Titanic's Last Secrets

A nagging question about the sinking of the TITANIC is why the ship went down so fast. The authors, experienced wreck divers, explore the theories and visit the wreck, and its sunken sister ship, to find answers. The book also includes extensive technical history of the ship and the original investigation of the sinking. Henry Leyva does a workmanlike job with the narration. His clear voice is easy to listen to, a quality that is especially important in the technical passages. He occasionally adopts an accent for speakers, but only ones he can do well, so the technique doesn't seem forced. Leyva also captures the excitement and awe of wreck-diving. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

June 9, 2008
In this expertly written account, Matsen (Descent
) does what would seem impossible: he tells us something new about the Titanic
disaster. In August of 2005, a team using Mir submersibles found previously undiscovered wreckage from the ship on the ocean floor. The wreckage suggested that the Titanic
had not sunk with the bow rising into the air. Instead the ship had broken in half while almost horizontal and gone down before most of the passengers knew what was happening. The discovery directs Matsen’s retelling of the Titanic
story, beginning with events that led to the creation of the giant ocean liner. Matsen is an engaging writer and has smoothly incorporated massive amounts of research. After opening in the 21st century, Matsen spends 150 pages recounting the entire Titanic
saga, including biographies of the builders, the ins-and-outs of shipyard politics and ocean travel. It’s all very well done but leads at times to a loss of overall focus. A dive to Britannic
, Titanic
’s sister ship, is handled rather hastily and the personalities of the team that made the Titanic
discovery are never fully developed. These are minor issues, however, and it testifies to the quality of the book that the reader is left wanting more.

August 15, 2008
Chatterton and Kohler, the two wreck explorers introduced in Robert Kurson's "Shadow Divers", became interested in the few remaining questions about the "Titanic"'s sinking. Beyond the well-known story, controversy over the exact details remains, e.g., whether the ship sank in one piece or two and why it went down so fast. These intrepid divers rented a Russian ship with two deep-diving minisubs and found a couple of large pieces of the hull, previously unnoticed. From the torn steel, they arrived at some conclusions that added modestly to the generally accepted story, mainly regarding the flexing of the hull and the expansion joints. To confirm their suspicions, they then dove on one of the "Titanic'"s two sister ships, the "Britannic", which was sunk by a mine in World War I. Matsen ("Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss") incorporates much intimate detail about the builders of the ship, reconstructing conversations from 1912 via secondary sources. Dedicated "Titanic" enthusiasts will be interested, but only libraries with extensive marine collections need consider. [A film adaptation of "Shadow Divers" is in the works for a 2009 release; see Prepub Alert, "LJ" 6/15/08.]Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2008
An experienced writer on maritime subjects chronicles the further adventures of John Chatterton and Richie Kohler (see Robert Kursons Shadow Divers, 2004). Now distinguished underwater archaeologists, they investigate a novel theory about why the Titanic sank so rapidly. With the help of dives on the wreck and several experts on the ship and her fate, they bolster suspicions that it and its sibling liners were structurally weak, too large for the standard shipbuilding techniques of the day. Whether they wholly convince the reader, their research is impressively thorough and their prose clear. Furthermore, they offer vivid accounts of the golden age of shipbuilding, of relations among the three men (Lord Pirrie, Bruce Ismay, and Thomas Andrews) who created the Titanic and sealed her doom, and of the pleasures and perils of underwater archaeology. Those who pick this up in anticipation of the centennial of the sinking should be enthralled.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)