Nonfiction Book Club

Join fellow readers at the library for an engaging discussion of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann on Thursday December 14th at 1:30 p.m.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a mesmerizing story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes--they were mutineers. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers.

Copies of the book are available on Libby and may also be reserved for pickup at the library.