One Summer: America, 1927, by Bill Bryson. Most interesting. Imperfect hero Charles Lindbergh wins the race to become the first to fly from New York to Paris, demonstrating his superior aviation skills. Sometime friends / sometime enemies Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig lead the dominant Yankees. Demur US President Calvin Coolidge cools his heels in South Dakota. Millionaire turned politician Hebert Hoover, surely the Donald Trump of his day, leads disaster relief of the historic flooding of the Mississippi River without using any federal funds. Back then citizens did not look to the government for help at every dark cloud. The massive flooding and record temperatures shows there’s really nothing new in the global warming/climate change game. After revolutionizing the automotive industry, by 1927 Henry Ford has fallen behind General Motors and Chrysler. Abolition did little to stem the flow of alcohol. Shady banking practices and stock market profiteering fed the skyrocketing US economy. Most murders, and there were many, went unsolved. Sounds a lot like today.
The Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-Reed. While informative, the author constantly reminds the reader throughout all thousand pages that slavery is bad. We get it.
The Jefferson Key: a Novel (Cotton Malone # 7), by Steve Berry. Another exciting read from the Camden resident.
Happens Every Day: an All-True Story, by Isabel Gillies. Actress gives up her role on TV to follow her husband to his job as an English professor in Ohio, where he promptly leaves her for a younger woman.
The Receptionist: an Education at the New Yorker, by Janet Groth. Midwestern girl heads to the big city in 1957.
A Treasury of Royal Scandals, by Michael Farquhar. Not worth finishing.
Lies that Chelsea Handler Told Me, by Chelsea Handler. Actually a compilation of stories written by the entertainer’s siblings, employees, and “friends” whom she takes on exotic vacations for the sole purpose of playing cruel tricks on them. Not sure why I finished this one. Sad.
Memorial Day (Mitch Rapp # 7), by Vince Flynn
No comments:
Post a Comment