I have been obsessed with shipwrecks since I learned about the Edmund Fitzgerald in elementary school. I feel bad and lucky to live so close to Shipwreck Coast. I highly recommend this book if you have any interest in Shipwrecks.

I really tried to read the whole book. I am afraid I could not, the writing was choppy and never built a good story of the different ships. It would have been nice to learn more about the ships and the men who died. I found each story slow, no urgency or on the edge of your set plot.

An extremely well researched history of vessels and maritime tragedy (and triumph) on the Great Lakes.

Not quite the book for me, but thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity.

(The Kindle version had strange typos that I can only assume were results of saving a written document to a different format- any variation of words spelled with 'fi' were mutilated. Fire became 'fijire', officially became 'offijicially' and so on. I make note of this in case it becomes an issue for release. )

The Great Lakes seem to be an innocuous name for a set of lakes in the US, but these lakes are some of the most terrifying and destructive bodies of water in the world barring the oceans. Over the years, these lakes have wreaked havoc on ships and killed countless people and some of the things that have happened there are never going to be confirmed for sure because no one knows for sure.
The Great Lakes are amazing and awe-inspiring but also terrifying and destructive. This book takes you through their history and what the people that explored and traveled on it risked.
This is a book that you want to have a physical copy of in front of you when you read it. This is definitely a thick book and it is not one that you would want to read electronically. The fonts of this book really make it feel like a historical nautical book for some reason, but it also means that it is quite hard to read on a tablet, so be aware of that.

Ships and Shipwrecks by Richard Gebhart gives an overview of various ships that have gone down in the Great Lakes in the late 1800’s and the circumstances surrounding their journey. This will be a must have for marine enthusiasts.

In many cases, the author only has the ships log of where they went and what the ship was transporting, but the author makes the voyage come alive by adding in bits of historical context. We learn a lot about life in the 19th and 20th centuries by learning about the shipping industry which evolved because it became lucrative to transport goods. Ship captains became famous and employed many people so it was of public interest. The safety of ships and the crew changed also evolved by adding telecommunications.

The real star of this book however is the weather. The storms described in this book are exceptional and really give an idea of how large the great lakes are. The book stays on course and only describes shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, but mainly from a US point of view, focusing mainly on ports in the Michigan area, Chicago and Wisconsin. The glaring omission is Lake Ontario, there is no mention of wrecks there at all, which I know also has a rich history, but the author does finish the book praising the Welland Canal which connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

Overall this was an interesting read that perhaps would have come alive even more if pictures were added, but the writing is descriptive enough to leave it to the imagination.

Wow, the amount of research that went into this is incredible based on the detailed descriptions, including anecdotal information about the ships, captains and crews. Very interesting book, great for anyone interested in learning more about the shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. You will not be disappointed. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy!

This book describes a number of shipwrecks for various reasons on the Great Lakes over the years. While interesting, I found it to be a somewhat dry recitation of the events.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook and my nonfiction book review blog.

An interesting compilation of short stories regarding ships and ship wrecks in the Great Lakes. The stories are a fascinating look at the ships, the people and the events surrounding them. This is a great read for the maritime reader.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed I wouldn't know where to begin or end. I live in Wisconsin and have family in Ohio (as well as a great fondness for Duluth, MN) so I have a vested interest in these stories. I have dipped into it as well as sat on a rainy afternoon and enjoyed it all. Scholarly it may be, but there is much that I didn't know hidden inside this easily read volume.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Michigan State University Press, Greenstone Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

My thanks to Michigan State University Press, Richard Gebhart and Netgalley.
This is an extensive and damned near exhaustive overview of ships and wrecks.
I'll confess that I did love "mostly" every story!
I've always been mad for ships lost in the oceans. But, the fact that these great lakes are just as deadly? Fascinating! I've never seen the great lakes. Split the U.S. up the middle, and I've stayed on the West side. That's my comfort zone!
I found enjoyment and sorrow in these stories. Isn't that really how all.sea stories should be?

In his immensely interesting book, Richard Gebhart examines more than a dozen shipwrecks, a small sample of the many that have occurred on the Great Lakes since the mysterious disappearance of the Griffon in 1679. Many of the ships that went missing are still undiscovered to this day, testament to the depth of the Great Lakes.
Gebhart tells the stories of the ships that were wrecked, the ones that were later rediscovered and the lives that were sadly lost. For anyone interested in sailing and the maritime history of the Great Lakes this erudite book is a treasure-trove.