Reading one of David McCullough’s books has been one of my reading goals. I purchased John Adams several years ago and started it a few times but keep putting it down. I was excited when my book group selected this book so that I would have the added incentive to read it.
This book has received such great reviews and the size was a bit less intimidating that Mr. McCullough’s other books. Unfortunately I was really disappointed. I rated it a three only because I was able to make it to the end. However, it was a painful experience. The Wright Brothers as a subject matter were interesting and I did learn some new facts and I was driven to research them further. However, I found reading the book to be a chore. It was very boring and I found the writing style that intermixed narrative and quotations from letters and diaries to be very difficult to read. It did not flow smoothly and the narrative text and quotations were not integrated into the narrative non-fiction format I was expecting.
I am not sure if I will try another of his books. I tend to prefer novels over non-fiction but I do enjoy well written narrative non-fiction – I loved The Boys in the Boat!
My musings on books 