Birdmen

Jonathan Fried offers a smooth, easy-on-the-ears performance of this story of early aviation. He clearly and effectively captures the excitement of the early attempts at controlled flight. While he pronounces technical terms and the names of foreign publications with facility, he can't compensate for the author's overly detailed narrative. As the author chronicles the times, he focuses at length on the legal wrangling between pioneer aviators the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss. But he weighs down the narrative with so much detail and so many side trips that even an able reading can't save the book. It was a thrilling time, full of innovation and derring-do. If the author's tale had matched the era, Fried's reading would have soared. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

September 1, 2014

In 1903, the long-held dream of powered human aviation was finally fulfilled by Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, NC. But the Wrights, whom Goldstone (Inherently Unequal) takes pains to portray as distinct and complementary personalities, were obsessively litigious and more intent on defending their patents than continuing to pioneer, demanding licensing fees from any other aircraft maker or exhibition flyer. When Glen Curtiss, a former motorcycle racer and consummate tinkerer and engine maker, began producing airplanes of superior design, he became the foremost target of the Wrights' ire and the primary defendant in a protracted patent dispute. It is against this backdrop of legal wrangling that Goldstone recounts that extraordinary decade of aeronautical innovation and competition during which aviation moved from experiment to spectacle to commercial enterprise. Narrator Jonathan Fried does a clear and lively job, never getting bogged down in the occasional technical descriptions. VERDICT This is an absorbing, well-written history rich in fascinating personalities. Recommend to anyone interested in American aeronautics. ["A superbly crafted retelling of a story familiar to aviation buffs, here greatly strengthened by fresh perspectives, rigorous analyses, comprehensible science, and a driving narrative," read the starred review of the Ballantine hc, LJ 1/14.]--Forrest Link, Coll. of New Jersey Lib., Ewing Twp.

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