One Summer

America, 1927

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Bill Bryson

A Chicago Tribune Noteworthy Book
A GoodReads Reader's Choice

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.

I wonder how he arrived at 1927...

I really loved this book! I have to wonder though, did he coincidentally hear several amazing stories that took place in '27 or what made him arrive at this year, specifically? Either way, I was shocked that so much happened during this time and Bryson painted a wonderful image of just what the time was like.

For newcomers to Bryson's work, I'd recommend "The Life & Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: a memoir," which takes you on sn adventure of just what it was like to grow up in the 1950's!

Bryson at his best

Bill Bryson is one of the best storytellers out there, and this book is exceptional. The summer of 1927 comes to life with his amazing attention to detail and ability to pull sometimes obscure facts from the past and breathe into them new life, as part of the greater narrative of the story.
I will undoubtedly listen to this book again.

A delight, as always

Bryson never fails to please me, I loved this as I have loved all of his works. It put me in the mood to go back and have a nice re-listen to all of his stuff.

A Year of Amazing History

I love history, and this was a great book. Bill has a strange cadence while reading, but I got used to it. Worth a listen.

Wow

25% through and I resolved to listen to it again. A very entertaining read of one summer and it contains so many facets: aviation, world politics and finance, boxing, baseball, tennis. And that's in the first half. Even if you know American history you may not know that people died during Prohibition because liquor was suddenly unregulated and bootleggers sometimes put poison in the booze. On a separate topic the King of England was fascinated by how Lindbergh managed emptying his bladder on his historic flight. It reads like a story you want to take to bed after a hard day.