"The Perfect Storm" By Sebastian Junger W.W. Norton, 1997 (CNN)
-- In meteorological parlance, a "perfect storm" is a rare
confluence of weather factors that creates a tempest. In this
vividly written account, journalist Sebastian Junger tracks how
a cold front, hurricane and Great Lakes gale came together in
October, 1991 to sweep a small fishing boat, the "Andrea Gail,"
into oblivion. Junger re-creates the final moments of the crew
as 100-foot waves and winds topping 120-m.p.h. lash the boat, in
a bestselling narrative critics have compared to Jon Krakauer's
"Into Thin Air." GEORGES BANK, 1896 One mid-winter day off the
coast of Massachusetts, the crew of a mackerel schooner spotted
a bottle with a note in it. The schooner was on Georges Bank,
one of the most dangerous fishing grounds in the world, and a
bottle with a note in it was a dire sign indeed. A deckhand
scooped it out of the water, the sea grass was stripped away,
and the captain uncorked the bottle and turned to his assembled
crew: "On Georges Ba