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Books

Bill Bryson's 'long extraordinary' summer is too long

One Summer: America 1927 is entertaining — but needs editing

9 November 2013

9:00 AM

9 November 2013

9:00 AM

One Summer: America 1927 Bill Bryson

Doubleday, pp.557, £20, ISBN: 9780385608282

Hands up Spectator readers who can remember the American celebrities Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Jack Dempsey, Zane Grey, Edgar Rice Burroughs and the  adulteress and husband-killer Ruth Snyder  who all, in 1927, lit up what Bill Bryson calls ‘one hell of a summer’.

Born in America only five years later, I knew about most of these characters.

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