Books like

Books like One Summer: America, 1927

12 books with a reading profile close to One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson. Outward-looking and clear-cut; a moderate read.

1

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

by Stephen E. Ambrose

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Stephen E.
2

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History

by Robert M. Edsel

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Robert M.
3

Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture

by Ross King

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

In 1418, the architects of Florence faced a structural crisis: the massive central opening of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral remained uncovered, as no known building method could support a dome of such scale withou…
4

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II

by Liza Mundy

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S.
5

D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches

by Stephen E. Ambrose

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Stephen Ambrose reconstructs the Allied invasion of France through hundreds of oral histories from the men who fought on the ground.
6

Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II

by Mitchell Zuckoff

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

In 1945, a transport plane nicknamed the Gremlin Special crashed into a remote valley in Dutch New Guinea, leaving only three survivors: WAC corporal Margaret Hastings, Sergeant Kenneth Decker, and Lieutenant John McCol…
7

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

by Nathaniel Philbrick

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

In the winter of 1820, a massive sperm whale repeatedly rammed and sank the whaleship Essex in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
8

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

by Denise Kiernan

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

In the early 1940s, the United States government constructed Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a secret city carved out of rural farmland to house seventy thousand residents working on the Manhattan Project.
9

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

by Erik Larson

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Erik Larson chronicles the five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the surrender of Fort Sumter.
10

Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission

by Hampton Sides

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Hampton Sides chronicles the 1945 raid on the Cabanatuan prisoner of war camp in the Philippines.
11

A Night to Remember

by Walter Lord

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Walter Lord recreates the final hours of the RMS Titanic through a chronological sequence of events beginning at 11:40 PM on April 14, 1912.
12

Thunderstruck

by Erik Larson

Also outward-looking and clear-cut · history, narrative

Erik Larson weaves together two seemingly unrelated narratives from the Edwardian era: the invention of long-distance wireless communication by Guglielmo Marconi and the pursuit of the mild-mannered murderer Hawley Harv…

Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.

Get papr

Your library, beautifully understood.