Wager
by David Grann · first published 2023
88% recommend13% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Account of an 18th-century British shipwreck, covering survival, mutiny and a fractured story afterward. Readers say it gives useful context on wooden-ship sea travel and suits fans of narrative nonfiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire. 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 survivo
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The Wager, by David Grann; giving me greater context for understanding sea travel (in wooden ships, especially), and I learned that there were indigenous people living along the coast of southern Patagonia where…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you've read so far in 2024?” ↗I really enjoyed The Wager by David Grann about this story. Grann was also the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, which was made into the movie of the same name by Martin Scorsese, and Scorsese is now making The Wager into a…
on “Dead Reckoning” ↗Yes. I could not put this book down. If you liked this one as an against the odds shipwreck survival story, David Grann’s The Wager is also very good.
on “Ask HN: Best non-fiction book you read in 2024?” ↗The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. When worlds were conquered through brute force and wooden ships, it is crazy to imagine how pivotal vitamin C was.
on “Ask HN: What is the best thing you read in 2024?” ↗The Wager by David Grann, about a disastrous British maritime voyage in the 18th century that involved shipwreck, surviving castaways, multiple distinct routes back to Britain, then fighting over the story when…
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗…spy Oleg Gordievsky's story. 68. Billion Dollar Spy - Cold War espionage. 69. Skunk Works - Lockheed's F-117 and SR-71 programs. 70. Working by Robert Caro - Insights into Caro's research. 71. The Wager by David Grann - 18th-century British maritime disaster. 72. Caro's LBJ Series - Biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. 73. The Prize by Daniel Yergin - Oil industry history. 74. The Invention of Nature by…
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗…P’s Journey by Phyllis Pearsall 83. River of Doubt by Candice Millard 84. Longitude by Dava Sobel 85. Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg 86. The Last Viking - A biography of Roald Amundsen 87. The Wager by David Grann 88. Simply Fly by Captain G. R. Gopinath 89. Engines That Move Markets by Alasdair G. M. Nairn 90. The Education of Cyrus by Xenophon 91. Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art…
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗…favorites this year, be genre: Sci-fi: Exiles by Mason Coile. Fiction (Fantasy): The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman. Fiction (post-apocalyptic / zombie): One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford. Non fiction: The Wager by David Grann.
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗I was struck while recently reading David Grann's "The Wager" by how little people understood scurvy at the time. Grann writes about how some doctors believed it to be a reaction of the body to being away from solid land for too long, and attempted a treatment…
on “The Health Risks of Travel in Early-Modern Britain” ↗