About the One Summer

1927: the year that the twentieth century truly became the American century. Bill Bryson's fascinating and gripping narrative shows us outsized American heroes tackling enormous feats. The summer of 1927 found Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic and Babe Ruth closing in on the home run record. In Newark, New Jersey, Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelley sat atop a flagpole for twelve days, and in Chicago, the gangster Al Capone was tightening his grip on bootlegging. The first true "talking picture," Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer, was filmed, forever changing the motion picture industry. This was the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things and came of age in a big, brawling manner. What a country. What a summer. And what a writer to bring it all so vividly alive for us on the page in this certain bestseller.