This is an exploration of the Titanic disaster through the colourful and varied lives of some of the 2000 plus people, passengers and crew, who sailed on her notorious maiden voyage in April 1912. The story has been told so many times, but this is a somewhat different approach that allows us glimpses into the lives of a huge and varied cast of characters from American millionaire industrialists, to poor immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East taking all they had in the world with them in a quest for a new life in the United States promising better economic conditions or freedom from religious or racial persecution. While fascinating in concept, it quite often threatens to become little more than long detailed lists of people and brief details of their backgrounds without much of a narrative structure. The usual range of dramatic, colourful horrific and pathetic incidents that one would expect are present here though, so this has quite a powerful impact in reminding the reader about many aspects of this most famous of maritime disasters. ( )

I finally got around to finishing this one. I kept putting it off. It has a lot of great details about the disaster which cleared up some things for me. ( )

I enjoyed this book. Especially the details of the various passengers. Even though I’ve read other books on the titanic this book offered a lot of new interesting detail. ( )

3.5 stars

The author gives some background information on many of the people who were on the Titanic when she sank; this includes crew and passengers from all three classes.

This one started off slow. There are a lot of people who were mentioned, so I found it difficult to remember who’s who, except the ones I’ve heard of before (mostly some of the 1st class passengers). Of course, once we got to the point when the ship hit the iceberg, then it really picked up for me. So, the second half of the book was much more interesting to me. After people were rescued, there was follow up information on some of them, as well. Overall, it was good. ( )

Got this book at Belfast's Titanic Museum couple of years ago and was glad I had it waiting for the right moment. Very interesting book, quite well written (quite dry and factual style), however it was overwhelming at times, especially in early pages. I found it not to be a book about the Titanic or its sinking per se, but rather it is a book about the people onboard this famous ship and the peoples and societies of the early 20th century. Quite fascinating really. ( )