Enthused reading: "One Summer - America 1927" by Bill Bryson

In the people-I-might-actually-like-to-be stakes, I have already identified Bill Bryson as a front runner. This book has done nothing to modify that opinion. Again, I am struck by the guy's sheer curiosity and the delight he takes in serving up stories of both the ordinary and the extraordinary, both of which he finds in the midst of its apparent opposite. It is typically Bryson to alight on one particular year - indeed the summer of one particular year - and lay it out for us in a breeze of fascinated enthusiasm and anecdote. As ever the research is formidable but lightly-worn, the details arresting and illuminating, the regard inquiring and amusing.

Yeah, so I liked it...

But why 1927, I hear you ask, it is not one of those usual suspects, 1914, 1929, 1933, 1968, 1945, 1989 for example, usually included in the pantheon of twentieth century landmark years. There is a rationalisation for the choice, to which I will come back, but my own suspicion is that Bryson's interest in the year started rather with a typically rather boyish attraction to the two centrepiece occurrences of the book. The first is the famous Lindbergh transatlantic flight and its extraordinary aftermath, the second the remarkable season enjoyed by that supposedly over-the-hill baseball star, Babe Ruth. Hmm, thin pickings, one might think, on which to construct a 550 page popular history, especially for a European audience, which may have heard of Babe Ruth, but does not know the difference between a batting average of 0.295 and one of 0.375, and may be more familiar with Charles Lindbergh as a noted Nazi sympathiser than as aviation hero.