Dr. John A. King rates David Grann's The Wager three-quarters brilliant. Grann spent four years researching this book about nautical history and survival, though it takes 80 to 100 pages to set up the narrative. King recommends it for readers interested in British naval history, survival stories, and how stress affects the mind.
All right, book review. The Wager by David Graham. This fella did Killers of the Flower Moon. Awesome movie. My wife's a red fella, Cherokee. Fantastic. I'm black fella, Wurundjeri. Phenomenal. But anyway, I'm not talking about Killers of the Flower Moon. I'm talking about The Wager. So, grading. I gotta give it a, man, I really want to give it a full brilliant, but I gotta give it like a 3/4 brilliant. Um, yeah, 3/4 brilliant. That's what I'm gonna go with. 3/4 brilliant, bordering on a brilliant. Uh, it's a lot of setup for this book and you are talking about, I don't know, I don't know, maybe 100 pages, maybe 80 pages for the setup, but you need the setup. And he does a lot of, he's a, he's a historical researcher who also writes books. So he would say he's probably a historical novelist. But you know, man, he's a researcher. This guy spent 4 years researching this thing and it deserved the award it got, the best time seller. But look, this is definitely worth the read. If you like nautical stuff, if you like British history stuff, if you like struggle, survival, and the inside track of why people like a lot of the— let's talk a lot of the fly stuff here. And it's very, very interesting in the human condition under stress. So The Wager by Graham, the guy who wrote Flower Moon, which is also bloody brilliant. 3/4 brilliant.
