One Summer

“ Bill Bryson is a true master of popular narrative. Over the course of his career, he has bestowed a beautiful clarity on even the most recondite of subjects...Has history ever been so enjoyable? ”

Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

“ A fascinating snapshot of a season during which America, for better or worse, ushered in the modern world. ”

Sunday Times

“ A gifted raconteur...The book is filled with eccentric, flamboyant characters and memorable stories...highly amusing. ”

Guardian

“ A great new form of literature: biography of a few months in one country. ”

Matt Ridley, The Times (Books of the Year)

“ Few writers of nonfiction, and,let's be honest,few enough writers of novels, can crack the narrative whip like Bryson. One Summer fairly whirls along...full of exhilarating, fact-filled fun...surely the most sublime distraction published this year. ”

Observer

“ Bryson is a master of the sidelong, a man who can turn obscurity into hilarity with seemingly effortless charm - and One Summer: America 1927 is an entertaining addition to a body of work that is at its best when it celebrates the unexpected and the obscure...a jolly jalopy ride of a book; Bryson runs down the byways of American history and finds diversion in every roadside stop. ”

Erica Wagner, Financial Times

“ A wonderful book on a pivotal year, in which the gravitational pull of the world shifted from Europe to America. ”

Mail on Sunday

“ Has captured the zeitgeist of the Roaring Twenties in this entertaining and informative book. ”

Washington Post

“ This splendid book, written in the breezy and humorous style that has come to be Bryson's trademark, is sure to delight. ”

Huffington Post

“ Another winner...witty and engrossing. ”

Irish Independent

“ Immaculately researched and lit up by [Bill Bryson's] marvellous anecdotal and descriptive skills. ”

Literary Review

“ Wry but scholarly infotainment...One Summer wins you over by the sheer weight of its encylopedic enthusiasms...Bryson's winning love of the ridiculous finds a rich seam in charting the rise and fall of America's great men...there is tumultuous energy in this serio-hilarious fan letter. In short, it's a bit like America itself. ”

Sunday Telegraph

“ Bryson writes in a style as effervescent as the time itself...No one is immune to Bryson's irreverence...a wonderful romp. ”

New York Times

“ Exuberant...he propels his story forward with enviable skill and inexhaustible verve...Byson's summer of 1927 seems like a boisterous American version of the British summerof 1913, another high point of that fabled innocence which America was always doomed to lose. ”

Elaine Showalter, TLS

“ The T&Cs of a bank loan could be made eloquent in the hands of Bryson so with this rich material, the book sings. ”

The Times Saturday Review Books of the Year

“ A wonderful book on a pivotal year, in which the gravitational pull of the world shifted from Europe to America. ”

Mail on Sunday (Books of the Year)