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Title: Cloud Racers

Author: Adam L. Penenberg

Narrator: Adam L. Penenberg

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-23-14

Publisher: The Atavist

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Who would be the first aviator to singlehandedly fly all the way around the globe? That was all anyone wanted to know in the summer of 1933, when Wiley Post and Jimmie Mattern set out from New York in a pair of wood-and-canvas propeller planes. Post, a one-eyed Oklahoma farm boy with a desperate past, was as comfortable in the cockpit as he was socially awkward back on the ground. Mattern was a Hollywood stunt pilot and social sidekick of Howard Hughes who had fallen on hard times, and an accident-prone daredevil who'd walked away from more plane crashes than he could count. They were friends as well as rivals, members of a small fraternity of aviators - their circle included Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart - at a time when flight was still a perilous business. Each was determined to conquer one of the last frontiers in a rapidly civilizing world-and neither knew the dangers that lay ahead.

In Cloud Racers, Adam L. Penenberg tells the story of Post's and Mattern's rollicking journey from the canyons of Manhattan to the wilds of the Russian Arctic and back again, and brings back to life an era in which the sky remained a place of mystery and wonder.

Members Reviews:

Technical error makes me wonder whether the rest of the story is accurate

This was interesting and generally accurate regarding the people and events as far as I know. BUT at the very end there is an unforgivable technical mistake, which makes me wonder whether the rest of the book can be trusted. In the Epilogue it says that in 1938, "Howard Hughes -- flying a jet with a crew of four . . ." Jet aircraft were not invented until WWII, and there were none available for civilian use until 1952. Hughes flew a Lockheed 14, a twin engined propellor plane.

I am not nitpicking here. Anyone familiar with aviation history knows that jets did not exist in 1938. Did the author of this book show the manuscript to someone who knows a lot about aviation? I doubt it. I have not fact-checked other statements carefully, but I can only wonder what else he got wrong.

This is the kind of thing that even Wikipedia usually gets right. (As indeed, it did.)

A good story well told

This Amazon Single will capture the attention of anyone interested in the history and adventure of early aviation. However, besides that, be sure to pay close attention to how it was written. Penenberg knows how to craft a story and it was a joy to read. This short nonfiction book is instructive about aviation. However, for aspiring writers, it is equally instructive as a example of clear, sharp prose worth emulating.

I liked this book pretty well but it left me with ...

I liked this book pretty well but it left me with an uneasy feeling. In the first few pages of the book he mentions a "Thomas Morris Scout" airplane. It should be a Thomas Morse Scout. A small error to be sure but considering it is a book about airplanes and flying it makes me wonder. At the end of the book he mentions that Howard Hughes made an around the world flight in a jet in 1938. That is a pretty gross error. Considering these mistakes which I knew enough to recognize, I wonder if there were any errors that I did not know enough to spot. All that being said, I did enjoy the book. I just hope that I have not gathered some incorrect information while reading it

Great times and men

The golden age of flight still evokes wonder and awe in us pilots of today.