This book could have easily focused on the Yankees ball team or on the history of air travel. Instead of focusing narrowly, Bryson treats many topics all falling in the summer of 1927. I would probably not have selected a book about baseball or air travel. Yet, these topics fascinated me in this book. I couldn't help but burst forth with information when Sean would finally emerge from football practice and join me in the car. I told him of how Lou Gehrig was a 14 pound baby, how he was so shy he sat mutely when friends invited girls over hoping to introduce him, and how devoted he was to his mother. Even the statistics of baseball and boxing amazed me.
I got to know Charles Lindberg and formed a less favorable opinion after hearing about the rest of his life after 1927. The book introduced Al Capone, Al Jolson, and Henry Ford. It took on politics, eugenics, weather disasters, murder cases, and movies. As the back cover promises, "Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events, and occasional just plain weirdness with his trademark vividness, eye for telling detail, and delicious humor."
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