This is not an ordinary book: it's a BookCrossing book! BookCrossing books are world travelers - they like to have adventures and make new friends...and every once in a while they even write home to say what they've been doing.

☻ ☻ ☻

This book is from the library of Purple58, a very special woman whom I was fortunate enough to meet through our BookCrossing group, the Table of Contents.

Fiercely independent, with a loving heart and a wicked sense of humor, she was passionate about the things she believed in and was willing to stand up and be counted when necessary. She was truly a one of a kind individual, and she will be missed by all of her many friends...who prefer to believe that she's off in Vegas, having a fabulous time and eating as many desserts as she wants.

My friend Holly was strong-minded woman, with a generous soul, a great sense of humor, and a limited tolerance for idiots. Sadly, she won't be coming to our BookCrossing meetings any more: they won't be the same without her.

She wasn't big on journaling books, but she definitely believed in sharing them, and wanted her books to find new readers after she was gone.

I'd like to see some of her books go to other BookCrossers rather than releasing them all into the wild, so I'm sending this book off as a wishlist RABCK: hope it brightens someone's day!

Tracking # 9549 0104 3301 6299 0600 21
ETA NY 11/15/16

Released for DragonGoddess's Tick Tock challenge.

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I'm so glad you've found this book!

Please take a moment to make a journal entry and let the book's previous readers know that it's safe with you.

How and where did you find the book? What did you think of it? What are you going to do with it next?

It's now your book, for you to do with as you please: keep it, pass it to a friend, or maybe even leave it where someone else can find it!

If you've ever wondered where your books go after they leave your hands, join BookCrossing and you may find out: you'll be able to follow the further adventures of your books as new readers make journal entries - sometimes from surprisingly far-flung locations.

(Think of it like Where's George for books: a little like geocaching or a treasure hunt - you can follow a registered book's journey every time someone makes a new entry. Some BookCrossers even leave books *in* geocaches!)

BookCrossing: making the whole world a library!

Thank you for the wishlist book!

This was an interesting read. Some of these historical events were ones I knew a fair bit about (I can probably blame growing up on L.I. for my knowledge of early aviation), others were almost entirely new to me. The description of Warren G Harding's haphazard presidential appointments of his friends and the terrible consequences of putting greedy people who know nothing about the area they are working in sounds eerily like many peoples' fears for Trump's announced picks! I really liked the author's way of laying out the summer, focusing on a person or event who was big news for that month, but also weaving in updates about the other people we were hearing about. This is also a book full of interesting, surprising little factoids, in case you needed to know that the life expectancy of a British pilot in the spring of 1917 was eight days.

There were a couple things that bothered me. The biggest one is that Bryson continually refers to "the blacks" which these days is generally considered a somewhat offensive way to talk about African-American/black people, since it is generally used as an object in sentence structure and removes the human element while describing a race of people. At first I assumed this book was older, since it was more acceptable even a decade ago, but this book is from 2013, so that doesn't really work as an excuse. It is a little thing, perhaps, but took me aback every time I saw it, and it seems like sloppy work on the part of the editor not to have made the simple alteration of switching "the blacks" to "black people" or another modern phrase.

The other issue I was encountering was a common one in history books, and that is a tendency to treat things as if they had little connection to the present or other events. For me, the biggest one in here was the presentation of the Ku Klux Klan as a past group, stating that after 1925: "It was never a national force again." Considering that 80 years after this supposed end, it is still one of our country's best known hate-groups because of continued dramatic actions, particularly during the Civil Rights era, I'm inclined to disagree.

These blindspots knocked a few stars off my review, but I still think this was a very engaging read.

Sent to the winner of the non-fiction sweepstakes

Thank you for the book. It looks like an interesting read.

A very informative and interesting read that lays out a great moment in history. I like how Bryson puts the events in context so that readers can appreciate their significance. I enjoy the book, but I like his travelogues more.

A tag forward to motherof11 for brunton11 on the international wishlist tag game. Happy reading!

This book arrived safely today.
Thank you very much, mcsar! I love Bill Bryson's books, so I'm really looking forward to reading this one!

A very interesting book!
Thanks for sharing this with me, mcsar!

This book goes to Icila.
Enjoy!

A box full of books arrived in my mailbox this morning. Thank you motherof11.
I'm very fond of Bill Bryson and I didn't had the chance to read this one yet.
I was curious about the little sticker so I read hyphen8 entry and followed the link. Thank you for letting me know Purple58, a wonderful woman. I'm moved to have this book in my hands. Really.

RES for greenbadger's "One book a month offered 2022"

In the care of La Poste to be delivered to Paulanni in Finland.
Have a nice time with Bill Bryson !

Thank you, Icila! The book arrived in my home today, and I look forward to reading it. Bill Bryson is a new author for me, but I see that many like his works.