Five Facts I Never Knew About the Wright Brothers

/

I started listening to the audiobook version of David McCullough's The Wright Brothers, and I'm hooked. It's the kind of audiobook that has you driving around aimlessly just so you can listen to it a little bit longer. I'm amazed that there is so much that I didn't know about these famous brothers. Here are my top five favorite new to me facts about the Wright Brothers:

  1. We think of them as geniuses, but at the time most people thought they were crazy.
  2. They lived in a tent while they built the first plane.
  3. They learned to fly from watching birds.
  4. They gave leftover plane material to a local to make dresses for her daughter.
  5. There was a Wright sister, and she was awesome.

If you love this book, you might also like:

Note: links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support.

REVIEW: A Place We Knew Well by Susan Carol McCarthy

/

A Place We Knew Well is a fascinating novel that takes place in the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It hits all of my sweet spots: a historical novel with likable characters, and a good story line. Besides the likability though, what fascinated me the most was the exploration of the ways people act in times of extreme stress.

In the novel we learn about the crisis, mostly through the character's reactions to newspaper articles and television reports. At the same time, we get caught up in small town drama heightened by the fact that the residents are kind of worried that World War III is going to start at any minute. You really get a personal and nuanced look into the Cuban Missile Crisis from the point of view of a variety of people. Reading this book encouraged me to read more about the Cold War.

If you liked A Place We Knew Well try:

When I was reading this, I kept thinking about one of my favorite brain science books Willpower.  The reasons people use (or don't) when making decisions is fascinating to me, and very applicable to the story line in A Place We Knew Well.

People see the name Stephen King, and immediately decide they won't like it. What's great about 11/22/63 though isn't any kind of mystical horror woo woo stuff. What's great is the historical detail, and obvious research that went into this most excellent time travel novel.

Books I'm Adding To My TBR:

Note: Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. I was given a copy of A Place We Knew Well as part of the Library Thing Early Reviewers program, but all opinions are mine.