Olympic, Titanic, Britannic: An Illustrated History of the Olympic Class Ships

I have truly enjoyed this book. While not begrudging the amount of press and film devoted to the horrible accident that sank RMS Titanic, it is wonderful to see this author concentrate his efforts on RMS Olympic, a nearly identical ship that served faithfully and well for decades. RMS Britannic, whose career was cut short by a WW I mine, is thoroughly covered. RMS Titanic is also well covered, though the drama of her sinking is left to the multitude of other sources available. Color is used where possible, engineering drawings, interior views, wonderful photographs, and so on abound. The text is crisp and informative. If ocean liners appeal to you, and you would like to know more about "Old Reliable," the "nice guy" ship that didn't come to a tragic end, this book will reward you handsomely.

Mr. Chirnside strikes yet again with another amazing book. Really enjoyed this one, the book had a surprising amount of photos I don’t recall having seen prior to reading. I cannot possibly state it in simpler terms, if you’re a Titanic / ocean liner buff, and a book has the name ‘Mark Chirnside’ on the cover, scoop it up and enjoy.

I'm currently working on an original fiction story that in effect can be seen as a sort of Biography of the RMS Olympic, and as I was already more than familiar with the story of Titanic, I needed info on the Lead Ship herself. Mister Chirnside not only supplies, but supplies in abundance of interesting and exhaustive information from the start of construction in 1908 to Olympic's scrapping in 1935. In fiction there is the concept of the "Hero of Another Story," where a side character is alluded to have adventures just as interesting as (if not more so than) the Protagonist's, and for decade's Olympic has been such a figure in the Titanic story, a glorified footnote if she is mentioned at all. At long last, we can finally know Olympic's story.

I read a statistic that said that the Titanic was one of the three most written about subjects in history, and browsing through the available books on Amazon and other sites certainly gives credence to that. I would imagine that like many much-written subjects the number of GOOD books is merely a fraction of that number, but this book is certainly one of the good ones. Richly illustrated with accurate captioning it certainly opens up my understanding of the Olympic class liners and is a valuable addition to my growing library on the subject. The ONLY way it could be better would be if I could buy a copy to read on my Kindle like a previous title I have bought....like this! Titanic or Olympic: Which Ship Sank?

Considering I have an extensive collection of books on this subject, this one is my favourite. It is well researched and documented. It is accurate in that Mr. Chirnside has made a great effort to clarify nearly all the misinformation that has been perpetuated over and over in other books on this subject as well as providing additional information, both technical and visual, not found in previous books. It is very readable and well thought out. Overall a fine effort and attractively priced considering the content. Highly recommended.

This is a fantastIc book for learning about the sister ships and history. It's very advanced for my 7yr old but definitely a good buy to delve deeper into the topic for children and adults. It is a great opportunity to learn about the ships together as a family!

Great book, worth buying

I’ve been an aficionado of ocean liners and of the White Star liners for many years so this is an excellent addition to my library; professionally, I did marine insurance so this book added to it.