8.13.14

I just finished a book, and while it's non-fiction, I liked it enough to recommend it to others. It's One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson. I chose it from my local lending library (euphemistic term for my parent's house, my dad has good taste in books) because Bill Bryson is tremendously funny, and I always learn something. Well, this is not like his normal nonchalant fun-poking, but a serious (though still amusing) and well-written take on this one summer in American history.

I'd suggest this to anyone who considers themselves a "history person", but its really approachable and would be fun even if you'd just like to know a little more about some of the era's most colorful characters, like Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and Al Capone. It's arranged in sections as the summer progresses, with major sub-sections about some of the people mentioned, and important events like Prohibition.

Something that really struck me about this book is how interconnected all the people and events seemed to be. Each time you'd turn over a new event or person, there would be the same trail leading to the same frequent fliers. I was pondering whether our current society is more or less connected in that way. You'd think it would be a no-brainer, but the country was much smaller then, the political circles that existed were much more compact, and (it seemed to me) the wealthy and powerful got away with much more.

The segment of the book that dealt with media was also interesting, and it discussed what people of the time were reading. Despite the fact that Eliot, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Pound, Woolf etc were active during this time, Bryson says the bestselling authors were Edgar Rice Burroughs and Zane Grey, who mostly wrote pulp and are mostly forgotten now. (Burroughs sounded familiar to me, and I discovered it was because I had read about him previously due to his obsession with eugenics). Grey is credited with being the basis for the Western genre, and Burroughs wrote Tarzan of the Apes. I don't really know what books are popular currently because I tend to shy away from anything with hype, but it seems like these genres have maintained their popularity.

Recommendations? I'm itching for some fiction. Just don't suggest anything brand-new!