One Summer: America, 1927

Author – Bill Bryson

Genre – History, Journalism

Source - Audiobook

Rating - 4

Read - July-October 2015

This is how the book ends.

"Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash. Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singer was filmed. Television was created. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flooded as it never had before. A madman in Michigan blew up a school and killed 44 people in the worst slaughter of children in American history. Henry Ford stopped making the Model T and promised to stop insulting Jews. And a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before. Whatever else it was, it was one hell of a summer."

And all that in Bill Bryson's flowing, humorous prose. And in Bill Bryson's voice. It's a treat! I loved this book.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Author – Bill Bryson

Genre – Science, Popular Science, Non-fiction, Humour, History, Physics, Geology, Paleontology, Anthropology

Source - Audiobook

Rating - 5

August 2013

I have been having great luck with books in recent times. Or maybe I am easy to please. But really, this book here is a definite read-this-now. The dexterity is not in the physics, the geology and paleontology and anthropology, a fair bit of which (gloat gloat) I was to an extent in the know of, but in the presentation. Bryson is an awesome storyteller, and he weaves these superb, fun, and exceedingly funny stories around the mysteries of nature and creation and the men and women who solved these mysteries for us – this is the perfect book to read beforehand if you are planning to babysit a particularly inquisitive nephew or niece.