One Autumn

I hate to admit it…I’m not a big book reader. After spending a big chunk of my day at the computer, Sitting down with text has limited appeal. What I have become is an absolute addict to audiobooks, and this has only become worse now that Amazon lets me buy the ebook/audiobook combo at a big discount and sync back and forth with my reading platform of choice–my iPhone–and get the laundry done at the same time.

Fortunately, we audiobook addicts have some cheaper (legal!) sources to feed our habit, but this isn’t about them, it’s about Bill Bryson, and his new book One Summer: America, 1927.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw this title. My favorite nonfiction-writer-who-reads-his-own-stuff and my historical-period-of-interest in the same listen? Click Buy!

The book is, as you might expect, a lot of information about 1927. Aviation and the various highly dramatic attempts to cross the Atlantic leading up to Charles Lindbergh feature prominently, as does the Yankee’s  (featuring Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth)’s boffo baseball season. There’s some stuff about talkies, a bit about banking, and quite an interesting discussion of the probable guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, a pair of immigrants convicted and executed for an infamous 1920 robbery mostly because the local police sheriff decided they were anarchists, but who may not have been as innocent as history has tried to paint them.

Obviously, one summer cannot really make a whole book, and Bryson does a nice job of filling in history before and after 1927 as needed. Even with that, the narrative groans occasionally under the weight of baseball (if you’re not a die-hard fan) and possibly other details. But Bryson’s a lively, engaging writer, always willing to tip a few sacred cows, and provides a fascinating window into an age when people thought things would be shiny and modern forever.

PS – For Bryson at his unbeatable best, try his audio reading of In a Sunburned Country - his affectionate and incredulous look at Australia.