of Issac's Storm by Erik Larson

Issac's Storm by Erik Larson

Issac's Storm

A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

by Erik Larson

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Aug 1999, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history--and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devastating personal tragedy.

Using Cline's own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man's heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac's Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Torqued by drama and taut with suspense, this absorbing narrative of the 1900 hurricane that inundated Galveston, Tex., conveys the sudden, cruel power of the deadliest natural disaster in American history." - Publishers Weekly.

"More than anything, this is a gripping and heartbreaking story of what happens when arrogance meets the immutable forces of nature." - School Library Journal.

"This unforgettable work is highly recommended for both public and academic libraries." - Library Journal.

"Although the subject is grim, this telling is a deftly told fable of folly and fate." - Booklist.

"The sophisticated reader may find the emotionalism unsettling, a lapse in literary judgment. But ultimately, as the accounts of just such situations multiply thumping like Mr. Young's furniture at the reader's consciousness - that series of questions universalizes the account of one storm in one place at one time. The storm, the place, the time, after all, could be here and now." - The Boston Globe.

"The meteorological journal Weatherwise cited a host of what it deemed factual errors in Isaac's Storm, which didn't prevent it from giving the book a rave review." - Salon.

This information about Issac's Storm was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cathryn Conroy

Magical Writing! History Comes Alive, and You'll Feel as If You're in the Middle of the Hurricane
We humans have a fascination for the majestic, violent, and sometimes deadly power of Mother Nature. And while we take for granted 21st century meteorologists' ability to warn us of storms in our path, that wasn't always the case.

Isaac Monroe Cline was the head of the fledgling U.S. Weather Bureau in Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900 when a category 4 hurricane slammed into the island, killing an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people. The storm surge hit 15 feet on an island that was just nine feet above sea level. It is still considered the worst storm in history.

This historical account is riveting. Author Erik Larson alternates chapters titled "The Storm," which detail the formation and approach of the hurricane, with chapters that tell the backstories of the major players, as well as of a select group of Galveston's citizens young and old, the history of meteorological forecasting, and even the unfortunate ships caught in the path of the storm.

But this is more than a story about a formidable killer hurricane. It's also the story of an arrogant, self-serving federal bureaucracy that placed more value on its own good reputation than it did on saving lives and property. For example, weather forecasters were forbidden to use the word "hurricane" without approval from the head of the Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C. Why? The word was deemed too scary. If you don't acknowledge it, maybe it will go away. And while Isaac Cline eventually bucked his superiors and used the word "hurricane" to warn the residents of Galveston, by the time he did it, it was far too late.

Larson's writing is magical. He paints vivid, bright word pictures that make the sounds, sights, and even the odors of the hurricane and its aftermath pop off the page like a movie. I felt as if I were living the middle of the storm. His description of what it's like to be inside the eye of a hurricane is so intense and dramatic, it gave me the chills. And the depiction of the hurricane hitting and destroying Galveston has left me forever in awe of the destructive, violent power of such storms.

Bonus: You will learn lots of fun weather facts, such as how waves form, why a brick-red sky often precedes a hurricane, and how a storm surge forms.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Erik Larson Author Biography

Photo: Mary Cairns

Erik Larson is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, most recently The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, which examines how Winston Churchill and his "Secret Circle" went about surviving the German air campaign of 1940-41. Larson's The Devil in the White City is set to be a Hulu limited series; his In the Garden of Beasts is under option by Tom Hanks for a feature film. He recently published an audio-original ghost story, No One Goes Alone, which has been optioned by Chernin Entertainment, in association with Netflix. His Thunderstruck has been optioned by Sony Pictures Television for a limited TV series. Larson lives in Manhattan with his wife, who is a writer and retired neonatologist; they have three grown daughters.

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Erik Larson's Website

Other books by Erik Larson at BookBrowse
  • Thunderstruck jacket
  • The Splendid and the Vile jacket
  • The Devil in the White City jacket
  • The Demon of Unrest jacket

7 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more history, current affairs and religion...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Our Evenings
    Our Evenings
    by Alan Hollinghurst
    Alan Hollinghurst's novel Our Evenings is the fictional autobiography of Dave Win, a British ...
  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

The less we know, the longer our explanations.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.