The book is aimed at fans of the TV show and so a lot of it is about the Lagina brothers and their part in the quest. The first half of the book starts with the story of the discovery and then moves through the different attempts to find the treasure. At lot of the book is devoted to various theories about the origins of the treasure - if there is one. The historic and documentary parts of the book are interesting and well-written but the author lost me when he inserted the chapter about supernatural events on and near the island. That was a line too far for me.
read 12/15/2023 ( )

The first half is a five star history of the discovery and early exploration of the Money Pit on Oak Island. Towards the end he gets into some ridiculous theories about the history of the pit, and that detracts from the book. ( )

Wow. I had no freaking idea...

I had a baseline, non-informed level of knowledge of Oak Island...okay, I knew there was supposed to be buried treasure there, that proved to be notoriously hard to find. Full stop.

Sullivan does a great job at running down both all the players that have tried—and failed—to get to that fabled treasure...whatever it may be, while also providing some excellent, exhaustive background on all the various theories that have cropped up in the past almost three centuries (!) surrounding it.

And I was somewhat shocked at both the number and the variety of theories. I think there's pretty much everything in there with the exception of aliens.

A really interesting, often sad book. Good read. ( )

I love Oak Island! If you know me, you know how much I love this show! I have not missed an episode in all the seasons it has been on the History channel.

Personally, I don't think we're going to find the Ark of the Covenant or Crown Jewels or Templar Treasure buried on the island; I'm leaning more toward pirate booty as it seems more historical. However, I would not mind being proved wrong.

I hope they find something, I really do.

So - the book! So excited to get it. I have read a few other older books on Oak Island (once I became a diehard Acorn). I knew some of the history that Randall Sullivan discusses in his book but I didn't mind reading it again and Randall also gave a lot more detail and more history than what I had previously read so I enjoyed the beginning of this book.

The ending was pretty good, too. I liked how he discussed the show and some of the excavations that I had watched. I would have liked more about the "modern era" of Oak Island but this was still okay.

Randall spent a lot of time on the theories that have been proposed by various visitors to the island and the show. We spent quite a bit of time on those theories; I would have rather read more historical Oak Island stuff but it's his book and I think people are really interested and intrigued by all these theories.

He seems to get personal about things in this book and that's when it gets weird. I got the impression from watching the show that the Laginas really didn't like him. Well, Marty anyway; Rick is so nice he appears to like everyone. His visit to Oak Island seemed a little weird, just reading about it was odd. He definitely did not distance himself away from the island at some point in the book and a portion of this book was - well, I said before - weird and odd with him being a little involved with the show.

All in all, though, loved the book. Couldn't put it down, carried it everywhere, stayed up late and was exhausted the next day trying to finish it. Recommended if you love the show! ( )

I checked this book out on a whim, as a previous book I read had mentioned treasure hunts, so I was interested in the topic. I did not know about the History Channel show or the author's affiliation. The book was largely enjoyable, however there seemed to be a lot of material geared toward "true-believers" rather than historical facts. Entire chapters are dedicated to tangents on top of tangents of apocryphal speculation (e.g. Knights of Templar). If one is interested in going down the rabbit hole, the book may be your pace, but if you are just interested in the history of the site, I would recommend skimming/skipping chapters dedicated to off topics.

60% history, 30% speculation, 10% woo-woo, The Curse of Oak Island tells an interesting historical story that gets bogged down by History Channel features. ( )