Today Amazon offers A Night to Remember written by Walter Lord just for $1.99. This book has a lot of positive reply from readers: there are 170 customers reviews and average evaluation is 4.6 out of 5 stars.
James Cameron’s 1997 Titanic movie is a smash hit, but Walter Lord’s 1955 classic remains in some ways unsurpassed. Lord interviewed scores of Titanic passengers, fashioning a gripping you-are-there account of the ship’s sinking that you can read in half the time it takes to see the film. The book boasts many perfect movie moments not found in Cameron’s film. When the ship hits the berg, passengers see “tiny splinters of ice in the air, fine as dust, that give off myriads of bright colors whenever caught in the glow of the deck lights.” Survivors saw dawn reflected off other icebergs in a rainbow of shades, depending on their angle toward the sun: pink, mauve, white, deep blue–a landscape so eerie, a little boy tells his mom, “Oh, Muddie, look at the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it.”
A Titanic funnel falls, almost hitting a lifeboat–and consequently washing it 30 yards away from the wreck, saving all lives aboard. One man calmly rides the vertical boat down as it sinks, steps into the sea, and doesn’t even get his head wet while waiting to be successfully rescued. On one side of the boat, almost no males are permitted in the lifeboats; on the other, even a male Pekingese dog gets a seat. Lord includes a crucial, tragically ironic drama Cameron couldn’t fit into the film: the failure of the nearby ship Californian to save all those aboard the sinking vessel because distress lights were misread as random flickering and the telegraph was an early wind-up model that no one wound.
Lord’s account is also smarter about the horrifying class structure of the disaster, which Cameron reduces to hollow Hollywood formula. No children died in the First and Second Class decks; 53 out of 76 children in steerage died. According to the press, which regarded the lower-class passengers as a small loss to society, “The night was a magnificent confirmation of women and children first, yet somehow the loss rate was higher for Third Class children than First Class men.” As the ship sank, writes Lord, “the poop deck, normally Third Class space … was suddenly becoming attractive to all kinds of people.” Lord’s logic is as cold as the Atlantic, and his bitter wit is quite dry.
Also Amazon allows free downloading a game: Pirate Mysteries for your Kindle Fire.
Yarr Solvin’ Puzzles and Seekin’ Treasures
Pirate Mysteries is a mysterious tale of monkeys, masks, and hidden objects. Explore exotic lands while trying to save your demon-possessed father in this fun and humorous hidden object game. Meet unique characters, solve ancient puzzles and riddles, and journey through an adventure that stretches from the shores of the Atlantic to the darkest corners of the Land of the Dead.
Mary Blade and her father–who wants to be a pirate–wash up on an island after their ship was struck by lightning. Mary must make her way around the island, interact with the locals, and solve ancient puzzles and riddles to save her father and return to civilization.