Believable both as researched historical event and as fictional characterization. ( )

(48) This was entertaining - similar in quality to his other books that I have read; 'The Lost City of Z," and "Killers of the Flower Moon." This is novelistic journalism I guess. Recounting a tale as best as possible from primary sources and other accounts in an attempt at objectivity, yet with a sense of story-telling. His non-fiction books read like adventure novels and/or true crime and certainly suck the reader in. This is an 18th century account of a British Naval expedition to South America in search of Spanish gold during one of the many ridiculous Wars between England and Spain for Empire supremacy. One of the Man O' War's 'The Wager' is shipwrecked trying to get around the infamous Cape Horn and there is a gripping tale that follows of survival, mutiny, illness, starvation, and the conflicting stories that get told after a sort of homecoming. One of the officers on board is John Byron - the grandfather of the British author and poet Lord Byron, so this is interesting,

I definitely enjoyed reading this, but in the end, it is missing just a bit of gravitas. I remember being just riveted by the story of Shackleton's Endeavor, and books about John Franklin's lost polar expedition. And even the more recent Philbrick's 'In the Heart of the Sea' about the whale ship 'Essex' and Jung's 'Perfect Storm' I liked a bit better than this. This did not generate in me the same degree of emotion or horror as those books. Though I cannot put my finger quite on why. I can't really define any concrete weaknesses of this book. Perhaps I have read too many stories of shipwrecks and doomed expeditions such that it just didn't standout. I was more interested in the Patagonia native tribes and would have enjoyed more of an exploration of their way of lives and interactions with the Spanish and others.

So quite good and entertaining - but with no larger message than the instinct for survival is fierce; one would even eat seal skin shoes or your pet dog's paws. ( )

BETTER THAN ANY MOVIE TO WATCH. THIS BOOK HARD TO PUT DOWN. ( )

The Wager was an English ship that set sail from England in 1740 during an imperial war with Spain. It was the mid-1700s, and navigational tools were primitive. Diseases among the seafarers spread rapidly, and I was incredulous, realizing how little they knew about curbing nutritional deficiencies such as scurvy. It seems absurd that in addition to not knowing about the necessity for vitamin C, insufficient levels of niacin were causing psychosis and night blindness resulting from lack of Vitamin A. After shipwrecking on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia, the story is as much about human nature as it is about surviving on an island and attaining its mission against the Spanish. It is fascinating to read about how they discovered new food sources and what they chose to learn and ignore from natives whose cultures had thrived in the areas where the Englishmen became castaways. If they were going to continue to survive and continue their naval mission, they had to build new boats without the technology available in their homeland, and there were myriad disagreements about how to proceed and also about which path to follow when it was time to embark on the dangerous waters again. Disharmony leads some groups to set sail in opposite directions eventually. When the survivors arrived back in England, the accounts of what happened were not in sync.

The characters who are historical figures demonstrate the gamut of human emotions and an evolution of social mores. Without describing each character, I’ll point out that we meet a dominating captain with poor leadership traits. And, of course, we meet argumentative underlings who have smug independence. Then, we see ferocious workers and others with inherent leadership skills and charisma. All of the men are familiar with British naval order and ranking conventions. Yet, more hierarchies develop as the men struggle to survive and create social order. As the subtitle suggests, the fight for survival leads to becoming mutinous and murderous. Grann describes the basic human drives and terrors with admirable writing skills.

Writing, in the eighteenth century, was an honorable thing to do. The men onboard the Wager kept written logs—some were required, and others were kept to document some of the mutinous decisions. David Grann had copious notes and records to use when piecing this story together. Rousseau and Voltaire cited the Wager’s expedition reports, as did Charles Darwin and Herman Melville. The seafaring journalists quote the Bible, poets, and famous writers. It is incredible how learned they were. Grann uses his well-honed investigative and research skills to weave a beautiful story of what reportedly happened and the eloquent analysis by those who experienced it. Grann’s ability to combine first-person accounts of the expedition with his summation of the events provides fabulous text about the seafarers and their exploits. Each creative, descriptive section title structures the book and shapes the voyage with metaphoric summaries: The Wooden World, Into the Storm, Castaways, Deliverance, and Judgment are the main sections, and Gran used these to develop the book so that it reads like a novel and keeps the reader riveted. I highly recommend this narrative to everyone, even those who prefer fiction to nonfiction. ( )

This starts in September 1740 when the refitted merchant ship “the Wager”sails out of Portsmouth as part of a convoy with six other vessels. The plan of the British Admiralty is to sail to South America around Cape Horn and intercept a Spanish galleon loaded down with silver and gold from their colonies. The galleon sailed twice a year from South America to Spain loaded down with great treasures.
All goes well at first until a series of calamities befall the convoy including scurvy which enfeebles a great number of crew and officers. Next, the voyage around Cape Horn is extremely treacherous and very few of the ships survive the onslaught of wind, waves a freezing temperatures. The crews are decimated already when the Wager is shipwrecked on Misery Island at the tip of South America.
What I found compelling about the story is the excellent character development, the details regarding the structure of the ship, the command structure of the officer class and the living conditions aboard the ship. There is a mutiny as factions develop among the men, a murder by an officer and the deliberate marooning of some.
The fact that so many people survived and returned to England is a testament to the nature of the those who are mentally strong enough to endure these horrible living conditions.
The finale is a court martial which contemplates all sides and very promptly make a decision. The story ends abruptly at this point but we do hear about what happens to the main characters ( )