Millions of words have been spent singing Bill Bryson's praises, so please allow me to add to them. His latest work of brilliant, comedic non-fiction, "One Summer: America, 1927," ranks among his greatest works. It's hard to think of a more insightful, more hilarious author working today.Bryson's thesis is simple - America in the summer of 1927 may not have realized it, but it was taking its first steps as a world leader - in economics, in the arts, in sports, and in technology. Some of these developments were good, while others were reprehensible. Bryson manages to find either the humanity or the hilarity in each development - sometimes finding both.Much of the book revolves around Charles Lindbergh's unimaginable feat of crossing the Atlantic in a plane. Today we don't think about Lindbergh much, but this event galvanized the world as no other event had previously done. Bryson writes at length about the other efforts to accomplish the same or similar feats and how many good men (and the occasional good woman) of several different countries died in the attempt. Bryson also focuses on how Lindbergh coped with being the most famous and adored person alive . . . for a time (until his pro-eugenics/Nazi sympathies became public . . . sympathies that Bryson extensively observes were shared by several "leading" intellects of the day). Lindbergh remains the heart of this dizzying book.But by no means is Lindbergh the sole focus. Lindbergh's feat had tremendous economic consequences as it sparked the American aviation industry to unparalleled heights. Still, this was the summer of Henry Ford, who stopped work on the Model T in favor of the new Model A. This was also the summer where the seeds of the Great Depression were sown, and it was also the summer where "talkies" drowned out silent films . . . this was huge at a time when Hollywood was America's fourth largest industry and America led the world in the quantity of cinematic output (if not the quality).1927 also saw Al Capone, arguably the greatest businessman of all time, reach his ultimate heights before crashing down. We also saw Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and the New York Yankees transform baseball with possibly the greatest season ever played by an American sports franchise . . . in the House That Ruth Built with his titanic home runs. But the Yankees faced an unexpected threat in popularity thanks to Jack Dempsey's murderous fists in the boxing ring.And then there were the huge yet somehow peripheral events such as not one but two Trials of the Century, the devastating Mississippi flood that gave Herbert Hoover yet another reason to be President, and Calvin Coolidge's shocking decision not to run for re-election. Mt. Rushmore also began construction and the eugenics movement (the belief that the elected state government could, under the Constitution, unilaterally decide to sterilize those Americans lacking the necessary positive attributes to contribute to society) gained considerable steam on both sides of the Atlantic (I'm looking at you, Nazi Germany).And there was this little thing called the creation of television . . .Bryson writes about all these various strands of American life, interweaving a comic, often heart-warming tale of people striving for great things and occasionally achieving them. Indeed, some of the connections are downright creepy they are so coincidental. America in 1927 was emerging as a world power and seemed poised on a new era of unbridled prosperity that will never end . . . and it came crashing down just as our most recent "New Economy" miracle failed.If you're a Bryson fan, you must read this book. If you're not a Bryson fan, you must read this book.

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 this book down. Don't let the size of this book stop you. When I finished it, I wished it were longer.

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.