Everyone's Reading Metro (Detroit) Book Club - Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson

[diver_paula]

Hello everyone.

I ran across a news article on this year's Everyone's Reading Program. This is the program's 6th year and the book chosen for the Metro Detroit area is Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson. Many of us have already read it and so far I haven't found anyone that wouldn't recommend it. There are 19 libraries in the Metro Detroit tri-county area participating.

The great news is that even if you have already read the book or aren't a reader but still interested in U-Boats, there are several special events going on in the next few months. There are even events around Great Lakes subs and ships.

A sampling of the events are:

Showings of the NOVA documentary "Hitler's Lost Sub"
A History of U-boats presentation
Great Lakes Maritime History presentation
Diving into History - A discussion of the tragedy and triumphs behind a Great Lakes shipwreck
The History of Freshwater Subs and a Submariner's Life in World War II
Lost Legends of the Lakes

For more information go to: http://www.everyonesreading.info/

From the Southfield Library website:
Everyone's Reading Program!

Be part of the Everyone's Reading Metro Book Club. This program celebrates the shared experience of reading and talking about the same book. Join readers from Southfield Public Library and other communities in the tri-county area in reading Shadow Divers: The True Adventure Of Two Americans Who Risked Everything To Solve One Of The Last Mysteries Of World War II by Robert Kurson.

Shadow Divers tells the riveting, true story of two shipwreck divers who discover a World War II U-boat that sunk sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey in 1944. No one, including the United States Navy and the German government, knew the sub was sitting 230 feet below the frigid Atlantic waters. For more than six years, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler risked their sanity and their lives as they embarked on a real-life adventure to uncover the identity of the sub and its 56 crewmembers. The book is as gripping as any mystery novel and the intrigue and suspense make Shadow Divers a page-turner from beginning to end.

Programs kick off February 1st and conclude in April during National Library Week with appearances by author Robert Kurson at the following libraries:
Baldwin Public Library: Tuesday, April 4 at 2 PM
West Bloomfield Township Library:Tuesday, April 4 at 7 PM
Canton Public Library: Wednesday, April 5 at 7 PM

Southfield Public Library is sponsoring a book discussion, film viewing and a "History of Submarines" lecture. Please see the March/April newsletter for more information or go to http://www.everyonesreading.info/ for further details.


Paula

 

[Cacia]

I loved that book! I first heard about it here on the board, everybody ws dissecting the various personalities. Some of the techies even know Chatterton personally I think.
The depiction of the bends scared me---sounds like it sucks. Some of the history...well I admit to skipping a few pages here and there. I think someone said they were making it into a movie.

 

[Dean810]

I loved that book! I first heard about it here on the board, everybody ws dissecting the various personalities. Some of the techies even know Chatterton personally I think.
The depiction of the bends scared me---sounds like it sucks. Some of the history...well I admit to skipping a few pages here and there. I think someone said they were making it into a movie.

Apparently, the movie is on the board. Announced director is Ridley Scott, who directed Matchstick Men and Blackhawk Down. But it is still in the early stages and apparently anything can happen. Richie Kohler said he wanted to be played by Danny Devito!

 

[SubNavigator]

Being an ex-Submariner and a RecDiver, my wife bought me the book for my birthday over a year ago. I had seen the NOVA special when first aired.

It was not until I was stuck at home this Christmas with a broken leg that torpedoed the family trip that I had a genuine opportunity to read the book.

For a Diver, the book is worth it. It covers so much detail that TV can't appreciate. For the submariner, it gives the feeling of: There, but for the grace of God.....

 

[diverbrian]

Being an ex-Submariner and a RecDiver, my wife bought me the book for my birthday over a year ago. I had seen the NOVA special when first aired.

It was not until I was stuck at home this Christmas with a broken leg that torpedoed the family trip that I had a genuine opportunity to read the book.

For a Diver, the book is worth it. It covers so much detail that TV can't appreciate. For the submariner, it gives the feeling of: There, but for the grace of God.....

Under the grace of God category....

Read Blind Man's Bluff. That one is just scary to a modern submariner. Especially the stuff about K-19.

I actually love Shadow Divers. It's a great book that can be enjoyed even if you aren't a diver as it isn't so bogged down in "tech diver stuff" that you have to have that background to understand it.

 

[SubNavigator]

Diverbrian,

You know that I cannot comment on BLIND MAN'S BLUF.....

 

[diverbrian]

Diverbrian,

You know that I cannot comment on BLIND MAN'S BLUF.....

Understood, but you catch my meaning. I can't comment on a board either, but I will say that running that reactor plant was 99 percent boredom wishing for some kind of action and 1 percent wishing for that boredom again. And K-19 was a reactor operator's nightmare that I was glad that nobody mentioned until I got out (and to be honest there reasons that I would not have seen that kind of incident).

For that matter, I wouldn't have wanted to have been on the LA class boat that surfaced into the boatfull of Japanese students doing emergency blows or the USS San Francisco recently. Oh, and being the Kursk would have not been a fun way to go.

I can't imagine that life on U-869 was any fun either. Especially when their own fish came back at them.

 

[RPanick]

I read the book a while back after a few people mentioned it. I personally wasn't impressed, and after having seen the two of them on TV, I was positive I wouldn't be comfortable diving with either of them. Even though I suspect that both divers are probably better than I ever will be. Its that there definition of acceptable risk will never be anything close to mine.

The things that stood out for me were:

• The deaths that happened
• Broken families
• Drinking yourself to death

Of course I'm one of those divers they scorn that just want to go to nice warm water and look at pretty fish. I plead guilty to that, for me that is extremely relaxing. I get enough excitement and challenge at work, I don't need it when diving. Of course I generally think wrecks are pretty boring, I'm much more interested with the stuff that lives on or in them than the wrecks themselves.

What I think is kind of funny about the whole thing is that the few people I have talked to about the book, those that like it are wreck/tech divers. Those that don't seem to like the book are generally the recreational diving crowd.

I actually read it to get a perspective of the other side of diving. Now, can anyone recommend a book on the challenges of floating in 80 degree water, with lots of critters all over the place, and surface intervals basking in the warm sun. Shame most of my diving is looking at miniture lobster (crayfish) and exotic perch, trout and the occassional catfish in cold, cloudy quary water. Funny part is I find even that relaxing.

 

[diverbrian]

I read the book a while back after a few people mentioned it. I personally wasn't impressed, and after having seen the two of them on TV, I was positive I wouldn't be comfortable diving with either of them. Even though I suspect that both divers are probably better than I ever will be. Its that there definition of acceptable risk will never be anything close to mine.

The things that stood out for me were:

• The deaths that happened
• Broken families
• Drinking yourself to death

Of course I'm one of those divers they scorn that just want to go to nice warm water and look at pretty fish. I plead guilty to that, for me that is extremely relaxing. I get enough excitement and challenge at work, I don't need it when diving. Of course I generally think wrecks are pretty boring, I'm much more interested with the stuff that lives on or in them than the wrecks themselves.

What I think is kind of funny about the whole thing is that the few people I have talked to about the book, those that like it are wreck/tech divers. Those that don't seem to like the book are generally the recreational diving crowd.

I actually read it to get a perspective of the other side of diving. Now, can anyone recommend a book on the challenges of floating in 80 degree water, with lots of critters all over the place, and surface intervals basking in the warm sun. Shame most of my diving is looking at miniture lobster (crayfish) and exotic perch, trout and the occassional catfish in cold, cloudy quary water. Funny part is I find even that relaxing.

Actually, I can understand that. I gravitated to wreck for two reasons.

I love history and that it is local diving. I don't want to lose my skills by only diving once or twice per year (which is what diving warm water would limit me to. My company only gives me so much vacation every year.). And the wrecks in the Great Lakes are definitely historic (more so than the salt water where the action in Shadow Divers takes place). The better ones are deep, so I learned to dive deep.

As for your points, I don't know of any divers close to me that drink like the boat captain. I don't have much of a family to break up. I haven't lost any friends or know of any diving deaths among the group that I dive with in Alpena (although I do know of one or two guys that get skin bends a little too frequently for my taste). The "techies" that I dive with out of Indianapolis are another group that runs dives where we haven't had so much as a close call with it being very seldom that everything worked as planned.

And I have heard more than one person tell me (and I agree) that from a purely technical standpoint (trim, correct anti-silting technique, etc.) that John and Ritchie are actually not that good of divers.

What has kept them alive for all of these years and where they shine is their ability to think under pressure and survive where most other divers would quit and perish.

Pitch black underwater means nothing to either of them. They will simply work by feel. I get the feeling that comes from the days of lifting artifacts from the inside of wrecks where you are going to silt up the inside anyways, so you may as well get used to diving blind. In John's case, it also comes from his time as a commercial diver. They are also meticulous about planning their dives and diving their plans.

There isn't anything wrong with liking to actually relax when you dive. Some of us (like myself) are just a little out there and enjoy the planning and challenge that we really don't get any other way anymore.

 

[Dean810]

I swing both ways. I love reefs and fish. Wish I could do it more often. I also like the eeriness I find in a Lake Michigan wreck dive. It's all a different world and very different experiences. It's a good thing I do considering where I live, or like Diverbrian, I wouldn't be getting in near enough dives as I would like.

Some people specialize, and that's fine with me too. Chris Kohl likes to joke that in the ocean, all those fish get in the way of his wrecks. I have even seen a picture of his wife chasing away sand tigers in North Carolina just so he could get a better shot of the dive! I wouldn't do that! But I have to also admit, that I have seen presentations that only included colorful topical sealife, and after awhile, I long for the murky, ghostly, apparitions you only find in a good wreck dive.