Brown Bag Book Discussion

Annetta Petty will lead a discussion of Bill Bryson's book One Summer: America, 1927. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to read the book in advance. Ask for a copy at the library’s information desk.

From Kirkus: 

A popular chronicler of life and lore vividly charts a particularly pivotal season in American history. Bryson reanimates the events and principal players across five key months in 1927. He establishes an early-20th-century, trial-and-error chronology of aviation evolution cresting with Charles Lindbergh, a lean man with a dream, natural-born skills and the unparalleled motivation to design an aircraft capable of traversing the Atlantic. Braided into Lindbergh's saga are profiles of cultural icons like ambitious "colossus" Herbert Hoover, famed gangster Al Capone, and baseball players Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, whose domination of America's "National Game" captured the country's attention. Recounted with brio and diligent detailing yet perhaps lacking the author's better-known witty dynamism, Bryson honorably captures the spirit of the era, a golden age of newspapers, skyscrapers, patriotism, Broadway plays and baseball... While he may be an expatriate residing in England, Bryson's American pride saturates this rewarding book. A distinctively drawn time capsule from a definitive epoch.