The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder: [Audiobook]

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martialthat reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only thecaptain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, TIME, Smithsonian, NPR, Vulture, Kirkus Reviews

Riveting...Reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered historyand imperialismwith gusto. Time

"Atour de force of narrative nonfiction. The Wall Street Journal

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 Majestys 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, traversingnearly 3,000miles 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 told a very different story.The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-deathfor whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Granns recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick OBrian, his portrayal of the castaways desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller.As always with Granns work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.

Reviews

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Esquire, BookPage

The most gripping sea-yarn Ive read in years.A tour de force of narrative nonfiction. Mr. Granns account show how storytelling, whether to judges or readers, can shape individual and national fortunes as well as our collective memories.
Wall Street Journal

Glorious, steelya tightly written, relentless, blow-by-blow account that is hard to put down The Washington Post

As much a rousing adventure as an exploration of the power of narratives to shape our perception of reality. The New York Times

Propulsive.finely-detaileda ripping yarnremarkable. The Boston Globe

David Grann's latest work of narrative nonfiction,The Wager,is partRobinson Crusoe, partLord of the Flies... Gripping Maureen Corrigan, NPR (Top 10 Book of 2023)

Riveting...The Wager reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered historyand imperialismwith gusto. Time Magazine

The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sailHe fixes his spyglass on the ravages of empire, of racism, of bureaucratic indifference and raw greedone of the finest nonfiction books Ive ever read. The Guardian (UK)

The story of the shipwreck and its aftermath features scenery-chewing characters, unexpected twists and an almost unimaginable amount of human misery. Grann, the author of the acclaimed Killers of the Flower Moon, tells it with style. He manages to wring maximum drama out of the events and sketch out nuanced portraits of key players on the doomed ship."
Associated Press

His dogged search through ships logs and other contemporaneous accounts of the disaster and its mutinous aftermath has turned up the kind of sterling details that make his writing sing; he is also interested in the way these events were recorded and then recounted, with many different people trying to shape the memory of what happened. Grann simultaneously reconstructs history while telling a tale that is as propulsive and adventure-filled as any potboiler.
The Atlantic

"A genre-defying literary naval-history thriller, partMaster and Commander,partLord of the Flies" Vanity Fair

"One of our finest nonfiction storytellers returns with a swashbuckling epic about shipwreck, scandal, mutiny, and murder" Esquire

A thrilling accountdramatic and engrossing. The Economist

This astonishing tale of maritime warfare, mutiny and survival in the 18th-century Atlantic proves that a nonfiction book can be as thrilling as any summer blockbuster.
People

"The Wager" is a soaring literary accomplishment and seductive adventure tale enthralling, seamlessly crafted The Wager then, is an accomplishment as vividly realized and ingeniously constructed as Grann's previous work, on par with Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm. Welcome a classic.
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Gripping Combining impeccable research with exceptional storytelling powers, [Grann] spirits the reader aboard a creaking wooden ship trapped at the eye of a howling storm No book that youre likely to read either this year or next will prove more dramatic and enthralling than Granns magnificent story of life both at sea and out on the desolate, mist-laden island whose solitary peak the Wagers unfortunate crew aptly named Mount Misery Financial Times

A masterclass in story-tellingWith a series of twists and turns worthy of a well-plotted thriller, the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, uncovers an epic sea-faring taleEpic true story as told by a master David Grann has produced this riveting bookwith the artistry of a superb novelist. The Toronto Star

[Granns] meticulously researched stories, with their spare, simmering setups that almost always deliver stunning payoffs, have made him one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today[Grann] has mastered a streamlined, propulsive type of narrative that readers devour for its hide-and-seek revealsDavids stuff reads like literature, but every detail, every quote, every seemingly implausible glimpse into a subjects mind is accounted for
New York Magazine

Your favorite writers favorite writer for decadesDavid Grann is poised to become the moments leading storyteller... [Grann] specializes in gripping historical chronicles and crime storiesso rich in intrigue that they would strain credulity in fiction[Granns] become one of our cultures leading sources of holy s**t page-turners. GQ

David Grann is one of the premier nonfiction storytellers of our timeGranns masterful new bookis at once an adventure on the high seas, a horror story, and a courtroom drama a little bit Rashomon meets Lord of the Flies. Rolling Stone

Not just a good but a great story, fraught with duplicity, terror and occasional heroism the story of the Wager is, like many of its antecedents from Homers Odyssey to Mutiny on the Bounty a testament to the depths of human depravity and the heights of human endurance, and you cant ask for better than that from a story...The Wager will keep you in its grip to its head-scratching, improbable end. Los Angeles Times

Author Bio

DAVID GRANN is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers KILLERS OF THEFLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON was a finalist for the National Book Award and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is also the author of THE WHITE DARKNESS and the collection THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES. Granns investigative reporting has garnered several honors, including a George Polk Award.He lives with his wife and children in New York.