Browsing Tag

David McCullough

Book Reviews,

Top Ten Books of 2017

To help with your gift list, here are my top ten books of 2017:

The “I need something fun to create bar arguments” goes to Tim Harford for his book Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy. Barbed wire? The gramophone? Passports? Curious insights like these fill the book and will create conversation, controversy, and interest.

The “historical fiction that has fascinating characters and everybody is reading these days” award goes to Amor Towles for A Gentleman in Moscow. Set in the first half of the 20th Century, the story of a Russian man …

Book Reviews,

The Wright Brothers

Can we all just admit David McCullough is the greatest living historian? His books combine the scholarly work of a brilliant academic with the comfortable style of a story your grandparents would tell. His latest, The Wright Brothers, continues the tradition.
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We all know the Wright Brothers were the first to fly. We all know it was in Kitty Hawk. But there is so much more to their story, and McCullough weaves the tale of family, friendship, diligence, success, fame, and struggle into a personal portrayal of Wilbur and Orville (and their sister Katharine). Without ever minimizing the …