My physics teacher in high school forced us to read a history book. That was the first time I’d heard of Bill Bryson. One of the books on the list was A Short History of Nearly Everything. That was not the book I read that year. I read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Because it was the shortest. I probably would have enjoyed Bryson’s book more, looking back on it, but I was 17 and an idiot.

Bill Bryson kept popping up though – in college classes and bookstore tables. Given that history books are some of my favorites to listen to at work (where I can learn a lot, not hear EVERY detail, and not lose track of the story), I decided to finally give Bryson a try and went with One Summer: America, 1927. I have been fascinated with the 1920s for a long time, and it’s the loose theme for my upcoming nuptials. Hemingway and Fitzgerald are two of my favorite authors and two of my favorites of their books take place in the 20s, so this book as my introduction to Bryson was a natural choice.

I didn’t know anything about the book or Bryson (except that he kept popping up) going in, so the book, read by Bryson for the audio version, was surprisingly funny due to both content and Bryson himself.

Bryson uses several major events of the summer of 1927 as a lens through which to view American life, what it was and what it was going to become, while focusing on pop culture and the daily life of Americans during that time.

The major events focused on included:

+ Babe Ruth & the 1927 New York Yankees
+ Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight
+ the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 (the one event in the book I’d never heard of)
+ Henry Ford and the transition from the Model T to the Model A
+ Calvin Coolidge’s presidency the ascendance of Herbert Hoover
+ the trial and executions of Sacco & Vanzetti
+ the release of talking pictures with ‘The Jazz Singer’

…these were not the only topics touched, but they were a major focus.

I was pleasantly surprised with this book. It was a lot more interesting than I had thought it would be, and it was a lot funnier than I thought it would be. Bryson grew up in both the US and Great Britain, and his dry sense of humor was quite appealing to me.

These were topics we’d barely touched in school (Sacco and Vanzetti, Lindbergh’s flight), and in some cases not at all (they skipped over Mississippi Flood entirely, as well as anything about Henry Ford that wasn’t “hey the assembly line…”) and I found the detailed dive into these topics, and their impact on American life, a fascinating alternative high school history class.

The book also explored the contrast between the 1920s Jazz Age and the 1930s Great Depression that was looming not far down the road. Bryson also doesn’t just speak to an American audience. Babe Ruth and baseball are huge parts of the book, and so Bryson takes time to explain why Americans are so obsessed with Babe Ruth (even 90 years later) and at least the basics of baseball.

My next Bryson book will be A Walk In The Woods. One Summer: America, 1927 convinced me that I should definitely read/listen to another Bryson book.

Tagged: authors: bill bryson, books: one summer america 1927, genre: historical non-fiction, genre: history