Get Lost in Literature

  The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann "Storms continued to batter the ships day and night. John Byron stared in awe at the waves that broke over the Wager , bandying the 123-foot vessel about as if it were no more than a pitiful rowboat." Today's review is going to be a short one about The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann . I feel like the book really needs no long-winded synopsis written from me as the author so painstakingly put it in the title with just three words. But in case you need more information, here goes: In 1740, a small fleet of English ships set sail for a secret mission meant to foil the war plans of the Spanish. This mission takes them around the treacherous Cape Horn where disaster strikes one of the ships, the Wager . Eventually stranded on a foreign shore, Captain Cheap is desperate to fulfill his orders and rejoin the fight; his crew, focused on survival, want to turn back. I don't read a ...

  American Pharoah: The Untold Story of the Triple Crown Winner's Legendary Rise   by Joe Drape "The three hardest things to predict the outcome of are a ballgame, a love affair, and a horse race." In 1978, a horse named Affirmed managed to win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, capturing the Triple Crown of horse racing. It would be a 37-years before the next horse was capable of accomplishing the same feat: American Pharoah in 2015. This isn't a particularly long book, but it took me forever to read. It's not a particularly emotional book (I don't think, anyways) but it kept making me emotional. I've been a horse lover all of my life, even making the financially irresponsible decision to buy one of my own, and a longtime fan of horse racing. I wasn't even born in 1978 when Affirmed won the Triple Crown... and while I'd seen video of Secretariat moving 'like a tremendous machine' it wasn't the same as ex...

  “We were so tired of death and destruction. We wanted to do something beautiful.”   The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis , by Eliizabeth Letts   When I was in college, I was asked to write an essay about WW2, but I could write about any aspect of it. I wanted to write about horses. That essay never got written. The statistics on how many horses were gunned down were staggering. No one wants to read that. I don't actually know what subject I chose. It was largely forgettable. I have forgotten it.   Now here's a book about horses in WW2, that is unforgettable. Elizabeth Letts had better luck with her research than I did with mine.  During WW2, Germany was running low on horse power and the Nazis were developing a top secret eugenics program to breed the ultimate military horse. But without native stock, they began stealing the four legged national treasures from countries they were occupying. The gro...