I should have read this book years ago, but for some reason never got around to it. In some respects, it is deemed to be the ultimate authority on what happened on the night of April 14th/15th, 1912, when the Titanic struck an iceberg and foundered on her maiden voyage. Indeed, the book is also supposed to be the inspiration for the Oscar winning movie.

First published in the 1950s, this does have a distinct advantage in that the author was able to interview many of the survivors of the disaster at a time when they were fading from public view due to other world events. To me, this suggests that the participants who agreed were far enough removed from the disaster not to be traumatised when asked to relive it, and the events were long enough in the past that they would be less likely to 'sensationalise' them any more than they already are. Equally however, their memories of the event would still be true eyewitness accounts and there was a wide-ranging set of accounts available to collate in order to present the most accurate representation of the disaster.

The author has managed something remarkable in my opinion; he has constructed a clear chronological narrative of the sinking by weaving together the actions and whereabouts of many of the ship's passengers and crew. It almost reads like a novel, save for the seemingly objective reporting style; there is very little emotion that comes through the writing. There are also no conspiracy theories or playing of the blame game against Captain Lord of the Californian or Bruce Ismay, for example; it is as if he has taken each individual story as their own truth and simply reported it without judgement. 

What really surprises me is that, for the most part, it reads like it could have been written yesterday. With modern advances in technology and scientific understanding, it can now be explained why the crew didn't see the iceberg in time and the Californian could not identify the Titanic or communicate with her, even though they were only 10 miles apart. I was expecting to read a few theories that have since been disproven, but I don't think any of the modern findings are explicitly contradicted (except maybe the angle of the stern, but then I don't think anyone will ever truly know exactly what happened there!).

I also find it touching that the author took the time to include the list if survivors and victims; I don't recall ever seeing that in any if the myriad of other books I've read on the subject. It again stresses the fact that he sees this as a human tragedy; a fact which I think can get lost in the reporting and rereporting of the facts and figures.

You definitely can see the inspiration James Cameron took from this research; aside from the oft quoted famous lines, there are some moments and phrases in here that have a direct counterpart in the film. And apparently Walter Lord acted as a consultant on the movie too.

I have always been totally fascinated by the Titanic, and I think this is one of the best non-fiction books on the subject I've read.