Anchor BooksProduct DescriptionA Chicago Tribune Noteworthy Book
A GoodReads Reader's Choice
The summer of 1927 began with Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic. Meanwhile Babe Ruth was closing in on the home run record. In Newark New Jersey Alvin Shipwreck Kelly sat atop a flagpole for twelve days and in Chicago the gangster Al Capone was tightening his grip on bootlegging. The first true talking picture Al Jolsons The Jazz Singer was filmed forever changing the motion picture industry.
? ? ? ? All this and much much more transpired in the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized thingsand when the twentieth century truly became the American century. One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order.Amazon.com ReviewAn Amazon Best Book of the Month October 2013: Its amazing what a talented writer at the top of his game can do with a seemingly narrow topic. The title of Bill Brysons latest sums up the simplicity of his task: to document the most extraordinary summer of 1927 beginning with Charles Lindberghs successful flight across the Atlantic. Even though we know many of these stories--Lindbergh??s flight?? Babe Ruth??s 60-homerun season?? the Mississippi River flood?? Al Capone??s bullet-ridden reign over Chicago--in Bryson??s hands?? and in the context of one amazing summer of twentieth-century ingenuity and accomplishment?? they feel fresh?? lively?? and just plain fun. The book is so jammed with ??did you know it?? nuggets and fascinating origin stories (the opening of the Holland Tunnel?? th