2016 Reading Challenge – Week 8

Happy Sunday everyone, and welcome to week 8 of our 2016 Reading Challenge. Sorry for the delay this week – there has been a lot happening at the shop over the last week and we are building up for a book launch next weekend.

This week, I had some real trouble deciding on what book to read. The challenge should have been easy – a book becoming a movie in 2016. There were plenty to choose from: Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, or Allegiant by Veronica Roth. In the end, I decided to go the non-fiction route and read:

The Finest Hours by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman

“In the early hours of Monday, February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer, found themselves in the same horrifying predicament. Built with “dirty steel,” and not prepared to withstand such ferocious seas, both tankers split in two, leaving the dozens of men on board utterly at the Atlantic’s mercy.
The Finest Hours is the gripping, true story of the valiant attempt to rescue the souls huddling inside the broken halves of the two ships. Coast Guard cutters raced to the aid of those on the Fort Mercer, and when it became apparent that the halves of the Pendleton were in danger of capsizing, the Guard sent out two thirty-six-foot lifeboats as well. These wooden boats, manned by only four seamen, were dwarfed by the enormous seventy-foot seas. As the tiny rescue vessels set out from the coast of Cape Cod, the men aboard were all fully aware that they were embarking on what could easily become a suicide mission”