Birdmen, Lawrence Goldstone
Birdmen, Lawrence Goldstone
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Birdmen
The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

Author: Lawrence Goldstone

Narrator: Jonathan Fried

Unabridged: 14 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/06/2014

Synopsis

Wilbur and Orville Wright are two of the greatest innovators in history, and together they solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. Glenn Hammond Curtiss was the most talented machinist of his day; he first became the fastest man alive when he perfected the motorcycle, then turned his eyes toward the skies to become the fastest man aloft. But between the Wrights and Curtiss bloomed a poisonous rivalry and a patent war so powerful that it shaped aviation in its early years and drove one of the three men to his grave. Birdmen is at once a thrilling ride through flight's wild early years and a surprising look at the battle that defined an era of American innovation. Lawrence Goldstone is the author or co-author of fourteen books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently LEFTY: An American Odyssey. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, The Toronto Star, Salon, and Slate, among others. He lives on Long Island with his wife and daughter.

About Lawrence Goldstone

Lawrence Goldstone is the author of Separate No More: The Long Road to Brown vs. Board of Education, a Junior Library Guild selection, which Kirkus called "engaging and accessible" in a starred review; Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights, which School Library Journal declared in a starred review: "A must-buy for all high school collections"; and Unpunished Murder: Massacre at Colfax and the Quest for Justice, which Booklist's starred review called "gripping . . . and a well-informed perspective on American history." He is also the author of more than a dozen books for adults, including four on Constitutional law. He lives in Sagaponack, New York, with his wife, medieval and Renaissance historian Nancy Goldstone.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nancy on October 07, 2020

In a perverse sort of way, I might have been better off not reading this book. We Americans like our heroes to be likeable and inspiring. The Wilbur and Orville Wright in our school textbooks are just that. But in this book, they come to life in a less than inspiring way. The Wrights stood in a long......more

Goodreads review by Todd on May 31, 2015

Review title: Flying off the handle The history of the Wright brothers and the invention of powered flight has been well-covered and usually from the position of admiring the brothers' ingenuity, persistence, and engineering prowess. Goldstone instead focuses on Wilbur and Orville's prickly personali......more

Goodreads review by Biblio on March 23, 2014

Many of the early aviators were dashing, brave, even foolhardy. Not the Wright Brothers. They were undoubtedly good designers and engineers, but if there's any evidence that they enjoyed flying or making planes, it's well hidden. A more dour, unpleasant, grudge-holding, anti-social pair would be har......more

Goodreads review by Mark on August 16, 2021

The Wright Bros were not quite the American heroes we thought they were. Yes, they were our first powered fliers but they spent the decade after their history-making flight in a protracted legal battle over patents. They sued pioneer pilot and aircraft maker Glenn Curtiss and virtually anyone else w......more

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