I absolutely loved The Wager. As my headline suggests, I consider this to be a BigDog book. What constitutes a "BigDog" book? It has to be the right combination of Information, Amusement and Never Being Able to Put it Down. David Grann did all three at a very high level. I think I love this guy, David Grann. He must have worked so damn hard on this book. The amount of scribbles and scrabbles he was probably trying to decipher from these dumb 250 year old ship logs! It must have been so tedious.But Grann did it. He went to work and researched the tits out of this story. And sure, there are certainly holes he must have approached in the story and realized that he would have to creatively fill those in. That, in my opinion, is to be expected. Not only did Grann fill those holes, he did it expertly and seamlessly. Do YOU know why we have the phrase "3 Sheets To the Wind" as a euphemism for being drunk? Well, throughout this history of the British man-o-wars, David Grann teaches you that there's more to being a shipman than knowing a few knots & phrases. It takes guts and sometimes, even honor.I won't spoil the story for you here. I believe the Amazon description above gives you even too much information and "spoils" as the kids say. Speaking of kids, my 14 year old son was watching me devour this book. He was the only one in my family willing to listen to the new things I'd learned about man-o-wars or ancient tribes while we all gathered at the dinner table. "Did you know that the British Navy could just roll up on homies who had abandoned their ships and pretended to be dead so they didn't have to go back to sea? They called these guys 'Press Gangs.'" Only my 14 year old would chirp up and say something positive like, "That's awesome, dad!" Or "Do you think you could be a seaman, dad?" What a nice boy.One day while I was cranking through the part of the book near the end that is sort of the political intrigue portion, my son said "David Grann.""What?" I asked."David Grann. The author." My son was staring at the book jacket cover. "I bet he's a real G."I motioned for the kid to come over and when he sat next to me I said, "A G? You better believe Grann is a G because he did all this freakin' research to make this book come to life. If that's not bein' a G, then I don't know what else is. Plus, take a look at this picture of him inside the book jacket!"He leaned in and looked at this picture of the most G-lookin dude of all time. David Grann, standing there with a polo shirt and jacket on top. Not really smiling, not really frowning. Just a look of a confident son of a bitch. My son was right: Grann is a real G. We looked at the picture and then my son read the little bio below, which is just his bonafides in the literary sense. We would have preferred David give us a little bit more personal stuff. For example, his favorite pizza topping would be a good choice to include. What about HIS favorite books instead of a list of books he wrote? I get it... his publisher only wants to pimp his books instead of other authors'. Still, give me a little flavor with Grann.Under his bio, there is his social media and website listed. Only his Twitter and Facebook handle. No instagram. I found that strange. You'd think there'd be a Wager Instagram handle at least! When I finished the book, I wanted to shout it out on my Instagram Story and let everyone know that David Grann is a G and he wrote a BigDog book. To my surprise, I found that Grann DID have an instagram page! I was shocked. Did one of his kids shame him into doing this? His publisher maybe? Regardless, my dude only has like 8 or 9 posts! And it's just pictures of the hardcopy of The Wager stacked on top of each other. I tagged this sad Instagram account to my hype Story about the book anyway. I thought it couldn't do harm.I recommend this book mightily if you couldn't tell.