The Chemistry of Fire
Essays
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- 22,99 €
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- 22,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
“Gonzales (Flight 232), a former National Geographic feature writer, proves himself a chronicler par excellence of nature—including of the human variety—in this excellent essay collection. The psychological nuance and vivid detail throughout will dazzle readers.”
—Publishers Weekly starred review, July 2020
In 1989, Laurence Gonzales was a young writer with his first book of essays, The Still Point, just published by the University of Arkansas Press. Imagine his surprise, one winter day, to receive a letter from none other than Kurt Vonnegut. “The excellence of your writing and the depth of your reporting saddened me, in a way,” Vonnegut wrote, “reminding me yet again what a tiny voice facts and reason have in this era of wrap-around, mega-decibel rock-and-roll.”
Several books, many articles, and a growing list of awards later, Gonzales -- known for taking us to enthralling extremes – is still writing with excellence and depth. In this latest collection, we go from the top of Mount Washington and ”the worst weather in the world,” to 12,000 feet beneath the ocean, where a Naval Intelligence Officer discovers the Titanic using the government’s own spy equipment. We experience night assaults with the 82nd Airborne Division, the dynamiting of the 100-foot snowpack on Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park, a trip to the International Space Station, the crash of an airliner to the bottom of the Everglades, and more.
The University of Arkansas Press is proud to bring these stories to a new era, stories that, as with all of Gonzales’s work, “fairly sing with a voice all their own.” (Chicago Sun-Times)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gonzales (Flight 232), a former National Geographic feature writer, proves himself a chronicler par excellence of nature including of the human variety in this excellent essay collection. He explores both in "Mount Washington," which begins as a piece about a New Hampshire mountain peak notorious for its deceptive weather conditions, and becomes a deep dive into human psychology and how, for climbers and others engaged in high-risk activities, "danger comes when you suspend your awareness of the hazard and refuse to change your plan." By contrast, "Change Redemption" explores one of the most artificial of environments, a Las Vegas casino, and contemplates the effect of its dizzying atmosphere on its patrons: "Everything in the casino was bigger than we were, and as we grew, we participated in that giddy bigness while escaping the sense of loss as we shrank back to our normal size once more." There's a fascinating profile of the Navy man whose colossal scientific efforts led to discovering the wreckage of the Titanic ("Stealing Titanic"). In the devastating "ValuJet Crash," Gonzales reveals how corporate malfeasance and regulatory negligence led to disaster in the Florida Everglades. The psychological nuance and vivid detail throughout will dazzle readers.