Welcome to Litsy!

You can see Richard Lasher‘s car & the dirt bike he was able to flee the approaching ash cloud on.

I was alive when St Helen‘s happened but was too young & too far away from WA to remember. I wish the book would have gone right to covering the event & not the years before background & its players.

I do remember the elderly man that refused to heed warnings & condemned 16 cats to eruption death. You also get perished dogs & horses. Humans too. 💧

The story of Christa McAuliffe‘s journey to be the first teacher in space. Well written, not too much fluff. The interesting part was reading about the aftermath and the last 2 minutes that I had never read about. We heard about the o-rings but the remains found tell a story of what those astronauts went through. 😣

This book looked at the preparation (or lack thereof) and response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the gulf states. The focus is placed on New Orleans where things went completely off the rails. With the storm having been nearly twenty years ago, I had forgotten a number of the details or never knew them as an outsider. The poor decision-making, lack of planning, and inadequate response made for a maddening listen.

@Laughterhp @Chrissyreadit (thanks for the tags! 😘😘)
#tuesdayscavengerhunt

A ship counts as a boat right? How about a (wait for it) titanic one? 🤩 I loved this book and taught it to my sophomores. And guess who posted about it? Tag, you're it, @TheBookgeekFrau! Find another book with a boat and tag that person. Pass the fun along!

The setting for this historical fiction novel was the Richmond, VA theater fire of 1811, which was the biggest tragedy of its day. I appreciate the author‘s research and her efforts to bring to life real people who were present at the time. Where she lost me is when she wrote characters from 1811 as if they had the opinions of people living in 2020. Even though I agree with their opinions, women in 1811 would not have talked or behaved that way.

Extended heavy rains in 1913 caused widespread, devastating flooding that impacted most of the eastern and central US, causing major damage and leading to flood mitigation efforts. Washed Away takes the reader through those days, focusing on Ohio and Indiana, the hardest hit, and telling the story through the experiences of individuals. A really compelling read! #ReadYourEbooks (May)

This was the March bookclub pick.
I don't really think it was for me.
It was quite uneventful in the beginning. Took a good 100 pages to get into it. Once the storm came through, it picked up. But was still just, meh.

Like I said, not for me. So I won't be rating this one.

03.28.2025

I ❤️ Rebecca Solnit.

This book looks at numerous disasters through Oregon history (mostly natural) and tells each story in brief. I enjoyed it but do wish it had been a bit meatier. It‘s a good nonfiction companion piece to Tilt, which depicts the coming at some point Cascadia event.

Interesting history of the deadliest hurricane in history, it hit Galveston TX. It‘s incredible to see how far weather prediction has come and how much there was to learn and understand something as “simple” as the wind.
Larson has a great way of telling the history and making it feel like a story. Excellent research involved I‘m sure.