The Wright Brothers

The Wright Brothers

2015 • 336 pages

Ratings55

Average rating4.1

15
Gio
Gio'Supporter

Getting through the book was definitely a slog. The style is exceedingly dry, mostly a collection of facts one after another with very little insight. There are a lot small filler facts that seem totally out of place. By the time I realized the book was a bore and not getting any better, I was already one third of the book in and decided to power through it, mostly because I was interested in the story.
One of the key points that weaken this book is that the author repeats again and again (and again and again) how great was the moral fortitude of the brothers, to the point of becoming annoying, and doing so, the author decided to absolutely brush over the darker parts of the personalities of the brothers with the goal of preserving a perfect memory of a great American Story. By throwing objectivity and completeness out of the window, I think he obtained this flat recount of facts filtered to only put the brothers in good light. Questionable...

Specific to the audiobook: the choice of the author to narrate the book himself is an unfortunate one. He is not a gifted actor and his execution is monotone at best.

January 4, 2022