One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson

I picked this book up at a free library in the Jackson Hole Airport--which has an exceptionally good and varied collection of donated books usually. This is a book that only someone like Bill Bryson would write--it is long on details about the summer of 1927 and very light on connecting the dots about these events or drawing much in the way of conclusions about them, what they meant then and why they might matter to us now. It is more like a collection of unconnected things that happened all at the same time, and the author runs through them and makes his usual comments about them (slightly jocular, slightly inappropriate, and certainly more in the comic vein than an academic tone). All of this sounds pretty negative, but overall I enjoyed reading the book, which chronicles people and events that are well known, like Lindberg crossing the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hitting 60 home runs, but lesser known things as well. If you liked Horrible Histories as a kid, this will appeal.