July - September KITastrophe: Weather/Geologic/Fires

July - September KITastrophe: Weather/Geologic/Fires



I think I’m going to draw on some of what people read last year, so I’m including links to the threads and the wikis from last year, and I’ll pull out some (of my own) recommendations for those who don’t want to check the links.

Weather Events (hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, droughts, heatwaves)
Thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/321799
Wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/KITastrophe#July:_Weather_Events

The Children’s Blizzard / David Laskin
Isaac’s Storm / Eric Larson
Category 5: The Story of Camille… / Judith A. Howard
(This one has a bit of a more personal interest for me, and I don’t know how readily available it might be outside Alberta, but:)
The Flood of 2013: A Summer of Angry Rivers… / Calgary Herald

Geologic Events (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, landslides, avalanches, meteor strikes)
Thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/319132
Wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/KITastrophe#May:_Geologic_Events

I don’t have as many for this section to personally recommend!
Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster / Maura Hanrahan
Whiter Than Snow / Sandra Dallas

Fires
Thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/313973
Wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/KITastrophe#January:_Fires

The Circus Fire / Stewart O'Nan
To Sleep With the Angels / David Cowan, John Kuenster
Triangle: The Fire That Changed America / David von Drehle
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America / Timothy Egan

Don’t forget to post to the wiki:
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2021_KITastrophe#July_-_September:_-_The...

Sorry, I should have put KITastrophe first in the title of the thread!

Anyway, I have a couple of options. I'll likely choose one or the other...

The Johnstown Flood / David McCullough
I think this was one someone either read or suggested last year and it looked good!
Angry Weather / Friederike Otto

So many on my virtual TBR! I will aim to read Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 It is short, but I have heard good reviews from people I trust. My Dad regaled us with stories of the storm, but his family home was not in the path.
Also, I've had my eye on The Circus Fire but I have to be in the right frame of mind to tackle that hard story. We'll see. There are so many others and I am pushing again on my yearlong challenge to read more epidemic stories. Hopefully after mid-July I'll have a long stretch of reading time.

>3 beebeereads: I read The Circus Fire last year and liked it. I will probably read To Sleep with Angels about a school fire that killed 92 students.

>1 LibraryCin: An excellent story of Hurricane Camille is Roar of the Heavens by Stefan Bechtel, which describes the hurricane and what it did both in the Gulf states of the United States and in Nelson County, Virginia. Personal stories are provided. Unfortunately, it is a 2006 publication and is prohibitively expensive through Amazon. Barnes and Noble's website is currently down as they are making changes to it. Perhaps borrowing it from a library would be a good choice.

>5 sallylou61: Thank you for the additional suggestion. I might check my library, as well (though I may not read it this time around...)

It's maybe a tiny bit of a stretch, but I'm counting Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir toward this category because the planetary crisis fueling the story is a dimming of the sun threatening catastrophic global cooling.

Angry Weather / Friederike Otto
3.5 stars

Scientists are now able to study (some? most?) weather events and be able to determine how much more likely that event was made by climate change (or if climate change even made it more likely at all)! That is, they do it quickly, before the event fades from people’s memories and other events have happened in the meantime. This is unusual, since for scientists, peer review is important before publishing results of studies, but this can take months to do.

This book explains how they do that, primarily using models. There is a very small group of scientists worldwide who are currently doing this; the author is one of those scientists. She also looks at a few specific weather events and explains how they came up with their findings.

I thought this was good. There’s more to it than I’ve mentioned in my summary, and I can’t explain it well, but I did find it interesting. It may have been particularly interesting because about a month ago, there was an extreme heat wave where I am in Alberta, as well as in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. I had actually heard a couple of weeks ago that they had determined that this heat wave WAS more likely due to climate change and that it was 2C warmer than it would otherwise have been without climate change; when I heard that, I had no idea that a book I’d planned to pick up this month was going to look at that very thing! And, checking online, it was this group of scientists who came up with that.

To Sleep with the Angels by David Cowan was the non-fiction read about the Chicago school fire that kill 92 in 1958. Great read.

>9 Tess_W: I believe I gave it 5 stars (if not, 4.5) and it made my favourites when I read it.

I have finished Sudden Sea. This very readable narrative of the 1938 hurricane happened to arrive at my library during Hurricane season here on the East coast. We are in Central Massachusetts and not typically in the path of hurricanes, but they do turn up now and again. We were struck by the aftermath of both Henri and Ida lately. It was a timely read and a reminder to be ever aware of the weather as it can change so quickly. Scotti's almost minute by minute description of the arrival of the storm and the surge is heart-pounding and sad.

I had hoped I might get to a second book for this theme (my favourite of the KITastrophe), but I'm unlikely to have time for another one.