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One Summer: America, 1927

Bill Bryson

4.08 · Rating details · 49,139 ratings · 5,303 reviews

In One Summer Bill Bryson, one of our greatest and most beloved nonfiction writers, transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life.

The summer of 1927 began with one of the signature events of the twentieth century: on May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane nonstop, and when he landed in Le Bourget ai In One Summer Bill Bryson, one of our greatest and most beloved nonfiction writers, transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life.

The summer of 1927 began with one of the signature events of the twentieth century: on May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane nonstop, and when he landed in Le Bourget airfield near Paris, he ignited an explosion of worldwide rapture and instantly became the most famous person on the planet. Meanwhile, the titanically talented Babe Ruth was beginning his assault on the home run record, which would culminate on September 30 with his sixtieth blast, one of the most resonant and durable records in sports history. In between those dates a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder and her corset-salesman lover garroted her husband, leading to a murder trial that became a huge tabloid sensation. Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole in Newark, New Jersey, for twelve days—a new record. The American South was clobbered by unprecedented rain and by flooding of the Mississippi basin, a great human disaster, the relief efforts for which were guided by the uncannily able and insufferably pompous Herbert Hoover. Calvin Coolidge interrupted an already leisurely presidency for an even more relaxing three-month vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gangster Al Capone tightened his grip on the illegal booze business through a gaudy and murderous reign of terror and municipal corruption. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed and forever changed the motion picture industry. The four most powerful central bankers on earth met in secret session on a Long Island estate and made a fateful decision that virtually guaranteed a future crash and depression.
All this and much, much more transpired in that epochal summer of 1927, and Bill Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events, and occasional just plain weirdness with his trademark vividness, eye for telling detail, and delicious humor. In that year America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event, and One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order. ...more

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Hardcover, 456 pages

Published October 1st 2013 by Doubleday (first published August 1st 2013)

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Jan 05, 2017 Jim Fonseca rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, history

A non-fiction work centered around events of one particular year but about the 1920’s in general. It’s really a collections of mini-biographies and vignettes of the major players and events of the 1920’a. Fifty photos are included. The two main characters threaded throughout the book whose stories provide a framework for the whole are Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth.

If you read this book, here’s what you’ll get:

Stories of early aviation and how the US was way behind Europe in scheduled commerci ...more

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Jun 03, 2013 Diane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, nonfiction, history

This is a fun and interesting look at America in the 1920s, but specifically the summer of 1927. It is remarkable how much happened in a few short months:

"Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash. Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singer was filmed. Television was created. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flo This is a fun and interesting look at America in the 1920s, but specifically the summer of 1927. It is remarkable how much happened in a few short months:

"Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash. Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singer was filmed. Television was created. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flooded as it never had before. A madman in Michigan blew up a school and killed 44 people in the worst slaughter of children in American history. Henry Ford stopped making the Model T and promised to stop insulting Jews. And a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before. Whatever else it was, it was one hell of a summer."

I've always loved history, and Bryson does a marvelous job of weaving together different stories and putting events in context. For example, Prohibition was still going on in 1927, but Bryson goes back to 1920 and explains how it came about. Or take the story of Charles Lindbergh. Before Bryson covers that first famous flight to France, he gives a brief history of aviation and explains how deadly and dangerous it had been. Those kinds of details really make the book fly, if you'll forgive the pun.

There are so many interesting stories in this book, but here are the Top 5 Things I Learned from One Summer:

1. That Henry Ford was an ignorant jackass. "He was defiantly narrow-minded, barely educated and at least close to functionally illiterate. He did not like bankers, doctors, liquor, tobacco, idleness of any sort, pasteurized milk, Wall Street, overweight people, war, books or reading, J.P. Morgan and Co., capital punishment, tall buildings, college graduates, Roman Catholics or Jews."

2. How ridiculous Prohibition was, and that it lasted for 13 years! "The 1920s was in many ways the most strange and wondrous decade in American history, and nothing made it more so than Prohibition. It was easily the most extreme, ill-judged, costly, and ignored experiment in social engineering ever conducted by an otherwise rational nation... It made criminals out of honest people and actually led to an increase in the amount of drinking in the country."

3. That Babe Ruth was a hot mess. "The most brilliant, headstrong, undisciplined, lovable, thrillingly original, ornery son of a bitch that ever put on a baseball uniform."

4. How widespread bigotry was. "Of all the labels that were applied to the 1920s -- the Jazz Age, the Roaring 20s, the Age of Ballyhoo, the Era of Wonderful Nonsense -- one that wasn't used but perhaps should have been was the Age of Loathing. There may never have been another time in the nation's history when more people disliked more other people from more directions and for less reason."

5. The incredible impact that American films had, especially after talking pictures were created. "Moviegoers around the world suddenly found themselves exposed, often for the first time, to American voices, American vocabulary, American cadence and pronunciation and word order. Spanish conquistadores, Elizabethan courtiers, figures from the Bible were suddenly speaking in American voices — and not just occasionally but in film after film after film. The psychological effect of this, particularly on the young, can hardly be overstated. With American speech came American thoughts, American attitudes, American humor and sensibilities. Peacefully, by accident, and almost unnoticed, America had just taken over the world."

I listened to 70 percent of this book on audio CD, and then my car CD player broke. While I enjoyed finishing up with a printed copy, I did miss Bryson's voice. If you like audiobooks, I highly recommend his narrations.

I've lost track of how many Bill Bryson books I've read, but it's never enough. I love his humorous and clever style, and I hope he keeps writing for several more decades. ...more

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Jul 12, 2016 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-history, aviation, american-presidents, crime, sports

There are some very obvious qualities to look for when choosing a history book. Accuracy is one thing. You want the facts to be factual. Analysis is another. You want there to be some meaning to the facts presented.

Storytelling, though. Storytelling is the thing. And it’s hard to find.

So often in my reading, I’ve found that narrative takes a backseat to academic qualities such as primary source sifting. It’s a shame, because I think storytelling is the paramount quality of a good history book. ...more

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Oct 10, 2013 Kemper rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2013, non-fiction, usa-usa, history

If you think that you had a busy summer, consider 1927:

Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic and became a national hero. Babe Ruth broke his own home run record on a Yankees club that would be remembered as one of the best baseball teams ever assembled. The Midwest was devastated by extensive flooding and the Secretary of Commerce Hebert Hoover was in charge of recovery efforts. A routine murder trial in New York became a media sensation for reasons no one can explain. Sacco and Vanzetti were e If you think that you had a busy summer, consider 1927:

Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic and became a national hero. Babe Ruth broke his own home run record on a Yankees club that would be remembered as one of the best baseball teams ever assembled. The Midwest was devastated by extensive flooding and the Secretary of Commerce Hebert Hoover was in charge of recovery efforts. A routine murder trial in New York became a media sensation for reasons no one can explain. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed and sparked outrage around the world. Prohibition was still in effect but that didn’t stop Al Capone’s criminal empire from reaching the height of its power.

Capone also attended a boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney that would captivate the nation and still be controversial today. A young engineer with the awesome name of Philo T. Farnsworth made a critical breakthrough that would lead to the development of television, and another entertainment milestone occurred when the first full length motion picture with sound began filming. After building 15 million Model Ts, Henry Ford’s company ceased production and began creating the Model A. In South Dakota, the work of carving four president’s faces into Mount Rushmore began. Last but not least, four bankers had a meeting in which they made a decision that would eventually start the Great Depression.

And yet Bryan Adams picked another summer to immortalize in song…

Bill Bryson’s book is packed with the details of these events and many more along with plenty of related stories and anecdotes. It should read like a trivia book of 1927 factoids, but what makes it more than that is the deft way that Bryson establishes the history of what came before as well as the long term impact. For example, he doesn’t just tell the story of Lindbergh’s historic flight and of his subsequent fame, he also lays out in a succinct manner how America had been trailing the world in aviation up until that point as well as how it changed things afterwards.

It’s that context that makes this more than just a list of events, and he also goes to some effort to add depth in several places like describing how horrifyingly racist American society was in those days with the Ku Klux Klan enjoying a reemergence while even supposedly high-brow publications like The New Yorker would casually use ethnic slurs. By the time he tells the readers about how outlandish eugenics theories became influential which resulted in tens of thousands of people being legally sterilized in the United States, the reader can understand all too well how it could happen in that kind of environment.

In fact, one of the things that jumped out at me about this is that most of the popular figures of 1927 were basically assholes. Charles Lindbergh's boyish good lucks and piloting skill got the press to overlook that he was about as interesting as white bread, and he’d show a nasty streak of anti-Semitism later in his life that would severely tarnish his image. Henry Ford was also a notorious anti-Semite, and he was also the kind of ignoramus that despised people with educations or scientific background. His refusal to consult any types of experts led him to waste millions on schemes like trying to start a rubber plantation in South America and shutting down his assembly lines to retool for the Model A with no clear plan as to what exactly they’d build. (After reading about Ford‘s stubborn mistakes, I can’t believe the Ford Motor Company managed to survive long enough to make it to the Great Depression, let alone still be in business today.)

Herbert Hoover led a life that should have made him one of America’s most fascinating presidents. He was a self-made success story who had traveled the world as a mining consultant and was credited with a relief effort that fed millions in Europe during World War I. Yet he seemed to take no pleasure in anything other than work and one long time acquaintance noted that he never heard him laugh once in 30 years. Calvin Coolidge believed so much in limiting the role of government that he spent most of his presidency napping and would refuse to take even the most of innocuous of actions like endorsing a national week of recognition for the importance of education.

It’s funny that since the book describes so many people as either being unlikable, unethical or downright criminal that one of the few that seems decent was Babe Ruth. While all of the Babe’s bad habits are laid out here, he also comes across as one of the few that did what he was good at with an exuberant zest for life and generous spirit that was sadly lacking in many of his contemporaries. The guy may have enjoyed his food, liquor and women to excess, but he never hid who he was. Plus, he was fun at parties!

Bryson’s look at the events, large and small, that made up one pivotal summer is an interesting read that provides a clear window to the past while being highly entertaining. ...more

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Jun 25, 2015 Jason Koivu rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, non-fiction, sports, travel

I know I'm Johnny-come-lately on the Bill Bryson bandwagon, but I am fast becoming a full-fledged fanclub member!

Honestly, I'd read just about anything that dude wrote. In fact, if I can convince him to write my obituary, I'm going to throw myself in front of a bus the first chance I get just so I can read it!

The title of One Summer: America, 1927 explains pretty clearly what's between the covers. And oh boy, what a whole heck of a lot happened that year! Here's some of the highlights >>>

Charle ...more

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Dec 22, 2019 W rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This book covers a lot of subjects.Some of it was interesting and sometimes I found my attention wandering.

Bryson starts off with the hazards of the early days of aviation.Then he tells the story of Charles Lindbergh,the flight to Paris that made him a hero and the public's obsession with him,on his return.

Also,the later part of his life,when he went through personal tragedy,his advocacy for eugenics,and his sympathies for Nazi Germany.It is an interesting story.

There is also a good deal about b ...more

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Sep 04, 2014 Carmen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone Interested in American History

Recommended to Carmen by: Don

Shelves: non-fiction, published2013, he-says, traditionally-published, american-author

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Insert Snake Plissken gif here]

Bill Bryson takes a look at almost everything going on in the summer of 1927. Think Sacco and Vanzetti, Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, the invention of TV and talkies, Coolidge, Hoover, and Henry Ford.

What struck me most about this book is that the things going on in 1927 aren't that much different than the things going on today.

In the autumn of 1927 [Hoover's] opponents, of whom there were many, began ...more

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Aug 17, 2013 Mike rated it it was amazing

Only one man could take Charles Lindbergh's 1927 transatlantic flight, Babe Ruth's record setting home runs, the worst flooding in US History, a surprise announcement by President Coolidge, the execution of two Italian anarchists, the introduction of taking motion pictures, television and the electric chair and dozens of other totally unrelated events that happened during the Summer of 1927 and connect the dots. Of course, I'm talking about Des Moines' own, Bill Bryson.

Several years ago I picked ...more

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Jun 17, 2020 Sam Quixote rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Bill Bryson’s written another fantastic book though this time it’s not about his ramblings across our planet but a very specific point in history where numerous astonishing and world-changing events took place: the summer of 1927 in America.

It’s primarily about Charles Lindbergh and his plane The Spirit of St Louis crossing the Atlantic in a single flight for the first time. Bryson provides a truncated biography of Lindbergh and his family as well as the background circumstances of the flight a ...more

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Aug 23, 2013 Larry Bassett rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Bill Bryson fans

Shelves: nonfiction, history

It has been a long time since I have read a Bill Bryson book so when I happened upon an opportunity to win an ARC of One Summer: America, 1927, I jumped at the chance. Bryson is nothing if not prolific. He cranks them out. C-SPAN’s Book TV has an eight minute interview with him about his most recent effort: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEx_GC...

Since I received the ARC of One Summer just a month before publication, I was not able to read the entire 448 page book prior to its publication. But I ...more

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Jul 04, 2013 Dedra rated it it was amazing

A five star review from an avowed fiction reader for a non fiction book is pretty rare. But this book kept me just as enthralled as a great novel. What a summer 1927 was and what a storyteller Bill Bryson is! From the fascinating little known facts about Charles Lindbergh's flight (and all the disastrous attempts before him) that I had to read aloud to my husband saying, "Did you know this?" to the gossipy stories about Babe Ruth, Calvin Coolidge and some really stupid murderers, I couldn't put ...more

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Nov 07, 2017 Miranda Reads rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobook

When I picked this up, I had no idea that it would be so interesting

We travel forwards and backwards in history but all events converged to a significant moment during 1927. Unlike A Short History of Nearly Everything or At Home: A Short History of Private Life where Bill Bryson looks into the full picture behind centuries of research, we have an account in extreme detail about regarding a single year.

We have Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic - a person whose fame started in 1927 and who' ...more

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Nov 07, 2013 Paula rated it liked it

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I gave it 3 stars because I did like the wealth of information in the book. But I felt like that information was presented in a very disjointed way. Going month by month was OK, but I felt like the titles on the sections were misleading--I was expecting a whole section to be about the section heading--not so. And all the little "aside" stories thrown in were interesting, even if not familiar, but also seemed to just pop up anywhere in the book. Maybe I ...more

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Aug 13, 2022 Jessaka rated it it was ok

Note. Read my last update to see Bryson's mistakes. But ignore my own mistakes.

This is a book club read , and I have 30 days to read it so I have 30 days to write this review. I am taking notes so that I will have something to say when I get to our group, otherwise I will have forgotten everything. Update. I finished the book so I will do my review now.

Airplanes are a new invention. A man who is a fascist Is flying his airplane around the world , So when he gets to the Arizona desert he lands th Note. Read my last update to see Bryson's mistakes. But ignore my own mistakes.

This is a book club read , and I have 30 days to read it so I have 30 days to write this review. I am taking notes so that I will have something to say when I get to our group, otherwise I will have forgotten everything. Update. I finished the book so I will do my review now.

Airplanes are a new invention. A man who is a fascist Is flying his airplane around the world , So when he gets to the Arizona desert he lands the plane. People gather around him in excitement. A man in this group of admires throws his cigarette butft Into a body of water that has gasoline in it, unknown to this man. The water with the gasoline ignites and soon the plain is on fire. This was exciting. Still I am only going to give it 1 star.....

Babe Ruth who is a famous baseball star is also famous for sleeping With any woman near him. It doesn't matter where or when , except I don't think he did it on the baseball field. Deduct the 1 star because this is too
much information for me.

Also I said in my 1st paragraph, I finished the book. It gets 2 stars from me. I just don't care for Bill Bryson. And what I don't like about him is, he makes fun of everybody in every country. This is the second book I have read of his that is on the United States. The 1st 1 bothered me also.

Our book group was told by the facilitator that this book is a lot like what is going on in America today. No, It is not.. What is going on in America today is far worse then what happened in 1927. So, what bill Bryson is talking about is the racism in America. Deja Vu. Then he talks about eugenics And how many in America believed that they would like to do what Hitler eventually did after learning What we wanted to do.

And, that is what this book is about. I know that bill Bryson did a lot of research for this book, or he had someone else to do it for him... I know this because I was listening to the books that he had referenced, fell asleep, and When I woke up this was still going on.

Hasn't America done some good things? Yes, we have. We have always been a country Of immigrants, and no matter what the race or religion people were allowed to become Americans. We also have made great strides in Human rights.

Update. What Bryson didn't learn about Eugenics is that there were enough Americans that were against it, so they were able to stop it. Also we did not export Eugenics Germany had already started it. I learned this from reading Imbeciles by COHEN. ...more

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Aug 09, 2020 Negin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: history fans - specifically baseball fans

Shelves: usa

Bill Bryson fans seem to be divided into two groups. Those who prefer his fact-based books versus those who prefer his travelogues. I fall into the latter group. I am obsessed with his travelogues and plan on re-reading them all again, even though they’re quite dated. Some of those have made me laugh to the point of tears. I’ve really wanted to love his fact-based books, such as this one. I’m not there yet, but I haven’t given up. There are still a few more that I wouldn’t mind trying.

This book ...more

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Sep 27, 2014 Carol rated it it was ok

Shelves: book-group-reads, non-fiction

One Summer America, 1927is clearly not a walk in the woods but a lazy stroll down memory lane. You may not know everyone who has a role in these pages but you're bound to be familiar with at least a few. Lindbergh, Hoover, Coolidge, Sacco and Vanzetti, Babe Ruth, and Sikorsky. Bryson gives us a tease on some and more detail on others. Unfortunately he jumps all over the place in these histories even though all his characters have something to do with that one summer. It's a a bit confusing and m ...more

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Jul 11, 2013 Sam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

In his first major book published in 1989, Bill Bryson took a roadtrip around the United States in his mother's aged car. His account of 1980s America was honest, biting, and pee-your-pants funny. Yet looking back on that early book from the vantage of Bryson's more recent works, one is surprised to remember just how cynical Bill Bryson used to be. The 1989 book on America was titled "The Lost Continent." Now, in 2013, Bryson seems to have finally found the United States in his newest labor, One In his first major book published in 1989, Bill Bryson took a roadtrip around the United States in his mother's aged car. His account of 1980s America was honest, biting, and pee-your-pants funny. Yet looking back on that early book from the vantage of Bryson's more recent works, one is surprised to remember just how cynical Bill Bryson used to be. The 1989 book on America was titled "The Lost Continent." Now, in 2013, Bryson seems to have finally found the United States in his newest labor, One Summer: America, 1927.

The book (which is released everywhere in October) takes stock of a giant range of subjects representative of the diversity of America itself. The common thread that bind Bryson's topics together are their coalescence in America between May and September of 1927. Most time is devoted to a handful of particularly important events: Charles Lindbergh's famous achievement and the early days of transatlantic flight; Babe Ruth's record-breaking season that changed baseball forever; the great Mississippi Floods; the Sacco and Vanzetti trial that altered opinions of America worldwide; the beginnings of Mount Rushmore; Calvin Coolidge's odd and surprising presidential choices; and scads of other bits and bobs from the roaring twenties. From the booming cinema industry to the poor decisions made by a select few bankers on Long Island that led to the Great Depression, Bryson explores how the seemingly random events of the summer changed our history. Bryson covers impressive ground here. Much research and consideration obviously went into this project. In the hands of most other writers, such a book might lose cohesion. Bryson deftly bounces from one topic to another, elegantly imbricating his many narrative snapshots, until they ultimately form a full picture of "one hell of a summer" that perhaps shaped world history more than any other of the twentieth century.

As with all his 2000s work (A Short History of Nearly Everything, Thunderbolt Kid, At Home), One Summer delivers fewer of the snort-out-loud moments on each page that his earlier travel writing traded in. While his 1990s books never shied from sophomoric views in order to achieve big belly laughs, here Bryson paints with a finer brush. We have a more sedate, cerebral Bryson, a wiser man tired of yelling and jabbing at the world's woes and absurdities, who instead leans back and surveys our history with a light grin and marveling chuckle. Yet Bryson still has a contagious and giddy delight in the obscure and astonishing facts of our world, and his matured voice, which he has finally perfected in this decade, is charm and ease itself.

As always, I can't wait for what Bill Bryson will come out with next. ...more

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Oct 17, 2013 David Sherwood rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I have always been a fan of Mr. Bryson. He writes with a friendly, witty style that I really like. I also admire him for what he has done for my country (England), in terms of protecting its rural landscapes and history.

It is not easy for me to criticize a Bill Bryson book, but with "One Summer: America 1927", I have not got past the prologue before sadly putting the book down.

The reason, Mr. Bryson has made two statements I think are misleading when there is no reason to do so.

Page 17, Paragra I have always been a fan of Mr. Bryson. He writes with a friendly, witty style that I really like. I also admire him for what he has done for my country (England), in terms of protecting its rural landscapes and history.

It is not easy for me to criticize a Bill Bryson book, but with "One Summer: America 1927", I have not got past the prologue before sadly putting the book down.

The reason, Mr. Bryson has made two statements I think are misleading when there is no reason to do so.

Page 17, Paragraph 2, sentence 2. Mr. Bryson writes - "The development of air-cooled engines - America's one outstanding contribution to aviation technology in the period".

Air cooled engines were in use from the start of powered flight and used in great numbers throughout the First World war. What Mr. Bryson means is the development of the radial engine, which was much more reliable than previous engines. I agree, it was a pivotal moment. The only problem here is that the breakthrough was done by Professor A.H. Gibson and Samuel D. Heron, who, under the auspices of the British Royal Aircraft Factory, came up with the breakthrough design of the aluminium, cast cylinder head and cooling fins and cast iron or steel -sleeved cylinder linings. Please see http://www.enginehistory.org/air-cool... for full details.

The second issue regards the description of Alcock and Brown's Vickers Vimy aircraft. On Page 15, Paragraph 3, Sentence 2, Mr. Bryson describes the Vimy as "little more than a box-kite with a motor".

The Vimy was a twin-engined heavy bomber that went into service in late 1918 -1919, too late to see action in WW1. It was capable of carrying a 2,400lb bomb load. While the aircraft is very much of its time, it certainly was not "a box-kite" and it had more than one motor!
See http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircra... for details.

Some may think I am being very picky, I might agree, were it not for the fact that I am certain there is much in the book that, unlike aviation history, I do not know. After reading the Prologue, I am left with the feeling that if I carry on, I am being spun a yarn. That much of what I am reading is probably not quite true, light on detail or to use modern parlance, had a spin put on it. What is believable and what is not?

Yes, I like Mr. Bryson's take on things and for a travelogue that is fine. For a book that covers living history, I, for one, need to know that what I am reading is being presented accurately. It may have a personal take on it, fine, but do I want to carry on and read a book I can no longer trust, to be a reasonably accurate portrayal of events? I'll let you know ...more

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Jan 23, 2014 Goran Skrobonja rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

OK,this is the 5th Bill Bryson's book I translated to Serbian (the previous ones being A Short History of Almost Everything, Made In America, At Home and Down Under) and I am delighted again. Once there was a series of thin volumes called "Bluff Your Way" or "Bluffer's Guide to..." covering a wide range of themes with sparse facts and humorous approach; well, Bryson uses the similar formula in his non-travelogue titles like this one, but with more ambition, more research and definitely more humo ...more

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Sep 24, 2015 James rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A definite return to form for Bryson after the disappointing 'At Home - A Short History of Private Life'.

Who would have thought that there was so much happening in one country in one year? Written with Bryson's more than usual trademark wit and with his skill of telling otherwise forgotten, obscure or neglected stories in an entertaining, informative and engaging way.

As usual he conveys these stories (connected more of less by the year 1927) with his usual his wide-eyed delivery - sharing his fa ...more

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May 20, 2017 David Rubenstein rated it liked it

Recommended to David by: Jim Fonseca

Shelves: history, nonfiction

Content: 5 stars
Audio Book: 1 star

This is a fun, entertaining book by a great author. Bill Bryson has put together a set of intermingled stories about the big stories during the summer of 1927. These stories include Charles Lindbergh, his solo flight across the Atlantic and the aftermath, Al Capone and his brief career as the top mobster in Chicago, the story of prohibition, the flooding of the Mississippi River, the Yankees and their home-run hitters Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the trials of Sacc Content: 5 stars
Audio Book: 1 star

This is a fun, entertaining book by a great author. Bill Bryson has put together a set of intermingled stories about the big stories during the summer of 1927. These stories include Charles Lindbergh, his solo flight across the Atlantic and the aftermath, Al Capone and his brief career as the top mobster in Chicago, the story of prohibition, the flooding of the Mississippi River, the Yankees and their home-run hitters Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti, the building of Mt. Rushmore, and many others.

The stories do not begin in 1927. Instead, Bryson gives the context into which each story played. Sometimes this required backing up to a decade or more, to give the relevant history. For example, Babe Ruth did not suddenly appear on the scene in 1927, nor did Charles Lindbergh suddenly become an aviator. (By the way, Charles Lindbergh's exploit took advantage of his excellent navigation skills.)

In Bryson's hands, each story becomes a fascinating marvel, so well told, with a tone of understatement instead of over-the-top hype. Unlike his travel books, this book is not humorous. There are no crazy jokes, no sarcasm. Instead, the book is a steady stream of interesting history, constructed so as to keep your attention riveted.

So, given that it is such a good book, why do I give it only three stars? Well, I didn't read this book--I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by the author. Bill Bryson has a very pleasant voice, so shouldn't I enjoy the audiobook? Maybe, but this voice is very soft, and worse yet, he speaks in an uneven volume, alternating a normal volume with an almost inaudible volume. But, that is not the worst of it. Random House Audio, the book's publisher, produced a set of audio files that were recorded at a very low volume. It is obvious that Random House Audio has some very very poorly-trained recording engineers. I used the software program "Audacity" to check on the volume level, and saw that the waveform could be increased by 8 or 9 decibels without fear of much clipping. Wow! Random House Audio, you can do a much better job!! ...more

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Apr 29, 2014 Arminius rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

1927 has to be one of the most fascinating years in American history. Americans were rich and hungered for celebrities. The first celebrity status was thrown on to an unwillingly participant Charles Lindbergh. His flight across the Atlantic made him the most famous man in the world. Wherever he would fly huge crowds would await to see him. In fact, his appearance at the National Mall in Washington D.C attracted the largest crowd to ever gather there.

Also, Babe Ruth changed Baseball by producing 1927 has to be one of the most fascinating years in American history. Americans were rich and hungered for celebrities. The first celebrity status was thrown on to an unwillingly participant Charles Lindbergh. His flight across the Atlantic made him the most famous man in the world. Wherever he would fly huge crowds would await to see him. In fact, his appearance at the National Mall in Washington D.C attracted the largest crowd to ever gather there.

Also, Babe Ruth changed Baseball by producing more home runs than anyone else had. In 1927 Ruth set a record by hitting 60 homeruns in one season. He along with first basemen Lou Gehrig led the Yankees to a 110 win season and a sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. This team is generally regarded as baseball’s greatest team.

1927 also saw one of boxings most memorable happenings. Boxing heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey lost his title to relatively unknown but talented former light heavyweight champion Gene Tunney. In the much anticipated rematch what is known as “the long count” occurred. Dempsey, after being badly beaten through the 7th round of the fight, landed a vicious hook on Tunney’s jaw. Tunney dropped but the referee refused to count until Dempsey moved to a neutral corner. This gave Tunney extra recovery time and on the count of nine he stood up continued the fight and easily outpointed Dempsey to retain the title.

Henry Ford is described as a bungler in the book. He stopped production of his famed Model T automobile in 1927 to produce a new model called the Model A. However, he closed all production of the Model T before he even started production of the Model A. This allowed General Motors to overtake Ford Sales, a status it never relinquished. In one of the Ford’s other foolish moves he established a community in the jungles of Brazil modeled after a typical American community in order to produce his own rubber cheaply for Ford tires. The very harsh conditions caused this ridiculous effort to fail and wasted millions of dollars of Ford’s money.

A secret meeting was held in New York of the world’s banking leaders Hjalmar Scacht of Germany, Benjamin Strong Americas New York’s Federal Reserve Chairman, Montagu Norman of England and Charles Rist of France met and decided to lower interest rates which inflated the stock market and according to the author indirectly led to the crash that occurred later.

I admire the American ingenuity and brilliance of the people of the 1920’s. However there were plenty of crack pots as well. For example, a man known as Shipwreck Kelly would climb to the top of a flag pole and just sit there in what was appropriately known as flag pole sitting. A more sinister man by the name of Wayne Wheeler headed the Anti Saloon league. He insisted that alcohol be denatured which made it poisonous, and blurted that “those who drank it and died deserved what they got.”

A more shocking event occurred in a Supreme Court Ruling. In an 8 to 1 ruling the Court decided that Carrie Buck was of such “feeble mind" that she should be sterilized. Remarkably this court possessed such giants of the day as Oliver Wendell Holmes, former President William Howard Taft and liberal icon Louis Brandeis. The only dissent came from Justice Pierce Butler. This ruling gave the states the right to perform surgery on healthy people against their will.

I could go on with story after story but this review would be too large then so I will leave it this. I will just end this with this book was fantastic.
...more

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Jan 03, 2014 Marvin Fein rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: no one

Could be the dullest accumulation of facts ever put into 456 pages. Bryson may have other successes but he was greatly in need of an editor with real guts on this one.

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Jul 31, 2014 Ms.pegasus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone interested in history

Recommended to Ms.pegasus by: my husband

Shelves: nonfiction, history

What could possibly go wrong? Bryson chooses 1927 as the nexus of a decade unimpeded by such a simple question. As the 38 story Sherry-Netherland apartment building was being completed, it never occurred to the builders that fire hoses of the time had a range of a mere 4 stories. Of course the building caught fire. Fortunately, renters had not yet moved in. New Yorkers were always up for some lively entertainment, and the Plaza Hotel across the street was quickly filled with well-heeled spectato What could possibly go wrong? Bryson chooses 1927 as the nexus of a decade unimpeded by such a simple question. As the 38 story Sherry-Netherland apartment building was being completed, it never occurred to the builders that fire hoses of the time had a range of a mere 4 stories. Of course the building caught fire. Fortunately, renters had not yet moved in. New Yorkers were always up for some lively entertainment, and the Plaza Hotel across the street was quickly filled with well-heeled spectators attending “fire parties” that night. In September of the previous year, René Fonk hastily took off in his Sikorsky built plane in a quest to win the Orteig prize. Here is Bryson's description: “Fonck now showed no common sense in regard to preparations. First, to Sikorsky's despair, he insisted on going before the plane was adequately tested. Next, and even worse, he grossly overloaded it. He packed extra fuel, an abundance of emergency equipment, two kinds of radios, spare clothes, presents for friends and supporters, and lots to eat and drink, including wine and champaigne. He even packed a dinner of terrapin, turkey, and duck to be prepared and eaten after reaching Paris, as if France could not be counted on to feed them. Altogether the plane when loaded weighed twenty-eight thousand pounds, far more than it was designed, or probably able, to lift.” (p.9) The simple problem of take-off appears not to have crossed Fonck's mind. Finally, there was the cascade of unintended consequences from the passage of Prohibition in 1919. To prevent scofflaws from imbibing alcohol manufactured for industrial purposes, the U.S. Government authorized lacing this supply with various poisonous substances like strychnine and mercury. One source that Bryson cites claims that 11,700 people died in 1927 from being poisoned by their own government. Yes, what could go wrong?

Today, certain catch-phrases adhere about the '20's, the product of a whirlwind survey of American history. “Keep Cool with Coolidge,” “Yankee Stadium – The House That Ruth Built,” the “Long Count” in the Dempsey-Tunney fight, “Lucky Lindy,” and of course the all-encompassing “Roaring Twenties.” Bryson gives substance to these tags. Lindbergh, for example, hated the name “Lucky Lindy”, and with good reason. He was a meticulous planner and skillful pilot in an age when so many trusted to luck. The list of pilots who either vanished or crashed is astonishing. Baseball was in a downward trajectory until Babe Ruth ignited it with his spectacular record of hits, RBI's and home runs. 1919 was the year of the “Black Sox” scandal. In 1920 Ruth his 54 home runs; in 1921 he hit 59 home runs. Bryson states simply: “He didn't just transform the game, he very possibly saved it.” (p.125)

Bryson's book is also a reminder of how quickly we forget. Few people are unacquainted with the noir novel by James Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice. The novel was based on the notorious (and comic for its ineptitude) Snyder-Gray murder case. We also forget the near hysteria Lindbergh inspired on his return. The mobs of enthusiasts and souvenir hunters would have stripped him of every inch of clothing and trampled him to death if left unimpeded. If it was the golden age of newspapers, it was also the ascendancy of the tabloids. One particularly successful and pictorially inventive paper was The Graphic, which The New Yorker called a “grotesque fungus.” (p.30) Most shocking to me was the popularity of the idea of eugenics. Proponents of its many variations included Henry Ford, Herbert Hoover, Margaret Sanger and Charles Lindbergh. The abundance of proposals make Hitler's beliefs sound almost mainstream. Bryson wryly observes: “Nearly everyone had an especially dreaded race.” (p.362)

ONE SUMMER goes behind the headlines of 1927. Bryson is a masterful stylist; he describes an age of reckless enthusiasms and stunning disregard for facts with memorable verve and wit. ...more

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Jun 17, 2014 Brandon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2014

With the summer of 1927 being one of America’s most historic, celebrated non-fiction writer Bill Bryson took a long, hard look at everything that went down that year in his acclaimed 2013 release, One Summer: America, 1927. Events covered include:

- Charles Lindbergh becoming the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone in an airplane – without stopping for refueling or for navigational purposes.

- The sensationalization of crime and the rise of the tabloid.

- Babe Ruth breaking his own record f With the summer of 1927 being one of America’s most historic, celebrated non-fiction writer Bill Bryson took a long, hard look at everything that went down that year in his acclaimed 2013 release, One Summer: America, 1927. Events covered include:

- Charles Lindbergh becoming the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone in an airplane – without stopping for refueling or for navigational purposes.

- The sensationalization of crime and the rise of the tabloid.

- Babe Ruth breaking his own record for home runs in a single season.

- The beginning of the downfall of ruthless mobster and bootlegger Al Capone.

- A meeting among financial minds that ultimately planted the seeds for the legendary stock market crash of 1929.

- The debut of the first "talking picture" exploding out of Hollywood.

..and so much more!

I had such a tremendous experience with Blake J. Harris’ Console Wars that I began seeking out other acclaimed non-fiction to digest. On a routine trip to the local bookstore, I spotted Bryson’s One Summer and decided to give it a shot.

I learned so much from this book! Did you know that the only reason the steering wheel was shifted from the right side of the car to the left so that the “lady of the home” could avoid stepping onto the road? Were you aware that Henry Ford was an ignorant anti-semite? I sure didn’t. In fact, it seemed most people were anti-semites as racism and bigotry ran wild during the roaring twenties.

Of all the subjects studied, I found Henry Ford to be the most fascinating. A giant egotist, the man frequently shunned advice from anyone who claimed to be an expert in any given field. One of his biggest blunders involved completely stopping production on his immensely popular car the Model T to concentrate on designing and producing his next creation, the Model A. The only problem? He didn’t know what the Model A was. He completely shut down operations without a clue on what he would manufacture. This led to massive job losses and a huge decline in business (no cars to sell=no revenue).

His other ridiculous idea involved buying a huge chunk of land in South America and creating a model American community that would produce the rubber required for his vehicles. Dubbed “Fordlandia”, the venture failed spectacularly. He seemingly did zero research into the climate and location and appointed dangerously under-qualified men to oversee the operation. How the Ford Motor Company survived is astounding.

One of the biggest obstacles with writing non-fiction has to be getting the flow or style right. Obviously Bryson has a wealth of experience with writing non-fiction, but I’m sure it’s always a delicate balance when trying to stay somewhere between page turning prose and blatantly regurgitating facts. While Bryson does a fine job, there were still moments (albeit few) when I found my mind wandering and skimming over long patches of information without digesting anything. Bryson has clearly done his research so there’s a wealth of knowledge crammed into a tight four hundred plus pages – probably why it took me a few weeks to get through the book. It’s a style that I find is best absorbed in small bursts.

That being said, I had such a great time with this book that I picked up two of Bryson’s earlier releases (A Short History of Nearly Everything and At Home: A Short History of Private Life) this weekend while on vacation. I look forward to reading more of what he has to offer.

Also posted @ Every Read Thing ...more

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Aug 13, 2013 Jaylia3 rated it it was amazing

Bill Bryson is a writer who could make anything fascinating and he really shines in this book. I had no idea the summer of 1927 was so noteworthy, but it turns out a bunch of remarkable people were involved in a lot of impressive and/or notorious activities, including Al Capone, Babe Ruth, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Herbert Hoover, and a host of others--some of whom I’d never heard of. Due to personal preferences parts of the book interested me more than others, but Bryson’s skill as a story ...more

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Jan 22, 2014 Suzanne rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: anyone interested in the 1920s

Shelves: history, non-fiction

Charles Lindbergh’s solo transatlantic flight from Long Island to Paris launches this book and author Bill Bryson describes the insane levels of global celebrity and adoration Lindbergh achieved by winning the distinction of being the first person to cross a major ocean by air. It was a little like Beatlemania, only with one guy and no music.

One Summer: America, 1927 is a social history of the United States in the year 1927, organized around the famous personalities of the day and their accomp Charles Lindbergh’s solo transatlantic flight from Long Island to Paris launches this book and author Bill Bryson describes the insane levels of global celebrity and adoration Lindbergh achieved by winning the distinction of being the first person to cross a major ocean by air. It was a little like Beatlemania, only with one guy and no music.

One Summer: America, 1927 is a social history of the United States in the year 1927, organized around the famous personalities of the day and their accomplishments that year, with plenty of back-story for context and entertainment. Bryson’s amusing and often witty writing style was a bonus.

Babe Ruth, who was raised in a group home where his father dumped him at age 7, is profiled as a lusty, beloved, and extraordinarily talented athlete. The history and rise of baseball as the great American pastime is chronicled, along with the invention of the hot dog and career highlights of the other major league baseball players of that era such as Ty Cobb and Lou Gehric. There are also quite a lot of stories about the popular sport of boxing and Jack Dempsey and other major fighters. And everybody got to listen to the events no matter where they were because of this new-fangled thing called radio. It was all the rage. While the sports scores and statistics were a bit much for me, I admit I got a little misty at the end of Gehric’s career.

There was also some history about the early development of television, who invented it and who took all the credit for inventing it. Poor Philo Farnsworth totally got screwed.

Bryson writes of the staid and somber President Calvin Coolidge; his predecessor, the more genial but scandal-plagued Warren Harding; the genesis of Herbert Hoover’s career; and the resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan, along with the emergence of the ‘science’ of eugenics to justify rising waves of bigotry. Major natural disasters, like floods along the Mississippi, plagued the land, as well as man-made ones such as Prohibition, the stupidest government experiment of all time. It worked out well for a lot of criminals though. Al Capone did quite well for himself in this climate and the corruption in Chicago that enabled him and others like him to thrive was so extreme as to be almost comical. I learned that the person who came up with the strategy to finally catch Capone on charges that would stick, after all else had failed, was a woman, Mabel Walker Willebrandt, then U.S. Assistant Attorney General.

I also learned that Henry Ford was a very strange man. Another strange set of billionaires, back when a billion was actually worth something, were the inseparable brothers Oris and Mantis Swearingen whose leveraged buyouts in real estate and railroads made them on paper, very , very wealthy -- until the crash of 1929, after which they died with about $6,000 between them. There is back-story about back room dealings between high level financiers that set up the conditions for the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.

Among other topics the book covers are the rise of radical labor movement between the wars and the controversial trials and executions of the accused radicals Sacco and Vancetti. This gives Bryson an opportunity to bring in the development of electrocution as a means of dispatching criminals convicted of capital crimes and profile the man who came to be New York State’s official executioner. This was one Robert Elliot, who had been promoted from the position of electrician, who is supposed to have perfected the technique of utilizing just the right amount of current to fry people both lethally and humanely.

Of course the movie business was jumping in 1927, with 100 million tickets sold every week. Huge and elaborate theaters were built in all major cities, but both the exhibition and productions side of the business were struggling. The economics of the movie business were such that, after the end of block booking, the industry was both ‘hugely successful and gravely imperiled at the same time.’ 1927 was the year of ‘Wings,’ the first-ever Best Picture winner, called here ‘one of the most intelligent, moving and thrilling motion pictures ever made’; it was directed by a WWI combat pilot vet, with more realistic air-combat sequences than had ever been seen before. It was also the year of Al Jolson’s ‘The Jazz Singer’ that changed movies forever. It was the zenith of Clara Bow’s career, a charismatic actress who was both hardworking (35 movies in five years) and ‘dazzlingly promiscuous’ (no exact count given).

One Summer: America, 1927 was educational and entertaining. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the era.

...more

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Mar 02, 2017 Sheri rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

Oh Bill, Bill, Bill, how I wish you were my uncle. I would love to have dinner and sit around and just listen to you talk and tell stories. Every time I read a Bryson book I am amazed at his easy going, funny tone coupled with research. I'm sure he does not actually sound this great in conversation, but boy can he write a nonfiction book.

Seriously, he manages to teach a bunch of stuff (and even spew for pages on end about baseball statistics) without my eyes rolling back into my head. I would ha Oh Bill, Bill, Bill, how I wish you were my uncle. I would love to have dinner and sit around and just listen to you talk and tell stories. Every time I read a Bryson book I am amazed at his easy going, funny tone coupled with research. I'm sure he does not actually sound this great in conversation, but boy can he write a nonfiction book.

Seriously, he manages to teach a bunch of stuff (and even spew for pages on end about baseball statistics) without my eyes rolling back into my head. I would have to say that the 1920s are my favorite era (romantic and elegant and featuring bold women) historically and I have read a bunch about this time in US history. BUT I didn't know hardly anything about Harding or Coolidge or Hoover and nothing really about Babe Ruth (other than he was a baseball great and ate pig's testicles...although Bryson doesn't say he did, so maybe he didn't?). The aviation stuff I mostly knew, but Bryson manages to make it not boring upon repetition.

Some things I learned: "By the mid-1920s it was possible to fly almost anywhere in Europe--from Berling to Leipzig, from Amsterdam to Brussels, from Paris to distant Constantinople"

"Herbert Hoover lived to be ninety, and never in the whole of that time, so far as can be told, experienced anything approaching a moment's real joy." And yet "Hoover managed to find and distribute $1.8 million worth of food a week" to starving Belgians which "was the greatest relieve effort ever undertaken on earth" but occurred at the same time he was illegally buying chemicals from Germany for personal profit, which meant that "a little more than a decade before he became president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, the Great Humanitarian, was engaged in an act that could have led to his being taken outside, stood against a well, and shot."

The hot dog was invented by a guy from England who probably "made more money out of baseball than almost anyone else".

During prohibition the federal government actively poisoned drinkers (I knew that people were poisoned because of poorly developed alcohol, but not that the feds were poisoning alcohol and then RELEASING it into the "wild" as it were) and that "officialdom was prepared to deliver to its own citizens an agonizing death for engaging in an act that had until recently been an accepted part of civilized life, was still legal nearly everywhere else in the world, and was patently harmless in moderation."

"The total cost to the country of all the various acts of incompetence and malfeasance in the Harding administration has been put at $2 billion--a sum that goes some way beyond stupendous, particularly bearing in mind that Harding's presidency lasted just twenty-nine months" and the fact that his only real qualification was that he "looked like a President" and yet I didn't really know anything about him prior to reading this makes me feel oh so much better about our new Trump administration. In 50-100 years, the world will not remember us or our folly.

Henry Ford attempted to build a utopian (suburban American style) in the middle of the Amazon jungle (and failed miserably) so that he could have a stonger hold on rubber production. He also did not really hold onto his lead in the auto industry immediately after the Model T came out. Obviously, Ford has not been the leader for years, but I didn't realize just how quickly he lost his priority.

Farnsworth developed the first TV and a physicist named Lawrence used his technology to develop the first particle accelerator. As a kid, I grew up in Batavia IL, home of Fermi-lab, owner of one of the particle accelerators. Fermi-lab is situated on Farnsworth Rd.

In general he just has a great tone and knows a lot and his books are always worthwhile.

...more

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Jun 02, 2016 Melora rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, listened, summer-challenge-2016

Much as I enjoy Bill Bryson's travel and autobiographical writing, I like his histories – A Short History of Nearly Everything and this – even better. This is just marvelously funny, appalling, startling, and fascinating. Who would have thought that one summer could encompass so much?

Actually, of course, Bryson doesn't limit his story to America in the summer of 1927. He moves forward and backward in time, to more fully tell about events, and he takes readers with his characters to South America Much as I enjoy Bill Bryson's travel and autobiographical writing, I like his histories – A Short History of Nearly Everything and this – even better. This is just marvelously funny, appalling, startling, and fascinating. Who would have thought that one summer could encompass so much?

Actually, of course, Bryson doesn't limit his story to America in the summer of 1927. He moves forward and backward in time, to more fully tell about events, and he takes readers with his characters to South America, France, England, etc. But the summer of 1927 ties it all together, and that summer included memorable moments in the history of baseball, boxing, aeronautics, politics, crime, automobiles, radio and television, movies, pulp fiction, and more. Bryson's lively, humorous style keeps the book zipping along, even when he's covering topics in which I have little interest (such as transatlantic flight, boxing, baseball, automobiles... well quite a bit of the book, actually, but my point is, if he can make these things interesting to me, he's working some real magic!), and while the organization, theoretically by month, might seem to chop stories up oddly, I never found it to be so.

On the surface, America of almost 90 years ago seems very... “other,” but, on second thought, there are disconcerting similarities to the way things are today. A few things, like the crazed mobs throwing themselves onto airport runways in hope of catching a glimpse of Charles Lindbergh, do seem to have changed, perhaps due to the ease of celebrity watching via the internet and television, but others – the hypocritical politicians, corrupt police, white supremacists, xenophobic demagogues, prurient “news” journals, financial chicanery, etc. – are still, sadly, very familiar. While Bryson doesn't hesitate to look at the seamy side of history, he doesn't wallow, and he manages to find the fun in the stories of Prohibition, Al Capone, and even Henry Ford. The most joyful segments, though, are about baseball. As I said, I'm not much interested in baseball, but Babe Ruth's story, even with its sordid aspects, is heartwarming, if not exactly wholesome, and adds a nice warmth and optimism. A very enjoyable book. I should note that I listened to this, read by the author, (with a physical copy on hand), and once I got used to Bryson's peculiar accent – Midwestern with an English twang? – I enjoyed his reading very much. You can hear the laughter in his voice when he gets to particularly funny bits in his own writing, and I love that. ...more

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Feb 08, 2014 Brian Eshleman rated it really liked it

I'm supposed to disclose that I won this from the publisher. However, I found the CD format inconvenience and actually read the e-book version from the library. That aside, I really enjoyed it. Bill Bryson was able to go at that brief time. From so many different angles that the reader really got a feel for what it was like to be alive in America in the summer of 1927. He covered politics, Entertainment, sports, and technology. The reader really gets the sense that the seeds for what became mode ...more

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About Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson

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William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, FRS was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and worked in journalism until he became a full time writer. He lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to New Hampshire in America for a few years, but they have now returned to live in the UK.

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