Robert Kurson – författare

The inside, lesser-known story of NASA''s boldest and riskiest mission: Apollo 8, mankind''s first journey to the Moon on Christmas in 1968. A riveting account of three heroic astronauts who took one of the most dangerous space flights ever, from the New York Times bestselling author of Shadow Divers.In early 1968, the Apollo program was on shaky footing. President Kennedy''s end-of-decade deadline to put a man on the Moon was in jeopardy, and the Soviets were threatening to pull ahead in the space race. By August 1968, with its back against the wall, NASA decided to scrap its usual methodical approach and shoot for the heavens. With just four months to prepare, the agency would send the first men in history to the Moon. In a year of historic violence and discord, the Apollo 8 mission was the boldest test of what America could do. With a focus on astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, and their wives and children, this is a vivid, gripping, you-are-there narrative that shows anew the epic danger involved, and the singular bravery it took, for man to leave Earth for the first time--and to arrive at a new world.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE • A thrilling adventure of danger and deep-sea diving, historic mystery and suspense, by the author of Shadow Divers Finding and identifying a pirate ship is the hardest thing to do under the sea. But two men—John Chatterton and John Mattera—are willing to risk everything to find the Golden Fleece, the ship of the infamous pirate Joseph Bannister. At large during the Golden Age of Piracy in the seventeenth century, Bannister should have been immortalized in the lore of the sea—his exploits more notorious than Blackbeard’s, more daring than Kidd’s. But his story, and his ship, have been lost to time. If Chatterton and Mattera succeed, they will make history—it will be just the second time ever that a pirate ship has been discovered and positively identified. Soon, however, they realize that cutting-edge technology and a willingness to lose everything aren’t enough to track down Bannister’s ship. They must travel the globe in search of historic documents and accounts of the great pirate’s exploits, face down dangerous rivals, battle the tides of nations and governments and experts. But it’s only when they learn to think and act like pirates—like Bannister—that they become able to go where no pirate hunters have gone before. Fast-paced and filled with suspense, fascinating characters, history, and adventure, Pirate Hunters is an unputdownable story that goes deep to discover truths and souls long believed lost.Praise for Pirate Hunters“You won’t want to put [it] down.”—Los Angeles Times “An exceptional adventure . . . Highly recommended to readers who delight in adventure, suspense, and the thrill of discovering history at their fingertips.”—Library Journal (starred review) “A terrific read . . . The book gallops along at a blistering pace, shifting us deftly between the seventeenth century and the present day.”—Diver “Nonfiction with the trademarks of a novel: the plots and subplots, the tension and suspense . . . [Kurson has] found gold.”—The Dallas Morning News “Rollicking . . . a fascinating [story] about the world of pirates, piracy, and priceless treasures.”—The Boston Globe “[Kurson’s] narration is just as engrossing as the subject.”—The Christian Science Monitor “A wild ride [and an] extraordinary adventure . . . Kurson’s own enthusiasm, combined with his copious research and an eye for detail, makes for one of the most mind-blowing pirate stories of recent memory, one that even the staunchest landlubber will have a hard time putting down.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“The two contemporary pirate-ship seekers of Mr. Kurson’s narrative are as daring, intrepid, tough and talented as Blood and Sparrow—and Bannister. . . . As depicted by the author, they are real-life Hemingway heroes.”—The Wall Street Journal “[Kurson] takes his knowledge of the underwater world and applies it to the ‘Golden Age of Piracy’ . . . thrillingly detailing the highs and lows of chasing not just gold and silver but also history.”—Booklist“A great thriller full of tough guys and long odds . . . and: It’s all true.”—Lee ChildFrom the Hardcover edition.

A true adventure in which two amateur scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery - and make history themselves'This book is a work of art' RYAN HOLIDAY'A pulse-quickening real-life thriller' New York Times 'A memorable story, beautifully told' The TimesFor John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. But in 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid waters of the Atlantic: a Second World War German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires and human bones.No identifying marks were visible. No historian, expert or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found, and the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew there.Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest of increasingly perilous diving and painstaking archival research to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors – former enemies of their country.Bestselling author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is thrilling, vivid and emotionally complex. It’s a story of persistence, ingenuity and a shared obsession.

A true adventure in which two amateur scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery - and make history themselves'This book is a work of art' RYAN HOLIDAY'A pulse-quickening real-life thriller' New York Times 'A memorable story, beautifully told' The TimesFor John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. But in 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid waters of the Atlantic: a Second World War German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires and human bones.No identifying marks were visible. No historian, expert or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found, and the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew there.Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest of increasingly perilous diving and painstaking archival research to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors – former enemies of their country.Bestselling author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is thrilling, vivid and emotionally complex. It’s a story of persistence, ingenuity and a shared obsession.

In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves. For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigating through wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships. But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried under decades of accumulated sediment. No identifying marks were visible on the submarine or the few artifacts brought to the surface. No historian, expert, or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found. In fact, the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew at that location. Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors–former enemies of their country. As the men’s marriages frayed under the pressure of a shared obsession, their dives grew more daring, and each realized that he was hunting more than the identities of a lost U-boat and its nameless crew. Author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is at once thrilling and emotionally complex, and it is written with a vivid sense of what divers actually experience when they meet the dangers of the ocean’s underworld. The story of Shadow Divers often seems too amazing to be true, but it all happened, two hundred thirty feet down, in the deep blue sea.BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Robert Kurson''s Pirate Hunters.