Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award "Impeccably researched and seductively readable...tells the story of Sam Sharpe's revolution manque, and the subsequent abolition of slavery in Jamaica, in a way that's acutely relevant to the racial unrest of our own time." -Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls' Rising The author remarks on the bravery and discipline of the slaves, many of whom had never fired a weapon before. Some falsely believed that the King of England had granted them emancipation and that the planters were simply denying them their freedom. Many took out to hiding in caves and some escaped into territory where they would never be recaptured. Interestingly, a people group of descendants of former Spanish and Spanish slaves on the islands-- called Maroons -- were allies of the Jamaican militia even though Sharpe sought their assistance.

Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World by Alexandra Witze and Jeff Kanipe is the story of Laki, the massive Icelandic volcano whose 1783 eruption plunged Europe - and possibly the wider world - into the dark (and subsequently the cold). In Iceland they died of the direct of effects of a poisoned environment; in western Europe of the prolonged effects of breathing in an unrelenting poisonous fog; further afield - as far as the Nile - of the effects of climate change wrought by this massive explosion.

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Tom Zoellner tells the story of Sam Sharpe’s revolution manqué, and the subsequent abolition of slavery in Jamaica, in a way that’s acutely relevant to the racial unrest of our own time. Island on Fire is impeccably researched and seductively readable. ” —Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising Though the 1970s rediscovery of Samuel Sharpe came at the time of Jamaica’s relations with Castro and the US attempts to tamper with national elections, there were also other powerful cultural forces at work… The government declared Samuel Sharpe a National Hero on October 1, 1975, an honor that unleashed a number of others. Sharpe’s story was inserted into the public school curriculum all over the island. His face went on the paper currency.” Masterful… Zoellner’s fast-paced story recounts a five-week long rebellion led by enslaved preacher Samuel Sharpe… Strongly recommended…captur[es] the nuances of enslaved people’s struggle for freedom against brutally exploitative systems. ” —Scott B. MacDonald, Global Americans It’s high time that we had a book like the splendid one Tom Zoellner has written: a highly readable but carefully documented account of the greatest of all British slave rebellions, the miseries that led to it, and the momentous changes it wrought.”—Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains Once again, I loved Jane’s beautiful writing and instantly connected to the characters. The book is narrated by 37-year-old Julia after her sudden death, as she watches her loved ones as they grieve her death, and try to overcome loss.

They also touch on further interesting points such as: did J.W. Turner and Edward Munch paint red skylines because there was so much volcanic particulate in the air at those times? How do you divert a bajillion tons of angry lava away from your tiny Icelandic fishing village, both in the 18th century and in 1973? Ancient Danish/Icelandic warrior kings with weird bone structure--early victims of fluorine poisoning? You can satisfy your curiosity at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki -- which is what I would recommend for most readers. The authors struggled to make this a good popular science book, but (mostly) failed. The book reminded me of old whoozit's maxim: What was good was not original, and what was original, not good. Harsh, but not far off the mark. Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world. It ends by returning to Heimaey where the book originally started and how the parish priest - who spoke the famous 'fire sermon' that supposedly stopped the lava flow not far from the church where he was preaching - was still being recognized and revered. Volcano go boom and everyone dies. You’ve heard the story and seen the movies. But that’s not how Laki in Iceland rolls, and Alexandra Witze and Jeff Kanipe are here to tell you about it.

The book is narrated by Julia as she watches her family and friends cope with grief. I was gripped by the poignant writing in every chapter. A delightful and humorous cast of characters kept me laughing and crying throughout the story. It is a sweet novel that filled me with hope and love.

Thank you #berkleypartner @berkleypub for the gifted finished copy, and @prhaudio for the gifted ALC. #BerkleyIG #penguinrandomhousepartner #prhapartner Wowza, what a bittersweet little novel to cap my summer reading :). Thank you so much to Berkley for the copy of On Fire Island by Jane L. Rosen! I will absolutely seek more from this author! With vivid prose, Tom Zoellner captures the horrors of the brutal sugar plantations of Jamaica as well as that brief but transcendent moment when a group of enslaved people sought, against tremendous odds, to transform the island into a space of liberation. Island on Fire offers a haunting parable of how history is made and remade up to the present day. ” —Karl Jacoby, author of Shadows at DawnThis story is told some of you point of Julia who is passed away recently and it's following her grieving husband best friend Renee and her neighbor around the island and making sure that everyone is ok after she is gone. As she tells the story we get many stories about Fire island and how people fall in love, get divorced and heal. An important contribution to our understanding of what Saidiya Hartman has described as the ‘afterlife’ of slavery. Zoellner documents in vivid detail the base violence and inhumanity of institutionalized slavery in plantation-era Jamaica. But he also tells a story of irrepressible resistance and self-organization that generated the slave rebellion of 1831… His storytelling ability makes this history extremely readable, if not less painful. ” —Abigail Bakan, Jacobin What was new to me (but obviously not to actual scientists) was how much difference it makes if a big volcano detonates in the equatorial or mid-latitudes versus the far north. If I understand it correctly, an Icelandic eruption has a much shorter distance for the effluvia to shoot right past the tropospheric "pause" and into the troposphere, and from there it's going to go around the globe faster and more consequentially. In the new rom-com Fire Island, written by comedian Joel Kim Booster and now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu, the eponymous island is shown in all its summer glory. Located just a train (and ferry) ride away from New York City, this barrier island off the Long Island coast has been an iconic destination for the queer community since the early 20th Century.