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UID:462@packwaukeelibrary.org
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260509T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260509T140000
DTSTAMP:20260328T174037Z
URL:https://packwaukeelibrary.org/events/book-club-the-wager/
SUMMARY:Book Club| The Wager
DESCRIPTION:• The Monthly Book Club is meeting on Saturday\, May 9th (2ND
  SATURDAY) to discuss…\nThe Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck\, Mutiny\, and Mu
 rder by David Grann\n• Anyone is welcome to join! If you’re interested
 \, please stop in at the library or give us a call to request a copy of th
 e book.\n• Synopsis:\nFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of K
 illers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z\, a mesmerizing story of 
 shipwreck\, survival\, and savagery\, culminating in a court martial that 
 reveals a shocking truth.\n \nOn January 28\, 1742\, a ramshackle vessel 
 of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Insid
 e were thirty emaciated men\, barely alive\, and they had an extraordinary
  tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager\, a Bri
 tish vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an im
 perial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure
 -filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans\, " it had wrecked o
 n a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men\, after being maro
 oned for months and facing starvation\, built the flimsy craft and sailed 
 for more than a hundred days\, traversing 2500 miles of storm-wracked seas
 . They were greeted as heroes.\n \nBut then ... six months later\, anothe
 r\, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat conta
 ined just three castaways\, and they had a very different story to tell. T
 he thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutinee
 rs. The first group responded with countercharges of their own\, of a tyra
 nnical and murderous captain and his henchmen. It became clear that while 
 stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy\, with warring fac
 tions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness.\n \nAs accusation
 s of treachery and murder flew\, the Admiralty convened a court martial to
  determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death-for w
 homever the court found guilty could hang.\n \nThe Wager is a grand tale 
 of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction w
 riters. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals
  the work of Patrick O'Brian\, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate s
 traits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance
 \, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thr
 iller. As always with Grann's work\, the incredible twists of the narrativ
 e hold the reader spellbound. Most powerfully\, he unearths the deeper mea
 ning of the events\, showing that it was not only the Wager's captain and 
 crew who were on trial - it was the very idea of empire.\n \n[Provided by
  publisher.]
CATEGORIES:Book Club
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