Books - Wright Brothers

Product Description:
Commemorating 100 years of powered flight, a novel of the two brothers who risked everything to win the race to the skies e know who invented the airplane: Wilbur and Orville Wright. Lost in history are the names of those who, in the closing years of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth, shared that same passion: to develop the first powered aircraft. Some spent fortunes chasing that dream. Some spent their lives. Men like embittered Augustus Herring, who flew a heavier-than-air machine for several seconds in 1898, and who was not above sabotaging those who mocked him. And the pompous Samuel Langly of the Smith-sonian Institute; backed by the US War Depart-ment, he was believed to be the man most likely to achieve a viable flying machine. Even the legendary American scientist, Alexander Graham Bell, took up the chase. A man of solid practicality and a bishop of the United Brethren Church, Milton Wright did not want his two sons to die in a fool-headed flying machine. The Wright Brothers had a thriving bicycle shop business right there in Dayton, Ohio. He saw no reason for his sons to risk everything on an isolated, North Carolina beach, called Kitty Hawk. But it was in the tiny town of Kitty Hawk where the race to achieve the heavier-than-air flying machine would be won . . . or lost.



Customer Review: Rummaging around pays off ..:
While rummaging around a local Dollar General Store, I came across this book which, I am happy to say, I bought new for 75 cents. It sounded interesting and I took it home. I laid it down and looked at it for weeks ... then, one day, I took the journey.

"Dawn Over Kitty Hawk" is categorized as a novel. While I might concur that Walter J. Boyne took some liberties ..... I mean, what biographer doesn't? This book is much more a biography than a novel.

While reading I took the time to look up information about the Wright Brothers and the race to develop the first "controllable" power flying machine. Boyne is dead on with respect to his facts.

Boyne goes further in delving into the minds of Wilbur and Orville Wright than most Wright biographers have.

It is a fascinating and informative read.

Densel Myers
Yukon, Oklahoma

Customer Review: Flight:
Dawn Over Kitty Hawk is a first class narrative history of the early years of flight, not only the Wright brothers, but skillfully weaving in the story of others. This is a first class story of the rivalry that existed as man tried to imitate birds and fly through the air with the greatest of ease. It is informative as well as entertaining.

Customer Review: Ponder the oxymoron of historical fiction.:
The Wright brothers are truly a remarkable story, they represent American ingenuity at its best. Lacking scientific education, unbacked by any government or corporate sponsorship, they conquered the "problem of flight" in only 5 years, mostly by using bicycle-shop practicality to surmount a huge number of daunting technical problems.

While this book is a fun read if you like to see the pompous and the devious outwitted by the humble and the forthright (who doesn't?), I have to say that historical fiction always leaves me with an empty feeling. Does the historical record really need the embellishment of conversations, thoughts, and situations that the author invented? Boyne's high view of the Wrights, and dim view of the competition, create a Disneyesque (Star Warsesque?) world in which every character is either good or evil. Most historians quickly realize that the real world is far more complex than that.

Anyway, the book is a good but not excellent read. I'm perplexed by the somewhat tangential sexual overtones (beginning on page 1), as if the editor told the author to "add sex into the novel in at least 5 places, so it will sell!" The dialogue is sometimes sublime, but often ridiculous. The author demonstrates his command of the aeronautics and engineering involved. Too bad he was somehow convinced that a novel, rather than a biography, would be a better way to go ...

Customer Review: Great Story, Well Told, About Aviation Heroes:
Having written an historical novel myself ("Devil in the North Woods), I recognize the result of many long hours of research and the skill needed to bring history to life for the reader.

Walt Boyne has taken the well-known story of aviation icons, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and breathed life into what is all-too-often dry history. Quickly, the story carries you into their lives, thoughts, hopes and fears as these two amazing young men bucked the trends of conventional wisdom and the opinions of men allegedly possessing far more experience.

The result is the very human story of true genius at work. If their efforts and results were not documented facts, it would be hard to believe. With compassion and insight, Boyne has created a tour-de-force for all aviation and history fans!

Customer Review: Don't waste your money.:
Perhaps it's because I work at a national historical park devoted to the Wright brothers, but I could not restrain the impulse to repeatedly roll my eyes while reading this "novelization" of the Wright brothers. Maybe it's because I deal every day with the information dramatized in this novel that I could not willingly suspend my disbelief or curb the urge to exclaim "He (pick your real life figure) would not say that!" Or perhaps it's because I, personally, found the writing to be not that great--I spotted a typo almost immediately--and the exposition to be clunky at best that I could not take this novel seriously in the slightest. I heard from co-workers that this book caused quite the hubbub with some people when it was first published, and while I don't find the supposedly racy parts to be anything other than awkward or pointless, it was sort of interesting to read something that made me laugh out loud at its ridiculousness. I guess that's my problem with all novels of this ilk: I can't read a dramatization of something or someone that actually happened when the source material is infinitely more interesting and accurate. This was good for a laugh in a "I can't believe someone actually wrote this, and someone else published this" sort of way, and for that I gave it a single star. However, had I paid actual money to read this rather than borrow it from the library, I would have demanded a refund.

Customer Review: Spirit of St. Louis:
This book was the second written by Lindbergh about the historic trans-Atlantic flight. "We," the first book, was a rewrite of Lindbergh's contract writing for a newspaper. "The Spirit of St. Louis," written later, in 1953, is more definitive, and delves in the backstories involved in pulling off this immense feat. It includes chicanery by competing NY entities, the struggle to get financing, getting a plane custom designed and built in record time by Ryan Aviation in San Diego, and the delusions and hallucinations suffered by the pilot flying with almost no sleep the night before he headed east. For those interested in planes -- and heroes -- this is a page-turner. One comes away with a deep appreciation for the fact the Lindbergh knew about all there was to know at the time about aviation, from designing and building a plane, to operating and maintaining it, to navigation, and yes, to the art of flying. It ends with the detailed plans for the Spirit of St. Louis, in enlarged fold out fashion, in the back of the book.

Product Description:
A remarkable story filled with dreamers, inventors, scoundrels, and pioneering pilots, First to Fly recounts North Carolina's significant role in the early history of aviation. Beginning well before the Wright brothers' first powered flight at Kill Devil Hill in 1903, North Carolinians labored at the cutting edge of aviation technology from the late 1800s through World War I.

North Carolina was a launching ground for real and imaginary ballooning adventures as early as 1789. Powered experiments, including what seems to have been America's first airplane, gained momentum in the late nineteenth century. Tar Heel mechanics and inventors also built a dirigible and, arguably, the world's first successful helicopter.

Tom Parramore's account of the Wrights' experiments and turn-of-the-century Dare County provides new information on the crucial role of Outer Bankers in ensuring the Wrights' success. Without this aid, he argues, it is unlikely that the miracle of flight would have first been achieved in 1903--or in America. After 1903, growth in the new aviation industry, spurred by World War I, outpaced North Carolina's ability to play a major role. But the state produced some of the most notable airmen and women of the era, furnishing hundreds of pilots to the war effort.



Customer Review: North Carolina - first in flight:
Interesting state history of aviation. Brings out small and often bizarre nuggets of history that would be lost in aviation histories of broader scope. Sometimes veers toward state boosterism, but safely steers away without damaging its credibility.

Product Description:
Biography of the Wright Brothers and first flight from Kitty Hawk.

Product Description:
For a limited time! This special commemorative original edition reprint collector set of rare volumes celebrates a century of flight. Don't miss this opportunity!

A chronologically organized look at aviation pioneers' Wilbur and Orville Wright's plans, progress, achievements, and setbacks, documented in two illustrated volumes spanning 50 years' worth of letters, papers, notes, drawings, and compelling photograhps

Taken from the detailed correspondence and numerous diary and notebook excerpts, wind tazble tunnels, and more



Customer Review: Definitive Book on the Wrights:
If you like avaition and it's history, this is the book for you. Very easy to read and well put together. The two volumes come in a nice dust case.

Customer Review: An astounding firsthand account of the invention of flight:
Conventional wisdom brands these two geniuses as simple "bicycle mechanics." This incredible book takes you inside their genius, in their own words, written day-by-day. What they accomplished is no less than a miracle, and this book will humble even the most self-assured intellects. Their research "invented" wing theory and shapes, aircraft control systems, and propeller theory. Then they had to design and constuct their own engine, as available ones were too heavy. And wonderfully for us, they left an astounding amount of documentation, including photographic (including the famous photo of the first controlled flight ever), and massive documents and correspondence, which is reproduced in this 800+ page book. There's nothing "dry" about this first-hand story of man's most significant invention.

Product Description:
In this historical novel about the pursuit of dreams, Moon Shadow is a young Chinese immigrant who comes to San Francisco at the turn of the century to join his father Windrider, whom he has never met. At first father and son live and work with relatives in the Chinese section of town, but when a man is killed and their lives are endangered, the two move out and make friends with a woman and her granddaughter. The four survive the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, but Moon Shadow and his father are forced to move again. With Moon Shadow's help, Windrider begins to pursue some of his long-held dreams. The following collection of thematically related readings is available in this book: "The Flying Machine" by Ray Bradbury; "Crazy Boys" by Beverly McLoughland; "The Skydivers" by Joseph Colin Murphey; "The Chinese Must Go" by Bernard A. Weisberger; "Ginger for the Heart" by Paul Yee; and "The Story of an Eyewitness by Jack London



Customer Review: hi laurence yep:
hi the book is like so cool. i love it! It ROCKS!

Product Description:
Theme, "A lot can happen in one year!".

Product Description:
In compelling vignettes, Rasenberger thakes listeners on a guided tour through the epic year of 1908 in which optimism ran high and anything seemed possible.

Product Description:
This digital document is an article from The Horn Book Magazine, published by Horn Book, Inc. on November 1, 2003. The length of the article is 310 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Andrew Glass The Wondrous Whirligig: The Wright Brothers' First Flying Machine.(Brief Article)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
Author: Betty Carter
Publication: The Horn Book Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2003
Publisher: Horn Book, Inc.
Volume: 79 Issue: 6 Page: 729(2)

Article Type: Book Review, Brief Article, Children's Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Product Description:
Are We There Yet? The Wright Brothers' National Memorial Park is an educational, activity based book for middle school students. Language Arts, Math, Science, and History skills are covered in fun, entertaining ways. A scavenger hunt to be done at the Memorial Park will help students stay focused as they visit the grounds. Information and pictures of the park with numbers and email addresses is included to help make it easier to plan your trip. The book works well whether there is one student or an entire class.



Customer Review: Fun and informative:
I recently took a trip to Wright Brothers' National Park with my niece and this book was a great addition to our trip. The puzzles gave her something to do on the road besides counting signs. With every page turned, her interest level increased as we got closer to the park. When we got there, she used the scavenger hunt to direct her trip and she actually read the signs that most kids went darting past. This book turned out to be her guide to this important time in history. This book is great for kids (and their families) as they will be turned on to history in a brand new light. Definitely recommended!