Your Next Great Read

On November 28, 1942, fire roared through Boston's famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub during what was supposed to be a high-spirited Saturday night. By midnight, more than five hundred people were dead, dying or maimed for life. Local author Stephanie Schorow probes the club's history, the circumstances leading to the fire and the tragedy's lingering impact. The inferno reached deep into the city's social structure--its politics, medical care and legal system--and touched nearly everyone in the Boston area, even those who had never set foot in the club. In this newly updated and revised edition, Schorow has added new photographs, interviews and insights into the worst nightclub fire in American history.

On the first of September 1785, with night coming on and the weather deteriorating, the crew of the ship Faithful Steward sailed toward Delaware's notorious False Cape. In the summer of 1785, a group of Irish migrants took to the Atlantic to escape the abuse and persecution of the ruling classes at home. They sought a new life in the United States, a place "where the banner of freedom waved proudly" and "every good was possessed." Their ship was new and sturdy, and its captain had a good reputation. On this voyage, however, it was overloaded with migrant families and a massive cargo of counterfeit coins. By the first of September the ship was lost, somewhere off the mid-Atlantic coast. Michael Timothy Dougherty tells the story of the wreck and the people on board.