Society Books

47 Down: The 1922 Argonaut Gold Mine Disaster (2004)
by O. Henry Mace

Alive: Sixteen Men, Seventy-Two Days, and Insurmountable Odds - Survival in the Andes (2013)
by David Roberts

American Dirt (2020)
by Jeanine Cummins

Assassination Vacation (2005)
by Sarah Vowell

The Black Box: All-New Cockpit Voice Recorder Accounts of In-flight Accidents (1998)
by Malcolm MacPherson

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy (2016)
by Heather Ann Thompson

Chicago’s Great Fire (2020)

by Carl S. Smith

The Children’s Blizzard (2004)
by David Laskin

The Circus Fire: A True Story (2000)
by Stewart O’Nan

Corelli’s Mandolin (1994)
by Louis De Bernieres

Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Explosion 1917 (2005)
by Laura M. MacDonald

Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 (2003)
by Stephen Puleo

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (2003)
by Erik Larson

The Devil's Highway: A True Story (2005)
by Luis Alberto Urrea

Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic (1995)
by George W. Hilton

F5: Devastation, Survival, and the Most Violent Tornado Outbreak of the 20th Century (2007)
by Mark Levine

Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History (2002)
by Denise Gess and William Lutz

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World (2006)
by Steven Johnson

The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and his City (2010)

by Stephen Dando-Collins

Hostile Waters (1997)
by Peter Huchthausen, Igor Kurdin & Alan White

How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed (1976)
by Hyman George Rickover

Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man (2019)
by Lynn Vincent & Sara Vladic

In the Garden of Beasts (2011)
by Erik Larson

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of Whaleship Essex (2000)
by Nathaniel Philbrick

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette (2014)
by Hampton Sides

The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime (2000)
by Miles Harvey

Isaac’s Storm: a Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History (1999)
by Erik Larson

The Johnstown Flood (1968)
by David McCullough

Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire, America's Deadliest Rock Concert (2012)
by John Barylick

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (2017)
by David Grann

The Last Days of St. Pierre: The Volcanic Disaster that Claimed 30,000 Lives (2001)
by Ernest Zebrowski, Jr.

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter (2011)
by Mark Seal

Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier (2004)
by Alfred F. Young

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)
by David Sedaris

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (2009)
by Robert Edsel

Nothing Like it in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 (2000)
by Stephen E. Ambrose

Old Man and the Sea (1952)

by Ernest Hemingway

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligance Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America (2014)
by Annie Jacobsen

Ordinary Wolves (2004)
by Seth Kantner

The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America’s Dilemma (1998)
by Alex Kotlowitz

Painter in a Savage Land (2008)
by Miles Harvey

The Prince of Providence: The True Story of Buddy Cianci, America's Most Notorious Mayor, Some Wiseguys, and the Feds (2003)
by Mike Stanton

Red China Blues (1996)
by Jan Wong

The Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (1998)
by John Barry

San Francisco is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires (2005)
by Dennis Smith

A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler (2006)
by Jason Roberts

Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II (2004)
by Robert Kurson

Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul (2007)
by Karen Abbott

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War (2018)
by Ben Macintyre

Stampede: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike (2021)
by Brian Castner

The Terrible Hours (1999)
by Peter Maas

The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003)
by Audrey Niffenegger

Tinder Box: The Iroquois Theatre Disaster 1903 (2003)
by Anthony P. Hatch

Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked Tailed Elephant, P.T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison (2013)
by Michael Daly

Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation (1988)
by John Ehle

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (2003)
by David von Drehle

Tulsa 1921: Reporting a Massacre (2019)
by Randy Krehbiel

Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinkley Firestorm of 1894 (2006)

by Daniel James Brown

The White Cascade: The Greatest Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche (2007)
by Gary Krist

Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure (2001)
by Don & Petie Kladstrup

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (2006)
by Timothy Egan

Yellow Dirt: A Poisoned Land and the Betrayal of the Navajos (2010)
by Judy Pasternak