Exactly 100 years ago (14 April 1912), the Titanic sunk on her maiden voyage across the north Atlantic. Billed the unsinkable ship, man was reminded just how frail we (and our creations) really are. A Night to Remember, written in 1955 by a descendant of a survivor, pulls together research from dozens of interviews with survivors and thousands of pages of testimonies regarding the event. In just 170 pages, it covers the ship striking the iceberg at 11:40pm, the events between the strike and the final sinking at 2:20am, to rescue of the the survivors a few hours later. It attempts (and achieves) a certain breadth, taking in accounts from passengers of all classes, as well as the crew.
The book is good. It does pack a lot of information into those pages, and conveys the general trend of events and the different impressions people had of them. You can lose yourself in the names at times- the author lists names of the source at every turn, so you'll read things like "Jack Thayer remembered it being this way, while Mrs John Astor remembered it this other way." If you don't get too tied around remembering the different names (there are a lot of people referenced), you get a good overall idea of the horrors and events of that fateful night, as well as the rescue and subsequent happenings. A worthy retelling of a horrible tragedy.
Rating: A
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