Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Stockholm, 1954
Description
Along with most of my fellow fliers, I believed that aviation had a brilliant future. Now we live, today, in our dreams of yesterday; and, living in those dreams, we dream again...." -- From "The Spirit of St. Louis" Charles A. Lindbergh captured the world's attention -- and changed the course of history -- when he completed his famous nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927. In "The Spirit of St. Louis," Lindbergh takes the reader on an extraordinary journey, bringing to life the thrill and peril of trans-Atlantic travel in a single-engine plane. Eloquently told and sweeping in its scope, Lindbergh's Pulitzer Prize-winning account is an epic adventure tale for all time.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
The story behind the autobiographical The Spirit of St. Louis, published 60-years ago this fall, is interesting because Lindbergh spent 14 years working on it, putting in more effort than actually flying across the Atlantic, and perhaps even his entire 5-year flying career to that point. He wrote
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and re-wrote the 600 pages at least 6 times, laboring over semi-colons and words to an exacting degree. The book has a structure that reflects the experience of being alone while struggling mentally through uncertainty and final achievement. It's one of the greatest works of American 'outdoor literature', and memoirs, of the 20th century and will be read (and readable) for a long time. As novelist John P. Marquand observed, "It has a timeless quality and an authentic strength and beauty that should cause it to be read by this generation and by many following — as long, in fact, as anyone is left who cares for fine writing and high courage." Show Less
LibraryThing member tgraettinger
Fantastic. The story is so unique, and Lindbergh's telling is so real and down-to-earth (how ironic). What I enjoyed the most was the way the narrative recalled those days from not-so-long-ago: how unusual it was for a plane to fly overhead (people came running to see, schools let out, businesses
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closed), how early it was in the lifecycle of aviation (crude instruments, no radio, open cockpits), and how amazing the New York-to-Paris flight was at the time (Lindbergh flying solo for 36 hrs, no reliable weather forecasts or current information, over an open ocean). Makes me feel sheepish for complaining about a 5 hour delay in Philly. Show Less
LibraryThing member amerynth
For a man who describes himself as uninterested in spelling an grammar, Charles Lindbergh has written a wonderful book, completely worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. Lindbergh's book "The Spirit of St. Louis" follows his successful effort to become the first person to make a trans-Atlantic flight. Most
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regarded him initially as a crank -- too inexperienced and relying only on one-engine... but in the end his guts and courage carry him across the ocean to France. The story is told in great detail from the birth and of an idea to the construction of his airplane to an hour by hour account of his flight. Some of the tale gets bogged down a bit as he reminisces during the huge amount of downtown in the flight but overall this is a great account. Show Less
LibraryThing member tnilsson
Incredibly well-written and interesting story of Lindbergh's life prior to and during his historic flight. I care little for airplane facts or the history of flight, but this book held my interest all the way through.
LibraryThing member weird_O
The Spirit of St. Louis was published in 1953, 26 years after Lindbergh's non-stop flight from NY to Paris. I believe he'd written two previous books about this flight. This book won him the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1954.
Lindbergh begins his story in Fall 1927, as he's flying air mail from
Then the big challenge. And big success.
Lindbergh packed a lot into this book. The long flight is interspersed with flashbacks to his childhood, his education, his training as a flier, and stories of his days barnstorming the midwest--giving folks their first airplane ride over their hometowns or farms, performing aerobatics, doing deviltry like wing-walking and parachute jumps. By including his flight logs, you learn that in the first few hours of the flight, passing over New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, his altitude seldom exceeded 500 feet. He used road maps to help locate landmarks and keep him on course. As he crossed the North Atlantic, in contrast, he soared to as much as 10,000 feet to avoid cloud cover and fog. Over the ocean, he had to rely on compass readings and mental calculations to adjust for estimated wind drift to navigate. The plane's airspeed never topped 110 mph.
Heroics, you learn, are less about surviving daring-do than about careful, through planning, calculating the risks, knowing yourself and what you are capable of. Lindbergh did all that. A single-engine (two or three would simply require more fuel), a solitary pilot (extra bodies are extra weight), a no-frills craft with enormous fuel capacity. Entertaining and informative.
Lindbergh begins his story in Fall 1927, as he's flying air mail from
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St. Louis to Chicago in rebuilt WWI biplanes, in all sorts of weather. When the challenge of making a flight no one has yet accomplished takes hold, he solicits--and receives--more financial support than he expected. He had a well-defined image of the plane he wanted for the flight, and when he couldn't find it, he hired a small manufacturer in San Diego that designed and built it. In only a couple of months. He flew this new plane non-stop to St. Louis, 14 hours, his first night-flight. St. Louis to Long Island was another non-stop.Then the big challenge. And big success.
Lindbergh packed a lot into this book. The long flight is interspersed with flashbacks to his childhood, his education, his training as a flier, and stories of his days barnstorming the midwest--giving folks their first airplane ride over their hometowns or farms, performing aerobatics, doing deviltry like wing-walking and parachute jumps. By including his flight logs, you learn that in the first few hours of the flight, passing over New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, his altitude seldom exceeded 500 feet. He used road maps to help locate landmarks and keep him on course. As he crossed the North Atlantic, in contrast, he soared to as much as 10,000 feet to avoid cloud cover and fog. Over the ocean, he had to rely on compass readings and mental calculations to adjust for estimated wind drift to navigate. The plane's airspeed never topped 110 mph.
Heroics, you learn, are less about surviving daring-do than about careful, through planning, calculating the risks, knowing yourself and what you are capable of. Lindbergh did all that. A single-engine (two or three would simply require more fuel), a solitary pilot (extra bodies are extra weight), a no-frills craft with enormous fuel capacity. Entertaining and informative.
Show Less
LibraryThing member hcubic
Lindbergh's version of Lindbergh. It did win a Pulitzer Prize. Nothing about Lindbergh's support of the Nazis.
Subjects
Awards
Pulitzer Prize (Winner — 1954)
Notable Books List (1953)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1953