R101 lengthening the ship by to add another gasbag, the R101 crashed in France during its maiden overseas voyage on 5 October 1930, killing 48 of the 54 people on board. Among the passengers killed were Lord Thomson, the Air Minister who had initiated the programme, senior government officials, and almost all the dirigible's designers from the Royal Airship Works. The crash of R101 effectively ended British airship development, and was one of the worst airship accidents of the 1930s. The loss of life was more than the 36 killed in the highly public "Hindenburg" disaster of 1937, though fewer than
The Lives of Things without the political context, the book is the kind of read that ensnares you, drawing you into its world and forcing you to see things a particular way—Saramago’s way--while you compulsively turn the pages." BookForum's review finds the political themes of "The Lives of Things" applicable to contemporary politics. Reviewer Michael Thomsen perceives "Things" as being the collection's centerpiece. Within the world of that story, political leaders become more rigid about enforcing a set of meaningless rules as a response to an increasingly chaotic, unreliable world. "The resonance with our own time is almost too much," Thomsen writes. Kirkus Reviews'