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Thunderstruck
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Thunderstruck
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Thunderstruck
Audiobook11 hours

Thunderstruck

Written by Erik Larson

Narrated by Bob Balaban

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world's "great hush."

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men-Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication-whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners; scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed; and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, "the kindest of men," nearly commits the perfect murder.

With his unparalleled narrative skills, Erik Larson guides us through a relentlessly suspenseful chase over the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 24, 2006
ISBN9780739339664
Unavailable
Thunderstruck
Author

Erik Larson

A Seattle7Writers project for literacy, this novel was written by Kathleen Alcalá, Matthew Amster-Burton, Kit Bakke, Erica Bauermeister, Sean Beaudoin, Dave Boling, Deb Caletti, Carol Cassella, William Dietrich, Robert Dugoni, Kevin Emerson, Karen Finneyfrock, Clyde Ford, Jamie Ford, Elizabeth George, Mary Guterson, Maria Dahvana Headley, Teri Hein, Stephanie Kallos, Erik Larson, David Lasky, Stacey Levine, Frances McCue, Jarret Middleton, Peter Mountford, Kevin O'Brien, Julia Quinn, Nancy Rawles, Suzanne Selfors, Jennie Shortridge, Ed Skoog, Garth Stein, Greg Stump, Indu Sundaresan, Craig Welch and Susan Wiggs. Foreword by Nancy Pearl. Introduction by Garth Stein.

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Reviews for Thunderstruck

Rating: 3.6324473779101742 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

1,091 ratings94 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Another in the Larson set of paired-biographies-whose-disparate-yet-intersecting-subjects-capture-their-time books. This one is about Marconi and Cripin and makes a better than average case for intersection. A well paced, effectively researched book. Worth it, if you are on the fence.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Couldn't wait to read this after his last book on the Chicago Exposition.Two (seemingly) unconnected stories of Dr Crippen and Marconi. Interesting details of live in Edwardian times and the race for "wireless" and the schemes that happened therein.Was slightly dissapointed, but still a page turner.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    here are two non fiction stories told at the same time until the end. Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy had a very different childhood than I had imagined. He did not think of himself as a scientist but rather an entrepreneur. He really did not value science and had to learn a lot by trial and error. I felt disenchanted by his behavior. He would abandon hiss first and second wives in pursuit of perfecting his invention. After a while I wanted to learn less of his story and more of Hawley Crippen. Hawley Crippen, a homeopathic doctor was unhappily married to a woman for I developed no sympathy for. They pretended to have a happy marriage to their friends and neighbors but she was a torture to live with. Abusive to him, adulteress, and caring only for herself, she pushed Crippen to the edge and when he fell in love he wanted to be rid of her but divorce was a solution in the society of their friends. I must say that I thought Marconi should have been married to Cripin's wife instead of him! Anyway, we do not know what really happened before the murder but we find out how Marconi's invention lead to his own arrest and capture and that of his new lover. I would have liked less of the Marconi story and more of the Cripin one.My thoughts and feelings of this audionbook are my own.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.75 starsThere are two "stories" (though this is nonfiction) happening in this book. It is the late 1800s/early 1900s. In one story, Guglielmo Marconi is working on inventing wireless communication and wants to make it work across the Atlantic Ocean. Marconi had no scientific training, so it was pretty much all trial and error, and he couldn't really explain why things worked or didn't work for him as he tried. The other story focuses on Hawley Harvey Crippen, an apparently quiet, polite man, who eventually murdered his wife. It read more like a novel than nonfiction. I did find Crippen's story slightly more interesting than Marconi's, but I expected that, and Marconi was still more interesting than I expected (it may have helped that I've been to Signal Hill in St. John's, Nfld, where Marconi received the first wireless signal). The book definitely picked up steam and suspense in the last 1/4 or so, so that I didn't want to put the book down. It was also a faster read than I'd expected. Very good book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Intricate and interesting history of Marconi’s wireless technology. Very captivating mix once the gruesome murder is brought into thestory. Thoroughly enjoyable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A murder mystery wound around a history of the development of radio communication. Leads one to ponder the connection of modern communication and modern governance and law enforcement. The book's main premise about the central murder has since been disproven by forensic DNA evidence, but the book engaging for any historical mystery fans.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The author includes some extraneous information, but a surprisingly interesting read. The time period was well established with sufficient events and characters of the time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the 2nd book of Erik Larson's I have read. The first was "The Devil in the White City," a masterfully written book. In this one, "Thunderstruck," again the author has woven two stories together. One features Guglielmo Marconi, who against all odds succeeded in bringing the world wireless communication. The other, the story of Dr. Hawley Crippen, a murderer. How is it that these two stories are related? I'm afraid you'll have to read "Thunderstruck" to find out. It will be a terrific read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Reading like a fictional murder mystery, Erik Larson creates a vivid picture of the world around the turn of the century, captivated by a new technology - the wireless. This new technology has a critical role to play in the catching of a murderer, a case examined in detail but which leaves one a little unsatisfied as to knowing the full extent who was guilty of the crime and who carried out the deed. Fun reading and certainly a book which captured the spirit of an age long past.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This story interweaves two seemingly unrelated topics near the turn of the 19th & 20th century -- that of wireless inventor Guglielmo Marconi and unsuspected murderer Hawley Crippen, taking place in both the United States and Europe, as well as on the open seas between the two. Similar to Larson's The Devil in the White City, the two storylines don't necessarily interweave smoothly, but Larson's writing is good enough to allow the reader to overlook this. While I didn't find this story quite as engaging as the aforementioned book or his later novel, Dead Wake, I did enjoy it. I read the abridged audiobook, and in this case I felt the abridgment was more than adequate in telling the story. (Tony Goldwyn is an excellent reader as well.) I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but Erik Larson has become one of my go-to authors in this genre, as his non-fiction reads very much like fiction. He has a knack for setting the scene for edge-of-your-seat suspense in true-to-life history.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I love Eric Larson's books, but this one had a bit too much technology about inventing the wireless. Marconi, an Italian, without being a trained scientist developed a method of transferring messages through the air. At the same time he was developing this, a mild-mannered doctor named Hawley Crippen married a loud and vibrant singer. Although their actual lives never cross, it is Marconi's invention that eventually causes Crippen and his young lover to be captured after committing a heinous murder of his wife.Set in Edwardian London, the book reads as a mystery and I kept looking forward to how these two very different men would cross paths - they never do, except through the telegraph.I enjoyed the chapters of Crippen and his wife, Belle, more than the chapters of Marconi although he too led a fascinating life. Totally devoted to his career and his invention, he basically ignored his wife and family. Crippen, on the other hand, was devoted to Edith, a young typist who was his lover. After the murder Crippen and Edith tried to escape to Canada with Edith dressed as a young man. It was the telegraph, however, that caused this murder to become an international sensation. The public knew the whereabouts of Crippen and Edith and knew every move regarding their capture upon reaching Canada.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    While entertaining, I didn't find it as engrossing as the previous Larson books I have read. Neither Dr. Crippen nor Marconi struck me as compelling characters, so I found their stories hard to come back to reading.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I generally really enjoy reading Erik Larson's books. He has a way of describing a historical event in a way that makes it hard to put the book down. Of all his books, Thunderstruck is his weakest effort, in my opinion. It was very repetitive and I felt like he was just trying to stretch it out. He writes with great attention to detail in all his books, but it just didn't work for me in Thunderstruck. After reading Isaac's Storm, this was a letdown.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Thunderstruck is the story of the invention of wireless telegraphy. With excellent pacing, Larson tells how Marconi became the one credited with this invention; the tedious steps through which he blundered or researched his way from the beginning of his quest to its fulfillment. Within the larger story of wireless telegraphy, lies the story of a crime, with the capture of the murderer clinching the public perception of the usefulness of the Marconi system in 1910. Larson is an excellent story teller!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As with The Devil in the White City, Larson juxtapositions history and murder in Thunderstruck. When, in the early years of the 20th century, some people were attempting to communicate with the dead, Guglielmo Marconi was attempting communication between countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean through wireless means. Both forms of communication appearing to be magical, ludicrous and beyond the realms of nature yet only one will play in the capture of a kind, gentle, yet horrific murderer. Slow to warm up to the stories of both Marconi and Crippen but it came to an acceptable conclusion.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Marconi's invention of wireless comminication is used to catch a murderer on the lam.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book combines description of the road Marconi travelled to establish reliable long-distance wireless with a tale of murder and illicit love. Both parts were quite interesting although I could have done with less detail of Marconi's infighting with other scientists which I didn't feel added a lot to the tale. The action certainly picked up in the last third of the book.Everyone now knows the name of Marconi as discoverer of wireless telegraphy. Canadians proudly proclaim the part we played in his first successful transAtlantic transmission from Signal Hill in Newfoundland (although in fact Newfoundland was not part of Canada at the time) in 1901. I was surprised to learn that this first signal consisted only of three dots which is Morse code for the letter 'S'. I was even more surprised to learn that there was doubt at the time as to whether the transmission ever took place because there were no independent observers and it wasn't recorded by any means. Nevertheless Marconi went on to refine his equipment and technique over the next decade so that it was quite commonplace for ships at sea to communicate with land stations. It was this technology that allowed a Scotland Yard detective to learn where the suspect in a grisly murder was headed. Dr. Crippen, a homeopathic practitioner of meek disposition, was married to a brash woman who ruled their household. His wife, with a stage name of Belle Elmore, often threatened to leave him. Crippen found solace with his secretary, Ethel Le Neve. One day in 1910 Crippen announced to Belle's friends that she had been called away to America. Shortly thereafter he told them he had received a telegram telling him the Belle had died of pneumonia. Belle's friends grew suspicious of this story since Crippen and Le Neve were openly living together and Ethel was even wearing some of Belle's jewelry. Scotland Yard was consulted and Inspector Dew, who had started his career trying to solve the case of Jack the Ripper, was assigned to investigate. Dew questioned Crippen who told him that he had lied about Belle's death and that as far as he knew she was still alive. Dew was prepared to believe Crippen but he was a thorough man and he wanted to ascertain where Belle was. Crippen obviously believed that things were getting too hot for him and Ethel. Disguising Ethel in boy's clothing and shaving off his own moustache the two left England, eventually taking a ship across the Atlantic to Quebec City. The captain of the ship grew suspicious of the two and sent a wireless message to England saying he thought Crippen and Le Neve were aboard his ship. Inspector Dew found a faster ship to Canada and was able to arrest the pair before the ship docked at Quebec City. The use of wireless to apprehend a criminal gave Marconi the boost he needed to gain acceptance of his technology.Very interesting stuff and Larson is a great writer.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another great story, with lots of additional historic facts. Lovely little murder mystery along with it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fiction that in many ways is stranger than nonfiction. Larson brings to together a fascinating crime with the invention of the wireless. Reads like a detective novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Once again the author writes a work with two separate story lines. This time the new technology of wireless communication played a part in the resolution of the crime. Other than that the two stories had little to do with each other apart from the time period and local.Very well written - easy to read - informative
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Crippen murder parts - very interesting. Marconi parts - I wanted to like them, I really did. An interesting subject, elaborated upon in a very, very dry way at a snail's pace. Didn't feel that the ship was a strong enough connection between the two intersecting stories. I wasn't sure the juxtaposition worked as a whole. By the middle of the book, I was skimming the Marconi parts hastily and reading every single word of the Crippen case chapters.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    THE GOOD: As always, Larson makes history fascinating and eminently readable. The development of the wireless, by the determined and visionary Marconi, is intriguing and inspiring. And background all of us should be aware of as the precursor to our modern, communication-throttled world.

    THE BAD: The murder is gruesome, and very disturbing in it's detail, once it's finally revealed. It sticks with you. And like the factual record itself, the conclusions leaves one a bit unsatisfied. Why? And how? We'll never know.

    CONCLUSION: A fascinating read, but not for the faint of heart.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In this book, Larson weaves together two seemingly isolated events: the invention of wireless and a gruesome murder. It is a good example of how "showing" is more effective than "telling." No matter how much Marconi tries to convince people that his invention is useful, he never quite succeeds until a newsworthy event demonstrates its global importance. It includes descriptive details that evoke the essence of an earlier age, and allows the reader to step back in time. I found it an interesting study in human nature, in particular the impact of certain personality traits on the interpersonal relationships of the main characters. I recommend this book to people who enjoy dual storylines and are interested in the details of how wireless was developed (lots of details are included, both from a technical and a competitive viewpoint). The parts pertaining to the murder were fascinating, albeit a bit gory.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Larson’s book recounts the race by Marconi and others to develop the first practical wireless telegraph system. Although land-based systems were up and running, including allowing sending messages across the ocean, there was no way to allow ships at sea to use telegraphy. Larson’s book plods in places to explain the tedious process of developing the wireless system, but, for the most part, Larson does a good job of making the reader understand the enormity of the task. Like many of Larson’s books, there is a parallel story running along the one about Marconi. The murder mystery seems unrelated to the story of the development of wireless message transmission; however, Larson does a masterful job of tying the two stories together at the end. I wouldn’t call “Thunderstruck” a “page turner,” but it is an interesting story. Larson has a real talent for taking nonfiction and making it sound like a novel. It’s an easy read but an entertaining read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Having read several of Eric Larson's books I was looking forward to reading another one and learning more things that I knew almost nothing about (before I picked up the book!). Naturally Mr. Larson's great attention to detail ensured that I learnt more than I ever wanted to know about Marconi and his wireless telegraph. That part of the book was somewhat boring, because I simply don't have a very scientific mind, still I learnt at least the basics. My biggest complaint about the book was the switching of the time-lines. Yes, it is possible to have 2 parallel story lines, but I always had to double-check the dates when things were happening, especially as most of the Marconi stuff happened 10-15 years (and longer) before the Crippen murder took place. I don't know if some editing on that part would have made the book a better read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Larson’s book recounts the race by Marconi and others to develop the first practical wireless telegraph system. Although land-based systems were up and running, including allowing sending messages across the ocean, there was no way to allow ships at sea to use telegraphy. Larson’s book plods in places to explain the tedious process of developing the wireless system, but, for the most part, Larson does a good job of making the reader understand the enormity of the task. Like many of Larson’s books, there is a parallel story running along the one about Marconi. The murder mystery seems unrelated to the story of the development of wireless message transmission; however, Larson does a masterful job of tying the two stories together at the end. I wouldn’t call “Thunderstruck” a “page turner,” but it is an interesting story. Larson has a real talent for taking nonfiction and making it sound like a novel. It’s an easy read but an entertaining read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    audio nonfiction; history/true crime/science. The audio version takes some getting used to, as there are no auditory asterisks or page breaks to let you know when the author is switching from one story (the murderer's) to the other (the scientist's), but it's never hard to figure out whom he's talking about in any case. I've not read Larson before, but this abridged version lived up to his reputation of stellar narrative nonfiction.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Thunderstruck is a book that attempts to bring together the stories of Marconi, inventor (more or less) of wireless telegraphy, and Crippen, the infamous wife murderer. The two have a somewhat tenuous connection in that wireless technology, then in its infancy, was instrumental in catching Crippen. There are some slight correspondences in that each man was a most unlkely prospect to succeed in his respective arena. Of course, Crippen failed because he was apprehended and eventually hanged. Larson takes 330 pages to bring the alternating stroies to a merger. Larson portrays each of the main characters well; his research is excellent, and his ability to reconstruct a long-dead era remains one of his greatest strengths as an author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Larson's book is about Crippin and Marconi, an unusual pairing, until realizing that without Marconi's telegraph invention, Crippin the infamous wife-murderer would have escaped justice - if justice is the right word. Crippin was a mild man, pleasant, kind and married to a termagant, whereas Marconi was the nasty, obnoxious husband. Larson not only tells their stories and how they intersect, but includes details of Edwardian life that brings the whole story to life. Recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Typical Eric Larsen book. Very educational and interesting. Most of the time riveting.