One lasting value of any shipwreck is the marvelous stories that come out of those terrible events. Ronald Caplan has collected a terrific batch of stories ranging from the gut-wrenching 1761 winter trek of survivors of the Auguste to John Angus Fraser's hilarious 1955 adventures aboard the abandoned Kismet II . Walter Boudreau delivers his harrowing account adrift in a lifeboat while his companions died around him, and survivors of the Marine Atlantic Caribou ferry tell of being torpedoed by a Nazi submarine between Cape Breton and Newfoundland. Filled with courage and humanity--stories of people determined to live, told by people determined to keep these stories alive.