Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly interesting.
Review: This book was terrific. I read it all in one day. I really liked the way the author(s) wove in stories of the people on the Titanic with the scientific analysis. And the science was fascinating. Not so technical that non-scientists couldn't understand or enjoy it, but detailed and supported with enough evidence so that it explains very well much of what happened that night. This book touches on biology, microbiology, physics, mathematics, psychology, politics, and more. A very engrossing read.
Rating:
Summary: A Titanic Undertaking
Review: This is one of the most chilling true stories I have ever read. While at least half of this "new" material has been reported elsewhere (chiefly in the British Inquiry, May 2 - July 1, 1912), Pellegrino's synthesis feels so fresh and is so vivid that one is tempted to believe he must actually have been there, not just on the expeditions to Titanic as archaeological ruin, but actually there on the slanting decks in a past life. He illustrates the ship's evolution (or devolution) from something strong and beautiful to mounds of twisted steel with such loving detail that for the first time, we can understand the strange sights and sounds reported by Colonel Gracie, Jack Thayer, Charles Joughin, and Alfred White - even though the witnesses themselves eventually died without ever knowing what happened to them, or why.One more strange thing: In "Her Name, Titanic" Pellegrino morphed back and forth in time from the Ballard expeditions, to the night of the sinking, to the expeditions again... and again... and not always effectively. (Unless the intended effect was to make the reader dizzy. But James Cameron did pick up on this, and ran with it, and managed to transcend Pellegrino's flaws.) This time out, in keeping with the realities of an archaeological dig, wherein one begins by peeling away the most recent events buried in the topmost layer, Pellegrino plays an even stranger game with time. But this time he is much more effective. This book is so engrossing that you can get all the way to the last chapter without noticing that he has been telling the story backwards! By the way, the drawings were amazingly creepy yet beautiful.
| 
