David Grann is the author of the Number One international bestsellers KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, THE LOST CITY OF Z and THE WAGER. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON was shortlisted for the CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is also the author of THE WHITE DARKNESS and the collection THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES. Grann’s storytelling has garnered several honours including a George Polk Award. He lives with his wife and children in Westchester County, New York.
'The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail... one of the
finest nonfiction books I’ve ever read. I can only offer the
highest praise a writer can give: endless envy, as deep and salty
as the sea'
*Guardian*
‘Vivid, immediate and tantalising… Grann has a knack not just for
telling a great story, but for bringing it to life through its
characters… There are a great many books on British naval history;
very few are this good’
*Sunday Times*
‘Combining impeccable research with exceptional storytelling
powers, [Grann] spirits the reader aboard a creaking wooden ship
trapped at the eye of a howling storm… No book that you are
likely to read this year or next will prove more dramatic and
enthralling than Grann’s magnificent story of both life at sea and
out on the desolate, mist-laden island whose solitary peak the
Wager’s unfortunate crew aptly named Mount Misery’
*Financial Times*
'Grann combines a forensic eye with a storyteller's enthusiasm...
[he] skilfully moves between several genres – giving us a tense
court-martial drama to finish an unrelenting survival
thriller'
*Sunday Telegraph*
'This astonishing tale of maritime warfare, mutiny and survival in
the 18th-century Atlantic proves that a nonfiction book can be as
thrilling as any summer blockbuster'
*People*
'The story of The Wager is, like many of its antecedents - from
Homer's Odyssey to Mutiny on the Bounty - a testement to the depths
of human depravity and the heights of human endurance, and you
can't ask for better than that from a story... The Wager will keep
you in its grip to its head-stratching, improbable end'
*The Los Angeles Times*
‘A tour de force of narrative nonfiction, Mr. Grann’s account shows
how storytelling, whether to judges or readers, can shape
individual and national fortunes—as well as our collective
memory... The Wager is likely to cast a powerful spell on modern
readers as well’
*Wall Street Journal*
'Those who love yarns involving cannon fire, sea-chests, plum duff
and mainmasts will find The Wager riveting, as will those less
intrigued by the age of sail. In the hands of David Grann, the
story transcends its naval setting... [Grann] is a master of
exciting tales in far-flung places. He has produced a volume so
dramatic and engrossing that it may surpass his previous
books'
*The Economist*
'... one of the premier nonfiction storytellers of our time...
Grann's masterful new book The Wager is at once an adventure on the
high seas, a horror story and a courtroom drama - a little bit
Rashomon meets Lord of the Flies'
*Rolling Stone*
'Grann recreates the voyage in all its enthralling
horror'
*New York Times Bestseller list, 'Editor's Choice'*
'It's the kind of inspiring chronicle that would make for a rousing
maritime adventure. But this is a David Grann book, and so he gives
us something more... Their struggle for survival consumed them;
reading about their struggle for survival intruged me - as Grann,
the consummate narrative architect, must have known it
would'
*The New York Times*
'The Wager is unadorned, almost pure, horror-filled plot ... a
tightly written, relentless, blow-by-blow account that is hard to
put down'
*The Washington Post*
'Bestseller Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon) delivers a concise
and riveting account of the HMS Wager… Grann packs the
narrative with fascinating details about life at sea—from
scurvy-induced delirium to the mechanics of loading and firing a
cannon—and makes excellent use of primary sources, including a
firsthand account by 16-year-old midshipman John Byron, grandfather
of the poet Lord Byron. Armchair adventurers will be
enthralled'
*Publishers Weekly*
'A genre-defying literary naval-history thriller, part Master and
Commander, part Lord of the Flies'
*Vanity Fair*
'David Grann is one of the very select club of writers: those who
books of history are so diverting that they almost seem
implausible. Their narrative constrictions are so effective, the
dialogue so apposite, that jaded readers might think everything has
been made up or twisted to give the books life, in novelistic
fashion'
*Spectator*
‘While the story of HMS Wager is well known, David Grann brings a
distinctive and specialized approach to his treatment of it. He has
carefully built his book on a firm knowledge of the published
historical literature on the period and an extensive examination of
the manuscript sources in a wide range of archives in England,
Scotland, Australia and the United States. […] He has structured
this book not as an analytical historian but as a mystery
writer’
*Times Literary Supplement*
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