Titanic

I don't know when I first heard of the Titanic but I know that I first became fully familiar with the story when I read Clive Cussler's 'Raise The Titantic'. I think it was the first 'grown up' book that I read simply by pulling something that interested me from my parents' bookshelves. At the age of, I guess, ten, I took the protagonist and his name, Dirk Pitt, at face value and I enjoyed the book enormously.

I wouldn't say that I've ever been obsessed with the boat or the story but over the years I've never turned the page past a story about the Titanic and I've enjoyed the conspiracy theory - about the switch with the Olympic - James Cameron's footage from the wreck (although I've never watched his film) and, tangentially, Gavin Bryars' beautiful renditions of his work 'The Sinking of the Titanic'. (Look, you can download a version here for 69p!)

Today's picture is of a book that the I bought secondhand off Amazon a few weeks ago. There's not much to it - it's hugely padded out with transcripts from the inquest - but it's pretty interesting. So far, i's revelation seems to be that the Titanic didn't so much strike an iceberg as drag along the side of some pack ice but maybe there is some further 'mystery' that is solved later in the book. It's interesting enough, though, not least for the insight into life in 1912.