One Summer: America, 1927

This is an excellent audiobook and Kindle. The author narrates the audiobook and both the writing and the narration are excellent. When I first became aware of this book I was slightly hesitant to purchase it. My apprehension was based on the fact that the book seems slightly lengthy for one summer in America. I was afraid the book would prove over detailed and tedious. However I purchased the book because I am a fan of Bill Bryson. I am so glad that I did so! This book is about the events of the summer in America in 1927. However the author constantly adds relevant backgrounds, biographies and digressions. Additionally, the book has many natural breaks and one can read a segment during a break at work, etc... I do need mention that there is a certain amount of descriptions of sports history, such as the 1927 Yankess, and the history of baseball, and also boxing, that may not prove highly interesting to every reader. As I previously stated I am a fan of Bill Bryson. Although non fiction, Mister Bryson has a way of adding a touch of clever ironic wit that makes his work both educational and amusing. The best analogy I can give is that Mister Bryson reminds me of another one of my favorite writers of history, David McCullough, with just a bit more wit. I like them both the same, but they are just a bit different. In summary I am completely happy with this work. It was enjoyable as well as educational. I look forward to reading another book by Bill Bryson and intend to do so in the near future. Thank You...

This is only my second Bill Bryson book, but "One Summer" certainly encourages me to read more. Although the title suggests the coverage will focus on 1927, the book in reality is a much broader perspective on important personalities and events of the entire decade of the 1920s and in some cases even beyond. For example, while Lindbergh's flight was in the summer of 1927, Bryson devotes considerable attention to his entire life, personality, and related events. This is not all a drawback - in fact, it gives the reader a much broader perspective on the whole decade. Now and then, Bryson gives a summary of what actually happened in the summer of 1927, and people who were prominent that year are the ones who dominated the decade. But Bryson also covers players other than the stars. For example, he gives considerable attention to various aviators who attempted the Atlantic both before and after Lindbergh. In fact, I got a bit tired of all the detail about such people, even though they did throw light on Lindbergh's accomplishment, especially since most of the other players ended up either in the Atlantic Ocean or crashing at the end of the takeoff runway. This same inclusive trend was apparent for other 1927 celebrities as well. Babe Ruth was a star in the book, but other players such as Lou Gehrig and Ty Cobb also were in the picture. Bryson's writing is precise, witty, and highly entertaining. The best aspect of the book is that Bryson reveals so much about personalities - Hoover, admittedly a man who solved many world problems, from European hunger to Midwest flood relief, was strong on self-promotion and short on social niceties. Coolidge comes off even less involved than his traditional image. Sacco and Vanzetti remain enigmas - did they do it or not? And the book is certainly no hagiography for the heroes of the age - Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, etc. - nor the villains, such as Al Capone. All in all, "One Summer" is my kind of history. Covers the main events, but adds snippets that most historians would pass over; also, related details that humanize personalities and give the reader a real sense of what the decade was about. The reason I rate the book 4-1/2 stars rather than 5 is that some aspects were covered in a bit too much detail. But I found the book highly informative and great fun to read. I think we could have done without the long epilogue, however, or been better off with a condensed version. Too many folks ending up with mental problems, too much alcohol, or other unfortunate tragedies.

It was one hell of a summer in 1927, when Charles Lindbergh, 25, made a nonstop solo flight from New York to Paris, when Babe Ruth, 32, broke his own home-run record by slugging 60 in the season, when Al Capone, 28, reigned American gangsters. In “One Summer, America 1927,” Bill Bryson pauses for a moment to remember just some of the things that happened that summer, by revealing unknown aspects of children of their ages, who are familiar even to Japanese. He painstakingly digs up news, goods, and works, to which ordinary people were unanimously mad about at that time. A title itself plays to our curiousness. It was a time people became wild easily. Frantic air overlaid the era. Spectators gathered in huge numbers to every event. Heroes and heroins met incidentally in this mood and were influenced by each other. America had been suffered from abnormal weather in that summer. It rained steadily across much of the country, sometimes in volumes not before seen. Heat wave of summer was under way. The Great Migration, blacks’ moving out from the South, began soon after the Mississippi flood, which lead to keeping out immigrant movements. Eugenics was a minion theory in that era. Bryson notes the fact sterilization laws still remain on the books in twenty states today. Extraordinary weather forced the federal government to accept that certain matters are too big for states to handle alone. The birth of Big Government in America. The canyon like streets and spiky skyline was largely a 1920s phenomena. Holland Tunnel was opened in 1927. A Mount Rushmore project was begun on. Constructing Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam started. It was the same summer four men, from America, England, Germany, and French, gathered at the Long Island to discuss abolishing the gold standard. The result connected to the Great Depression. Calvin Coolidge presided over a booming economy and did nothing at all to get in the way of it. The 1920s was a great time for reading. Reading remained as a principal method for most people to fill idle time. It coincide precisely with the birth of tabloid papers and huge popularity of book clubs. Plausibility was not something that audiences needed for in the 1920s. An immense pulp fictions were printed out in this era. Bryson picks up the Sash Weight Murder Case to illustrate this frenzy. It would be overtaken soon by the passive distraction of radio. Lindbergh’s return in triumph was in many ways the day that radio came of age. American spent one-third of all the money for furniture on radios. The nation’s joy and obsession was baseball at that time. Baseball dominated and saturated American life culturally, emotionally. It was that summer Yankees won the American League championship with a league record, and Babe Ruth banged out 60 home runs. Boxing was also a 1920s phenomenon. Jack Dempsey - Gene Tunny Fight were held at the summer’s end of that year. Americans were excited about every on-the-spot broadcast. Many people came to find the automobile an essential part of life. One American in six owned a car by the late 1920s. It was getting close to a rate of one per family. And it was in the summer of 1927 that Henry Ford embarked on the most ambitious, and ultimately most foolish venture, the greatest rubber-producing estate, Fordlandia. The 1920s are dubbed as the Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties, and the Era of Wonderful Nonsense. Musical performances were prospered. Big theaters had been constructed. It was a flourishing time for America, various cultural icons for American life style were created and introduced. American century began to blossom with full of life and energy. America’s winning the World War I exhibited it’s existence to the world. In 1927, Americans were not popular in Europe and not popular at all in France. The most striking things to a foreign visitor, arriving in America for the first time in 1927, was how staggeringly well-off it was. No other country they knew had ever been this affluence, and it seemed getting wealthier daily at a dizzily pace for them. It was the time TV started test broadcasting. Talkies began to take place of Silent Movies. Talking pictures were going to change the entertainment world thoroughly. It not only stole audiences from live theaters but also, and even worse, reaped talent. Who couldn’t speak English were kicked out from the industry. Through talkies America began to export American thoughts, attitudes, humor and sensibilities, peaceably, almost unnoticed. America had just taken over the world. It was a time of Prohibition. It was a time of despair for people of a conservative temperament. The 1920s were also an Age of Loathing. More people disliked more other people from more directions and for less reason. There were subversive activities. Foreign workers who couldn’t get job were thought to be anarchy. It was not a good time to be either a radical or an alien in America, and unquestionably dangerous to be both. Bryson takes up the Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti case to explain the atmosphere in this era. The European economies were uniformly wrecked while America’s was booming. America was blamed for it’s indifference to other countries suffering economic difficulties. Rejecting foreign workers led to bringing out negative feeling from other countries. Before the summer ended, millions of French would hate America, and it would actually be unsafe to be an American on French street. What did Lindberg’s success mean to American people. America has fallen behind from the rest of the world in every important area of technology in the 1920s. Lindbergh’s flight brought the world a moment of sublime, spontaneous, unifying joy on a scale never seen before for some unknowable reason. There would have been the gratifying novelty of coming first at something. America was suddenly dominant in nearly every field. In popular culture, finance and banking, military power, invention and technology, these center of gravity for the planet was moving from Europe to America. Charles Lindbergh’s flight somehow became the culminating expression of this. It is interesting to note Bryson counts as advantage for American fliers over European competitors is their using aviation fuel from California. It burned more cleanly and gave better mileage. It harbingers the coming oil century. It is impossible to imagine what was it about Charles Lindbergh and his 1927 flight to Paris that so transfixed the world in that summer. Bryson seems to have no interest about psychological analysis of heroes. He objectively piles up the facts from datas still remained. We are enthralled many times by accidental outcome resultant from connection between people and or tossed about by the tide. The greatest hero of the twentieth century was infinitely more of an enigma and considerably less of a hero than anyone had ever supposed. Alexis Carrel, a famous doctor at that time, provided Lindbergh with an enduring friendship and years of bad advice. Lindberg was invited to the Olympics in Berlin as a guest of the Nazis. He and his wife became unapologetic admirers of Adolf Hitler. People’s enthusiasm to Lindberg burnt out quickly and never returned. 1927 was substantially the first year of Showa in Japan. Showa actually started from the late December of the previous year. Ryuunosuke Akutagawa, a novelist, suicided from dimly obscured uneasiness in this year. It was an era militarism crept upon Japanese from the behind unnoticeably.

I discovered Bill Bryson some years ago listening to the audiobook of his fantastic "A Short History of Nearly Everything". I constantly recommend that tome to whomever will listen. I have gone on to read many of his other works, "A Walk in the Woods" and "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid", in particular. I find Bryson to be immensely entertaining, funny and informative in equal measure. "One Summer: America 1927" is another great addition to the Bryson pantheon of wonderful books and to my library. Bryson's ability to weave together several apparently disparate threads into a cohesive, interesting narrative is a real gift. From Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis and others flyers making history, to Babe Ruth and the Yankees and their season for the ages, to Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover and the politics of the day, to Prohibition and its effect nationally and on Chicago with its mayor Big Bill Thompson and the rise and precipitous fall of Al Capone, to the trial and eventual demises of Sacco and Vanzetti, to the invention and growth of "talkies" and television and the death of silent films and much more, Bryson is the master puppeteer, dangling the various stories to delight of the reader. Bill Bryson is a master. I always look forward to his next book, and "One Summer: America 1927" is no exception. Scarcely does a page go by that some captivating fact is not revealed. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it highly. The book covers so much territory that you are bound to find something interesting to you. Treat yourself.

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson is a non-fiction book that chronicles the events in the United States during the summer of 1927. The book covers many topics, including politics, economics, sports, entertainment, and more. Bryson's meticulous research and engaging writing style make this book enjoyable for history enthusiasts and casual readers. The book starts by giving an overview of the country's state in 1927. Then it delves into some of the significant events of the summer, such as the Great Mississippi Flood, Babe Ruth's record-breaking season, and Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic. Bryson also explores the lives of notable figures of the time and sheds light on the less glamorous aspects of the era, such as racism, prohibition, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. At times, the book is too long and drags in the narrative. But I did enjoy the story told chronologically, which makes the ending seem less confident and increases the feeling of the chaos of living through contemporaneous events. Overall, One Summer is a good book that vividly portrays a pivotal moment in American history.

This is, simply a great read (listen). When Mr Bryson narrates, the listening is enhanced

In this work of popular history, the author digs behind the headlines of 1927. As to why 1927 is most deserving of focus is not necessarily clear, but there is no lack of happenings that grabbed the public’s attention. Beyond the national tragedy of the massive Mississippi River flood and the occasional sensational murder trial, the most important development of 1927 was the attempt to show that airplane travel could be viable. There were many attempts to cross the Atlantic in either direction in absurdly underequipped planes manned by pilots with more daring than skill. Death is what awaited virtually all of those reckless adventurers, with the lone exception being young Charles Lindbergh from Minnesota. An aloof, solitary man, Lindbergh, in addition to being a highly gifted pilot, took every practical measure that he could and consequently was able to fly nonstop and solo from Long Island to Paris in May, 1927, in about 40 hours. The instant fame from that event was astonishing, but the price was high. Much to his immense discomfort, the public would not leave him alone over the next several years until he expressed admiration for the policies of the Nazis. Babe Ruth had been a larger than life figure for several years, but 1927 brought his fame to its highest level. The 1927 Yankees demolished the opposition, but Ruth’s assault on his previous homerun record captured the attention of the entire US. That his name is still well known today testifies to his prodigious baseball abilities and his persona. The author also focuses on the beginning of the end of silent films with the introduction of the first talking motion picture, The Jazz Singer. He also takes delight in showing that President Calvin Coolidge took the concept of a do-nothing presidency to unprecedented levels. Henry Ford gets the prize for showing that a man with a brilliant concept, that is, the mass production of Model-T’s, is capable of nearly destroying what he created with his own close-mindedness and eccentricities. Not all characteristics of that era are to be celebrated or looked at fondly. The author talks about the rise of organized crime due to Prohibition, the rising membership in the Ku Klux Klan, and the support of eugenics by even leading voices of opinion. He scarcely mentions the shaky underpinnings of the financial boom underway in 1927 that would bring about the horrendous financial catastrophe of 1929 lasting over the next decade. The book is mildly interesting, but is hardly profound. It is a bit of this and that concerning events and personalities, presented in a rather hodgepodge manner. The book is meant to be, above all, entertaining. Broader implications are left to others.

If you enjoy reading about the 1920s, this book is for you! Author Bill Bryson takes the reader through just one summer of American history, but what a summer it was! Bryson starts with the lead-up to Charles Lindbergh's historic flight from New York to Paris ... and then introduces us to Ruth Snyder and her secret lover, Jedd Gray, two bungling murderers who became a media spectacle and a big part of the nation's entertainment during the summer of 1927. You think you know a lot about Lindbergh? Or Babe Ruth? Herbert Hoover? Clara Bow? Henry Ford? Sacco and Vanzetti? Jack Dempsey? Prohibition? Radio? Movies? Eugenics? Mississippi Flood? KKK? Al Capone? If so, you're in for a huge surprise. This book is extremely well researched and these people and events become even more real - and more interesting - as Bryson's engaging prose puts you right in the middle of it all. And there are a quite a few shockers along the way, too. 1927 was quite a summer for America, no doubt about that. In fact, as far as history goes, it may be THE summer that did more to influence our country's progress (and regress) than any other. Other than a huge (?) amount of baseball stats (which were, by the way, integral to the story but caused my eyes to glaze over), the story is a captivating one and Bryson's writing is easy and fluid, with a lot of humor thrown in for good measure. I loved the book and I think anyone interested - even mildly - in the history of America will react the same.