BIRDMEN The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

Jonathan Fried offers a smooth, easy-on-the-ears performance of this story of early aviation. He clearly and effectively captures the excitement of the early attempts at controlled flight. While he pronounces technical terms and the names of foreign publications with facility, he can't compensate for the author's overly detailed narrative. As the author chronicles the times, he focuses at length on the legal wrangling between pioneer aviators the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss. But he weighs down the narrative with so much detail and so many side trips that even an able reading can't save the book. It was a thrilling time, full of innovation and derring-do. If the author's tale had matched the era, Fried's reading would have soared. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2014]