Sunday, November 23, 2014

Writing on actions in the face of danger - by Brooke Jarvis & William Langewiesche

Two great pieces of recent writing very much dealt in the areas of danger and actions taken in the face of danger, with one about people forced to act heroically and one about a guy whose career about stepping into difficult situations.

The story on danger forced upon people through tragic circumstances was "Collapse: The Oso Mudslide and the Community That Survived It" by Brooke Jarvis for Seattle Met. Really compelling writing on the mudslide that earlier this year killed 43 people north of Seattle.

The other piece to note here was for Vanity Fair with "Salvage Beast" by William Langewiesche.  It's a remarkable tale written about Nick Sloane, a salvage master ship captain who comes in when vessels are in distress and works to either save them, recover goods aboard or reduce the environmental impact of a wreck. Langewiesche is a writer who I first came across with his amazing October 2014 Vanity Fair story "The Human Factor" about what led to the crash of Air France Flight 447 and a listing of features he's written was recently posted on Longform. The Sloane story also struck me as particularly interesting in that it brought to mind Susan Casey's great book The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean.