The Fun of It Random Records of My Own Flying and of Woman in Aviation

by Amelia Earhart

Random records of my flying and of women in aviation; Amelia Earhart.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Aviation, History, Memoir, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

218 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1932

About the author

American aviator Amelia Earhart, the first such woman, flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932 and from Hawaii to California in 1935. While attempting to fly around the world, she crashed in the Pacific Ocean in 1937 and presumably died, and people never found her.

People note Amelia Mary Earhart, a pioneer and author. Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross, award. She set many other records and wrote best-selling books about her experiences; she instrumentally formed The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

During a circumnavigation of the globe, Earhart disappeared over the near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day. She went missing July 2, 1937, and people declared her dead on January 5, 1939.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_...

Reviews

[Chelsea Margaret]

I finished the book so disappointed that she wasn't my friend in real life. Delightful writing style, and so open and modest. What a charmer she was!

[Tara Chevrestt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike Earhart's other works, 20 Hours, 40 Minutes and Last Flight, which focus on flight details and aircraft specifications, this one is about HER and her life and her love of flying. Amelia began her life in Kansas and she became a nurse, a car mechanic, a social worker, a photgrapher, and even an airline vice president before she became America's aviation sweetheart. In this book she tells about those occupations and the impacts they had on her life and choices. She also tells a funny tale here and there like the time she was sledding and barely missed a head on collision with a horse, going between its legs as luck would have it. Another funny tale (that also involves a horse) is when she had one as a passenger!

I got bored, however, when Earhart started about the weather bureau and went on a bit too much about the autogiro (helicopter today). The last quarter saves it from becoming a four star book tho. When today someone says the words "women in aviation" we immediately think about Amelia. Amelia generously hands out the credit tho. In the last quarter, Earhart talks about numerous women and their accomplishments in aviation including but not limited to Ruth Nichols, Elinor Smith, Bobby Trout, Anne Lindbergh, Phoebe Omlie, and even a historical great, Ruth Law. There is also a chapter devoted to the early days of hot air ballooning and the ladies involved.

This is a must read for any and all aviation buffs. I will be reading it again.

[Kay Mcgriff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is just as charming as when I first read it in college over 20 years ago. It's the next best thing to sitting down with Amelia and having lunch.

[Cherie Everhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best written book ever BUT it was wonderful to read her words and her perspectives. What a wonderful life she created for herself and what a great empowering legacy to leave.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What are women flyers like? What do they do when not flying? How do they look? These questions are still asked so often that I am going to describe a few of those I know.
Of course, they are not different as individuals from any other group. There are slim ones and plump ones and quiet ones and those who talk all the time. They're large and small, young and old, about half the list are married and many of these have children. In a word, they are simply thoroughly normal girls and women who happen to have taken up flying rather than golf, swimming or steeplechasing."

I really enjoyed this! Amelia Earhart is witty and engaging in her writing, and I found this very fun to read. Her passion for aviation is very clear, and in particular, I enjoyed her descriptions of flying and her interactions with others in the field. It's an informal autobiography, and it was interesting to read about her life beginning in her childhood. In the course of reading, I found many similarities to Amelia Earhart, which was amusing:
1. Both raised in Kansas
2. Both speak French
3. Both did flight training in a suburb of Los Angeles
4. Both enjoy the outdoors and took road trips to national parks
5. Both hate oatmeal
6. Both don't drink coffee and prefer hot cocoa instead

Overall, it's a great look "behind the curtain" of her life. Highly recommend!

"Some day, I dare say, women can be flyers and yet not be regarded as curiosities!"

[Libros Prohibidos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Por el placer de hacerlo no es un libro feminista al uso. Al menos no fue escrito con esa intención. Pero lo es, y mucho además. No se alinea con ninguna ideología ni filosofía. La autora tampoco busca que el lector vea las cosas del mismo modo que ella. Solo defiende que una mujer pueda tener la misma actividad que un hombre solamente por el placer de hacerlo. Si es que el título le viene que ni pintado.
Reseña completa: http://www.libros-prohibidos.com/amel...

[Amy K · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much more to learn about Amelia Earheart than her final flight. I had no idea that she had published her own biography until I came across this as an audiobook. I loved hearing about her family's support and the trip that she took her mother on over the national parks of the west. She also talks about other early female pilots, including Katherine Wright, sister to Orville and Wilbur.

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a fun read!

Some of the material, in the beginning, is similar, almost verbatim, to her included history in 20 Hours, 40 Minutes: Our Flight in the Friendship. However, there's also new material on her happy childhood memories. This book felt more relaxing to read, though, as her account of the Friendship Flight felt rushed. What struck me most, was the number of women, contemporaries of Amelia, who were flying. It was a handful, but for the time in history, I'm surprised there were so many. Here, Amelia writes about the other women pilots flying during this time, and it's fascinating to read. Everyone's heard of Charles Lindbergh, but how many know that his wife, Anne Lindbergh, also had a pilot's license and was a skilled pilot. She includes photos of most of these women, as well. Bonus points for photos!!

On Katherine Stinson: She, like Ruth Law, had tried to enter the Government flying service and had been turned down. However, she was able to borrow a ship from the army to use on a special mission for the Red Cross. 189 This was in 1917! These women were so ahead of the times! It wasn't until 1976 that women were first entering pilot training in the Air Force. Fighter pilot training, for women in the Air Force, began in 1993.

There is a chapter, Air Trails of the Future, which is fun to read, in the future, to see how accurate Earhart was with her predictions. Several chapters, actually, contain predictions for future flight.

Possibly in the future, sightseeing tours may be arranged to take passengers not only from place to place but to different "levels." 135

On the helicopter:
It seems to me whether or not the autogiro ever invades the general field of aeronautical activity that one of its accomplishments - that of hovering in the air under certain conditions - will be utilized for special work. Perhaps it will be found especially adaptable in aerial photography. There are surely scores of special uses to which it might attain. In fact, with the giro as with many new developments, so much is likely to happen that I am planning to return to earth in a couple of hundred years to check up on its doings. 139

As always, Amelia is a joy to read. She writes well, possibly due to the fact she was an avid reader from childhood. Her writing at times feels rushed, but she had many demands on her time. It's amazing she shared what she has, 3 books, in her short life and career. The Fun of It is the most fun to read. Onward to The Last Flight which will be hard, emotionally, to read, knowing the history.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read from Amelia Earhart herself. She writes about how she began flying, what it's like to fly, what she predicts for the future of commercial flight, what it's like to be a female pilot, some of her famous flights, and she highlights some famous female pioneers in flight. The writing style is straight forward. It seemed like I could almost hear her voice reading the book to me, in the language of the early '30s.

There's no mention of her around-the-world flight in which she gets lost, of course. It makes me a little sad that the only female aviation pioneers I had heard of were ones linked with tragedy (herself and Anne Marrow Lindbergh). She mentioned that, herself, in fact. She said when men crashed their airplanes there was no mention of it in the papers, but when she or other women had mishaps, the newspapers were all over it with headlines such as "First Failure for (such and such endeavor)" when really it was just one of many. How sad! But don't get me wrong. It's not a complaining book. The whole book was upbeat and a fun read.

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading The Fun of It by Amelia Earhart was like opening a time capsule. She was quite an extraordinary woman. She gained a lot of attention for being an early female pilot and became a household name for her unfortunate disappearance. I loved that she used her platform to highlight many of the other female pilots of the day, and even the female hot air balloonists that came before.

It was a bit of a bittersweet read knowing she disappeared only a few years after the book was published. At the time she wrote the book, it was a very exciting time for aviation. Commercial flights were in their early stages. Large groups gathered around airplanes when they landed as if they were UFOs. She theorized towards the end of the book that the speed planes could travel would have to increase dramatically in order for commercial flights to become a convenient method of travel for the general population. She was right. Airplanes now travel over 2x faster than possible when she wrote this book. I recommend giving The Fun of It a try if you’re interested in learning more about aviation!

[Hillary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book - super quick read - two days - I picked it up because I was doing a design project about planes, and this happened to be in the section I was investigating in the library . When I saw it was written by Earhart I realized all I really knew of her was what I was taught in the third grade - there was a woman who flew planes pretty early on in the history of aeronautics and then she disappeared - This book is phenomenal for people interested in flying, for feminists (I feel after reading this she is the original feminist) and I highly recommend - even if it's just a "beach read" read this book - you will be a better person for it!!!

[Kylie Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before reading, I had in my mind my sense of how I thought Amelia Earhart was as a person. Reading her memoir, I am delighted to report that she was as upbeat, fun, determined, and bright as I had imagined.
I've always had a love for Amelia Earhart and was excited to read, in her own words, more about her life and her accomplishments. I also learned a lot about aviation and female aviators, in general, a topic in which I'm excited to learn more.
FUN to read if you've been obsessed with her since elementary school.

[Liz VanDerwerken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amelia Earhart was my childhood hero(ine) and having always loved her, this book was a delight to read. The first half was full of her wit and charm in recounting her childhood, college years, and introduction to flight. The second half was filled with facts and stories about the history of aviation. It's remarkable to see the changes she documents and compare the experiences of her day with modern flight. I think the title is so perfect, as flying for Earhart was a matter of fun.

[PS Pranika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful - Engaging - Inspiring

—

Reading "The Fun of It" feels like listening to a friend. It flows smoothly, so I definitely recommend the audiobook version. Although the hard copy has photos, so maybe consider doing both like I did. :)

Amelia Earhart was not just a skilled pilot but also an eloquent writer, WHAT A LEGEND! 🔥

I am reading this again! 💕

[Nimex10 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practicing failure is a common place for pilots.
In 1932, at the dawn of the aviation age, Amelia Earhart described the value for all pilots of learning through deliberate mistakes.
"The fundamental stunts taught to students are slips, stalls, & spins.
An understanding & knowledge of some stunts is judged necessary to good flying. Unless a pilot has actually recovered from a stall, has actually put his plane into a spin & brought it out, he cannot know accurately what those acts entail. He should be familiar enough with abnormal positions of his craft to recover fast without having to think how."

For a pilot, stunting is a skill attained through practice. You go up in a plane &, for example, you change the angle of the wings to deliberately stall the craft. You prepare beforehand by learning what a stall is, what the critical variables you have to pay attention to are, & how other pilots address stalls. You learn the optimal response. But then you go up in the air and actually apply your knowledge. What's easy and obvious on the ground, when you're under little pressure, isn't guaranteed to come to you when your plane loses lift & function at 10,000 feet. Deliberately stalling your plane, making a conscientious mistake when you have prepared to deal with it, give you the experience to react when a stall happens in a less controlled situation.

The first time your plane unexpectedly stops working in mid-flight is scary for any pilot. But those who have practiced in similar stations are far more likely to react appropriately. "An individual's life on the ground or in the air may depend on a split second, the slow response which results from seldom, if ever, having accomplished the combination of acts required in a given circumstances may be the deciding factor." You don't want first stall to come at night in poor weather when you have your family in the cabin. Much better to practice stalling in a variety of situations ahead of time the way, when one happens unexpectedly, your reactions can be guided by successful experience & not panic.

Earhart advises that in advance, the solution to many problems can be worked out on paper, "but only experience counts when there is not time to think a process through. The pilot who hasn't stalled a plane is less likely to be able to judge correctly the time & space necessary for recovery than one who has."

If you practice failing every so often, you increase your flexibility & adaptability when life throws obstacles in your way. Of course no amount of preparation will get you through all possible challenges, Earhart's own story is the best example of that. But making deliberate mistakes in order to learn from them is one way to give ourselves optionality when our metaphorical engine stops in midair.

If we don't practice failing, we can only safely fly on sunny days.

How do you deal with difficult moments in life?
- At the moment sometimes/often not so well or as I'd like to!
- From current perspective, I always seem to find myself in one in the near future & it always partly takes me off guard & it feels like I found myself in a new pool of issues & don't often seem to handle it as ideally as I would like.
- A good way to think is once I am encountering failure...in reality & I am on the verge of experiencing one or in the middle of experiencing one, think of things like I am practicing a stunt as a pilot.
- I am therefore training myself how to perfect my stunt given the circumstances, conditions, biases, emotions, variables & more that exist during the experience of a slip up or failure...
- Well I think when my sister is learning how to do a backflip. The more stunts she trains herself that comes close to the reality of how backflip is done, the more stunts she can do without lots of grind (stunts closely related to the skill needed to do a backflip) the more easily & faster she will learn how to & do a backflip. & then she will of coarse have to continue training herself & doing backflips once in a while to not forget the fundamentals needed to keep up with such a skill.
- Similarly, if the goal is to be able to stay temperamentally & emotionally intact specially in times of turbulent times. The more stunts I can do without lots of grind (stunts closely related to the skills needed to stay temperamentally & emotionally intact during such times) the more easily & faster I will learn to stay temperamentally & emotionally stable.
- What does the reality of such turbulent times often look in my reality? Because I've got to replicate & learn to handle failure instead of waiting for one to happen in which case I will probably caught off guard...
- I am less likely to enthusiastically pay attention & learn (have open minded attitude & curiosity) if I get caught off guard & specially if the reality is quite painful to take in at the same time.
- I should therefore practice failure once in a while replicating the dynamics or patterns of failures I've experience in the past & continue to experience to date once in while to help me better navigate one when it comes once again!
- Instead of waiting until I make mistakes that adds up to failure...seeking them out. Deliberately making mistakes that will give me the knowledge & understanding I need to more easily overcome obstacles during future failures.
- Over the last 3 years. Each time I screwed up & failed, I learnt how not to handle things, what not to do.
- If failing is a byproduct of trying to succeed, I need to learn & master how to fail well & deliberately fail without dying, causing too much pain to myself that I break & die or get disabled just the same way my sister needed to intelligently fail & fall to accelerate the rate at which she will learn how to do a backflip.
- Long before failure comes, I do my research, make my plans, get my head straight & try to put all what I know together to prepare for what is ahead. Often, things at some point will diverge & slowly but surely, things don't go as I wish.
- Now I am smart, once the failure is said & done, I reflect on what happened & make note of where or how I could do things better next time. What to improve on...that is.
- The point here is I planned for success... no where from the start did I deliberately work failure into my equation while failure at each & every turn showed up at some point.
- Did I ever deliberately make mistake or failed → To encourage learning? (as a way to learn?) No or at least not as often as needed/desired
- How often have I tried fail in order to learn? (Note, I advised my little sister that she should plan to intelligently feel a little bit of pain as she learns the stunts needed to learn a backflip). In the same way...I've got to intelligently feel pain on my way to mastering my emotions & so on.
- If I want to avoid costly mistakes in the future when the stakes are high, then making some now might be excellent preparation.
- While remaining as close to the territory (the reality of things) as possible...

[Dan Shonka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in Atkinson, Kansas (as part of my quest to play golf in all 50 states), and I discovered it was the birthplace of Amelia Earhart. And they have an excellent little museum in her honor with an equally excellent gift shop. This book was being sold there, it caught my eye, and I purchased it along with 6 or 8 postcards. (Yes, I still send postcards.) All this is to say that this nifty autobiography is informative, insightful and entertaining. Ms. Earhart's humor pops up, but what I found very interesting was how prophetic she was about the future of air travel. This will come as no surprise, but she was also what people today would call a feminist. I thoroughly enjoyed those passages, too. I have granddaughters and great-granddaughters, and I hope someday they will read this book and feel at least a little inspired and empowered by Ms. Earhart's words. Her writing style is smooth and the book moves right along. I recommend it highly. And if you're ever near Atkinson, Kansas (Eastern Kansas), you definitely should pop into the Amelia Earhart Museum. The holograms are very cool (ask how they were made), and the plane (1 of 15 made) housed there is the sibling of the plane Ms. Earhart flew during her ill-fated attempt to fly around the world. (That plane is a beauty and was tricked out in some cutting edge tech when it was made.)

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the title fool you. This is a fascinating living history of women in aviation by someone who was far ahead of her time.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the voice of this book. Earhart has a writing voice that makes it seem like she's just talking. She must have been so full of life.

It's sad thinking of how today I would not be able to accomplish as much as her. She lived such a full life and was able to do so many things in such a short amount of time. I think about how often she was able to switch careers or take classes at college or explore hobbies.

The first 1/3 of the book is great. You learn about her childhood and it shows great insight into how she became the person she was. The rest is about planes and gets pretty intricate with how they work. It really takes you out of the book since the information only makes sense if you have flown a plane.

I wish she had written more about her personal life and less about planes. Which I understand was a large part of her life, but I wish she had talked more about her family.

[Dora · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an AMAZING book and Amelia was even more of an amazing person. She was granted many more opportunities than most women at her time, but she took each and every single one of those opportunities and explored them to the fullest possible extent. Assisting in hospitals during the war. Studying physics in NYC. Doing social work and teaching English to immigrants from other countries. Her attitude in life was even more spectacular and she thoroughly discussed the barriers for women in aviation, as well as all other fields seen as more “masculine”. Also, she so so FUNNY. Literally sitting here laughing out loud at her remarks. Some parts of the book were less exciting but when treated as both a memoir and a short history of women in aviation are made more interesting. I feel like Amelia unfortunately might not be happy with the state of women’s rights worldwide, as well as the gender gap still extremely present in her field. A big reminder of all there still is to work towards.

[Roberta Westwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great!

Another great look at early aviation, and the role women played. She not only chronicles her flights and exploits, but those of other pilots, primarily women. She also talks about the early challenges of flying without location markers above cities (how do you know where you are?!). All very interesting.

Just prior to this, I read Amelia’s book, 20 Hrs. 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship: The American Girl, First Across the Atlantic by Air, Tells Her Story. There is some duplication, but it was easy to resolve. In The Fun of It, I jumped ahead to the chapter called Vagabonding. This starts after the flight on The Friendship.

[Marilyn Ostermiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amelia Earhart earned fame as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932, and became a legend when she, her plane, and her co-pilot disappeared without a trace in 1937. In this book, though, we meet a young woman of boundless energy, who embraced life with everything she had. A generous soul, who was quick to celebrate the accomplishments of other women pioneers. To top it off, she was a darned good writer, too. The only regret I had after devouring her book is that she wasn’t with us decades longer.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amelia is a treasure. I loved this memoir.

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

hey a lot of this went over my head but i’m a big fan and happy to have read her words!

[Sumukh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amelia Earhart isn’t just a really talented pilot, but she’s also an eloquent writer! Her passion for aviation just flies out of each page 😏. This memoir chronicles how she developed her love for aviation, the discrimination she had to face as a woman pursuing the fledgling field in the 1920s, and how she was a champion for women’s rights. It’s a pocket in history that I encourage all aviation lovers to experience.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published when she was about 36, four years before her disappearance.

Well-written and interesting but she shies away from actually recounting her life and thoughts in favor of a brief history of air travel, women in aviation, etc. The smallest chapter is given to her solo Atlantic crossing (Lindbergh wrote an entire book).

[Susanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an autobiography should be like. Honest, warm and friendly story-telling. Not a hint of a shadow writer with a celebrity name plastered on the cover. The stories A.E describes are funny, exciting, sometimes make you gasp and grip the book tighter.

A.E is not a writer in a classical sense but I genuinely enjoyed her autobiography.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great first hand account of life in America in the 1920's-30's. An inside look at innovations in technology, but also a fun look at American lifestyles. Always fascinated with her since I was a kid, I really enjoyed reading something written by Amelia Earhart.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the best written book in the world, but it is from Amelia Earhart's perspective about flying in general and her views of where aviation has been, is, and will be in the future. Not particularly accurate predictions, but somewhat amusing to see what the famous woman thought.

[Evelyn Amaral Garcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it loud to my son who wants to be a pilot. He loved it, it is full of useful information about the pioneers of flight and about women's role in it. Interesting and worth reading, but not a masterpiece.

[Cindy Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title says it all - this book is fun! Earhart has an almost conspiratorial tone here, and I loved how that tone simultaneously humanize a legend and makes clear that yes, she was a Very Big Deal.