One Summer

September 21, 2019 7:47 AM - by Bill Bryson

In One Summer Bill Bryson transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life. Over a few months in 1927 Lindbergh made his historic flight, Babe Ruth hit 60 HRs, The Jazz Singer was filmed, and the first working TV was demonstrated. Also, KKK membership was growing rapidly, Eugenics was becoming accepted as normal, thousands of Americans were dying from alcohol purposely poisoned by the federal government, and thousands more died when the Mississippi river flooded and the Federal government ignored it as not their problem. It was one hell of a summer.
posted by COD (4 comments total)

Very curious about this one. Bryson always struck me as our real-world Ford Prefect, capturing the beautiful absurdity of life on this planet. He's also gifted at performing his work for audio versions. I gave my father this book as a gift, but have yet to read it myself.
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:27 AM on September 21, 2019

I loved this book. I listened to it on my commute and there were several times when I sat in the garage until a section was completed.

Also—his new book The Body: A Guide for Occupants Is coming out on Oct 15.
posted by bookmammal at 11:31 AM on September 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

I gave my dad this book several years ago (he was born in 1927, and grew up in Brooklyn); he loved it, and marked up many pages. I found it really interesting, although I know that real historians have concerns about the accuracy of a lot of Bryson's work. It was still a fun read.
posted by suelac at 5:04 PM on September 22, 2019

I read this several years ago. I really enjoyed it. For me it was like his book At Home: A Short History of Private Life in that it covered a lot of different things and, for me, worked better if I read a little of it at a time. At Home, especially was like that, because it covered so many subjects through so many time periods.
posted by ceejaytee at 10:51 AM on September 24, 2019