Upon the centennial of the Titanic sinking, I read a few articles about the incident, and all pointed to Lord's A Night to Remember as remaining the authority on the event. There are other books, larger books, thorough books that explain exactly the second-by-second details of the last hours of the ship and her passengers, and they'd still refer to this masterpiece of cool, elegant prose.
I bought it for fifty-cents or something on Amazon, where the cost of shipping is more than the cost of the book.
If you care even a little about hubris and arrogance, about real-eyed honesty in the face of obvious destruction, about the unchaining of the poor (which of course happened far too late), I can't be any more blunt: READ THIS BOOK.
Lord spoke with as many survivors as he could visit in the '50s when he wrote the book, and the authority of the events is so confident and to the point that it blows the mind. The night unfolds with lightening pace from the first grinding sound to the surviving ranking officer getting sucked under and then blown out with a dying gasp of a sinking vessel. He made it to a capsized life boat, and stood until the sunrise.
The book is maybe 200 pages, and, if under the right circumstances, could easily be read in an afternoon. It grips you, and doesn't let go.
I think science has left the great majority of the facts stated here intact, which is to the credit of the memories of those who survived to tell the story to Al Lord.
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