Robert Kurson | |
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Born | April 18, 1963 |
Occupation | Author, journalist |
Alma mater | Harvard Law School, 1990 |
Notable works | Shadow Divers , Pirate Hunters , Rocket Men |
Robert A. Kurson (born April 18, 1963) is an American author, best known for his 2004 bestselling book, Shadow Divers , the true story of two Americans who discover a World War II German U-boat sunk 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey. [1] [2] [3]
Kurson began his career as a lawyer, graduating from Harvard Law School in 1990, [4] and practicing real estate law. [5] Kurson's professional writing career began at the Chicago Sun-Times , where he started as a sports agate clerk and soon gained a full-time features writing job. [6] In 2000, Esquire published "My Favorite Teacher," his first magazine story, which became a finalist for a National Magazine Award. [7] He moved from the Sun-Times to Chicago magazine, [6] [8] then to Esquire magazine, where he was a contributing editor. [9] His stories have appeared in Rolling Stone , The New York Times Magazine , [9] and other publications. [8]
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In 2004, Random House published Kurson's book Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II . [10] The book follows two New Jersey divers, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, as they spend six years leading an effort to identify a World War II German U-boat. [10] The book chronicles the quest to learn the identity of the mysterious wreck, dubbed "U-Who" by the dive team, the identities of the men aboard her, and how she came to rest on the ocean floor near New Jersey. [11] [12]
Shadow Divers spent 24 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list peaking at No. 2, and has been profiled by publications including CBS News, TIME Magazine , NPR, The Washington Post , The Los Angeles Times , and others. [10] [11] [13] [14] [15] The book is often favorably compared to Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air . [13] Shadow Divers was awarded the American Booksellers Association's 2005 "Book of the Year Award". [16] The book was also awarded the American Library Association's Alex Award. [17] The book was translated into 22 languages.
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Kurson wrote the nonfiction book Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See, which was published in 2007. Crashing Through recounts the story of Mike May, a prominent American entrepreneur and sports enthusiast, who regains his eyesight after a lifetime of blindness. [18] Kurson based the book on his 2005 award-winning article "Into the Light" in Esquire. [19] [20] [21] "Into the Light" won the 2006 National Magazine Award. [22] The book debuted on The New York Times Bestseller list. [23]
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In Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship , published in 2015, Kurson tells the nonfiction story of two shipwreck divers, John Chatterton (who was also featured in Shadow Divers) and John Mattera, on their search for the wreck of the 17th-century pirate ship Golden Fleece, which had been stolen by its captain Joseph Bannister and was later sunk by damage from a battle with two frigates of the Royal Navy. [24] The book was a New York Times Bestseller. [25]
In 2018 Kurson released Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon . [26] The book recounts the Apollo 8 mission, set against the backdrop of 1968, one of the most violent and divisive years in American history. [27] [3]
The Washington Post wrote “Rocket Men is close-to-the-bone adventure-telling on a par with Alfred Lansing’s Endurance and Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. It’s as close to a movie as writing gets.” The book was a New York Times bestseller, was featured on The Today Show , and optioned for film and television. [27] [28] [29]
John Tracy Kidder is an American writer of nonfiction books. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his The Soul of a New Machine (1981), about the creation of a new computer at Data General Corporation. He has received praise and awards for other works, including his biography of Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist, titled Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003).
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission is a non-fiction book written by Hampton Sides. It is about the World War II Allied prison camp raid at Cabanatuan in the Philippines.
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Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II is a 2004 non-fiction book by Robert Kurson recounting of the discovery of a World War II German U-boat 60 miles (97 km) off the coast of New Jersey, United States in 1991, exploration dives, and its eventual identification as U-869 lost on 11 February 1945.
Sloane Crosley is an American writer living in New York City known for her humorous essays, including the collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number, and Look Alive Out There. She has also worked as a publicist at the Vintage Books division of Random House and as an adjunct professor in Columbia University's Master of Fine Arts program. She graduated from Connecticut College in 2000.
John Chatterton is an American wreck diver. Together with Richie Kohler, he was one of the co-hosts for the History Channel’s Deep Sea Detectives, for 57 episodes of the series. He is also a consultant to the film and television industries and has worked with 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, and CBS.
Francis French is a book and magazine author from Manchester, England, specialising in space flight history. He is a former director of events for Sally Ride Science, and a director at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.
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Jeanne Marie Laskas is an American writer, journalist, and professor.
Gary Gentile is an American author and pioneering technical diver.
David Elliot Grann is an American journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and a best-selling author.
The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths (2000) is a non-fiction book written by diver Bernie Chowdhury and published by HarperCollins. It documents the fatal dive of Chris Rouse, Sr. and Chris "Chrissy" Rouse, Jr., a father-son team who perished off the New Jersey coast in 1992. The author is a dive expert and was a friend of the Rouses.
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John Joseph Mattera is a writer and American shipwreck explorer and the subject of the book Pirate Hunters by Robert Kurson. Pirate Hunters is the story of two US divers, John Chatterton and John Mattera, finding the lost pirate ship Golden Fleece of Captain Joseph Bannister in the waters off the Dominican Republic in 2008. Mattera first became a certified diver in 1976, exploring the North Atlantic, he was an early pioneer of the shipwrecks in the waters around New York and New Jersey, performing penetration and decompression dives long before technical diving had a name. From the late 1970s on exploring some of the most famous shipwrecks of the northeast, with over sixty dives on the SS Andrea Doria.
Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship is a New York Times best-selling non-fiction book by Robert Kurson recounting the discovery of the pirate ship the Golden Fleece by two American divers, John Chatterton and John Mattera, in Samaná Bay off the north coast of the Dominican Republic in 2008. Until Chatterton and Mattera discovered the resting place of the Golden Fleece, Joseph Bannister's success as a pirate had little modern evidence.
San Miguel may refer to any of a number of Spanish ships.