Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by phidgt
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
4.0
I have read a few of Bill Bryson’s books and have enjoyed all of them. He has a flowing writing style with just the right amount of humor and sarcasm thrown in to keep me engaged in whatever he is writing about.
There are two main threads that Bryson writes about in “One Summer: America, 1927”; Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic and Babe Ruth beating his home run record. However, there were so many other things happening around these two major events and Bryson does a tremendous job of weaving them into the narrative.
The United States was going through a serious heyday; the economy was soaring and much of the country’s populace was enjoying life. Henry Ford was cranking out the Model T, nearly everyone had a radio and telephones were also making their way into people’s homes. The weather also got in on the act and produced some of the worst flooding of the Mississippi River ever recorded. Movie theaters and Broadway shows kept folks entertained and any diversion was welcomed with frenzied zeal and there was no lack of diversion.
While the book does mainly focus on 1927, it does encompass much of the 1920’s. Prohibition was in full swing, corruption was rampant in Chicago, baseball was starting to come into its own and America was leading the rest of the world in manufacturing and growth. Where America was failing was in the area of aviation. Europeans were flying all over Europe, while we were still just barely getting off the ground. This all changed after Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, a feat no one had accomplished before. The country lost its collective mind, Lindbergh became a hero (until he wasn’t) and America was on top of the world.
“One Summer: America, 1927” is a collection of mini biographies of the major players of that era. There are sports figures, authors, actors, politicians, inventors and adventurers. Also, throughout the book is an underlying sense of foreboding as all of it would come crashing down within two years with the Great Depression.
This was a great book loaded with a lot of historical facts and fun tidbits and interesting characters.
There are two main threads that Bryson writes about in “One Summer: America, 1927”; Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic and Babe Ruth beating his home run record. However, there were so many other things happening around these two major events and Bryson does a tremendous job of weaving them into the narrative.
The United States was going through a serious heyday; the economy was soaring and much of the country’s populace was enjoying life. Henry Ford was cranking out the Model T, nearly everyone had a radio and telephones were also making their way into people’s homes. The weather also got in on the act and produced some of the worst flooding of the Mississippi River ever recorded. Movie theaters and Broadway shows kept folks entertained and any diversion was welcomed with frenzied zeal and there was no lack of diversion.
While the book does mainly focus on 1927, it does encompass much of the 1920’s. Prohibition was in full swing, corruption was rampant in Chicago, baseball was starting to come into its own and America was leading the rest of the world in manufacturing and growth. Where America was failing was in the area of aviation. Europeans were flying all over Europe, while we were still just barely getting off the ground. This all changed after Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, a feat no one had accomplished before. The country lost its collective mind, Lindbergh became a hero (until he wasn’t) and America was on top of the world.
“One Summer: America, 1927” is a collection of mini biographies of the major players of that era. There are sports figures, authors, actors, politicians, inventors and adventurers. Also, throughout the book is an underlying sense of foreboding as all of it would come crashing down within two years with the Great Depression.
This was a great book loaded with a lot of historical facts and fun tidbits and interesting characters.