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today's Ordinary Reading Assignment
From Publishers Weekly
In a pleasing celebration of the most difficult of instruments, Gabbard, a professor of comparative literature
and English at Stony Brook University in New York, sheds light on the history of the trumpet. He takes the
instrument through the ages from ancient Egypt to the European royal courts, the American battlefield and
the cutting contests by bebop jazz musicians. The astonishing stories of Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong,
Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis—all American originals on the horn—merge with history,
art, style and humor as this amateur trumpeter weaves into the colorful narrative large spoonfuls of film and
literary references as well as personal observations. Gabbard also lists the long tally of serious physical
ailments that dog trumpeters in classical and jazz music. Although this slightly eccentric book meanders a
bit, it's never less than engaging and thought provoking in its insights and random chatter. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
This richly illustrated book chronicles lighter-than-air flight from Archimedes' discovery of the principle of
buoyancy to the latest in sport balloons and plans for future airships. Far more than a timeline of events,
Lighter Than Air focuses on the people -- flamboyant and daring, heroes and scoundrels -- who made
history in the sky. Here are the eighteenth-century pioneers who first took to the skies, the peripatetic
aeronauts who criss-crossed two continents a century later, the airmen who manned the great rigid airships,
and the intrepid balloonists who flew their craft across oceans and continents in the years following World
War II.
The first half of the volume recounts the invention of the balloon, the golden age of the professional aerial
showmen in Europe and America, the use of balloons for aerial reconnaissance, and the key role of
balloons in scientific research. The second half presents the rich tale of the airship from eighteenth-century
dreams to twentieth-century reality. These chapters describe the early development of the pressure airship,
the emergence of the rigid airship and its golden age in the first half of the twentieth century, and the military
and civil applications of these aerial behemoths. The author concludes by discussing modern blimps, sport
balloons, and dreams of a future for airships.
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