I had wanted to read this book to gain an understanding of why Lindbergh's flight was so important. After reading this book, I found that out....and a whole lot more!

The book is highly readable and brings to life the Golden Era of aviation -- canvas dope-covered wings, dead-reckoning navigation, and seat-of-the-pants flying, and delivering the mail by airplane like the pony express. This was quite an exciting time, and the book brings this era to life.

The book is also significant in other respect -- setting goals and achieving them. Even this seemingly impossible task can be achieved with hard work, careful planning, and determination. If Lindbergh can do this, then you will get the feeling that you can achieve your own goals, however difficult they may seem.

In the flight across the Atlantic you get to know Lindbergh in the various stories he tells. The book's afterward tells much about his landing in France, the accolades he received, and actual technical flight and test data, as well as log book entries.

In the book's foreward his daughter says Lindbergh often said 2 things: 1) that he wrote the book to "Set the record straight". He achieves that, and a whole lot more, the book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. 2) that he often said to people who asked about his flight "Read the book". He spent something like 20 years writing this meticulously researched account. And who besides him would know more about this flight.

All I can say is to reiterate Lindbergh's own words -- read his book. It's fantastic!

The world embraced Charles A. Lindbergh as its hero in 1927 when he piloted his single-engine Ryan Monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, across dark waters, completing the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris.

THE SPIRIT OF SAINT LOUIS is an extremely well written book by an American icon. It not only chronicles Lindbergh's famous flight, but also faithfully tells the story of his early life as well. The book provides insight into the early history of American aviation and does so in an entertaining yet compelling format.

A few years ago, Scott M. Berg's biography of Lindbergh chronicled the life of the famed American figure. That book delves into the entire life of the aviator, including his darker days when he was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer. THE SPIRIT OF SAINT LOUIS offers a different, more exuberant vision into the author's more youthful soul. I would recommend reading both books for a complete portrait of the man.

I love reading about aviation, and Lindbergh does an excellent job describing the flight. However, the more inspiring story (I think) is found long before Linbergh cleared the power lines at Roosevelt Field and went on his way. The St. Louis banker who took a chance on an unknown airmail pilot; the obscure aircraft manufacturer in San Diego whose management, engineers, and craftsmen poured their hearts and souls into a one-off creation that they would practically sell at a loss; the fact that Linbergh succeeded where world-famous pilots, backed by five and ten times the money and the best of everything, failed... even the most hardened cynic will want to stand up and cheer. Lindbergh's writing is detailed, yet very easy to read. Buy this book.

An extremely well written book covering the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. I actually felt like I was right there witnessing the whole thing unfold.

This historically accurate recount of the Lindberg baby kidnapping is OUTSTANDING! There are multiple examples of newspapers publishing bogus evidence, which in time persuaded jury members. Readers will be amazed at how an obviously innocent man was convited of a crime, then acquited after his execution. This is a TRUE CRIME book.

This book deserves a wider audience and with the recent film version on HBO (CRIME OF THE CENTURY) perhaps it will get it. In this, the golden era of conspiracy theories, it is fashionable to pooh-pooh historians who question standard accounts of famous events, but Kennedy's work is so well documented and the lies told by prosecutors in the Lindbergh case so baldfaced and egregious that it is hard not to be saddened, outraged and flabbergasted at this exceedingly dark spot on the American judicial system. Almost Kafkaesque in its portrayal of a world gone mad in its desire to want so badly to believe Richard Hauptman was guilty, the actions portrayed would be funny if their consequences weren't so dire and if Kennedy didn't solidly ground them in the appropriate moral anger at those who knowingly lied in order to secure Hauptman's conviction and execution

The books in the Diaries, Letters and Memories series introduce young readers to real young people from different time periods in American history. Although "The Boyhood Diary of Charles A. Lindbergh, 1913-1915" was written by someone who would grow up to become one of the most famous people of the 20th century, most of these books are just ordinary young men and young women writing about the interesting times in which they lived. In fact, besides some references to wanting to fly, you would never really recognize that this was young Lindbergh. Part of his life is rather unusual since his father was a U.S. Congressman from Minnesota. So when young Charles goes on a train trip, it is because he and his mother are traveling to Washington, D.C. However, the point is clearly to inform young readers about what train travel was like early in the last century. Similarly, when Charles travels around the state with his father, who is running for the Senate, the emphasis is not on the politics but rather on the trials and tribulations of driving an automobile through rural Minnesota in 1916 (it still snowed in May, even back then). Of course, for me the part that hits home is his description of running low on gas and coasting down the hill into Duluth (been there, done that).

These books use the diary entries as they originally appeared, word for word as they were written, with misspellings and mistakes in grammar. Lindbergh writes about boating down the Mississippi from its source at Lake Itasca and tracking wildlife. Detailed sidebars explain about Passenger Trains, the U.S. Congress, and Early Automobiles, complementing the diary entries with additional information. Books in these series go back as far as the diary of Sally Wister, a Colonial Quaker Girl up to Lindbergh, but of these dozen volumes the only other famous people are Louisa May Alcott and Theodore Roosevelt. This is certainly an interesting little series. I have read several books that try to give young students an idea of what life was like in different time periods, and these books do a much better job of that than any of those I have seen so far.

This book is about Charles Lindbergh, the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean with his Spirit of St. Louis. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Charles Lindbergh.

This biography of Charles Lindbergh is especially good for younger readers. It covers the span of his life from boyhood in Minnesota to his death in Hawaii. The book gives children an idea of why he began to fly and what drove him to achieve all that he did. It briefly covers the baby kidnapping, in only a few paragraphs and without much detail, but enough information for the younger children. It also covers his service to our country during WWII. This book was my 3rd grader's Biography Project and was very useful.

This true story of a young Mississippi boy who gets to knowCharles Lindbergh is a fun gentle history. In the increasingly fastworld of the present, Lindbergh's revolutionary flights seem quaint and old-fashioned. This is a wonderful introduction to historical biography.

This bio has merit,to be supplemented by many of their auto-biographical writings. Anne was painfully shy--flew across USA promoting safe Air Travel..she gained lst woman's glider pilot license,(1930) Died in Vt, at 94, Feb 7,2001. Just 1 week before valentines Day. Love,Peace..of aviation history...to big sky country,gone.

While the author is redundant through-out the book, he has certainly brought to the public the oppor- tunity to look into the case of another "trial of the century". In taking the position that Richard Hauptman was wrongfully exicuted, Mr. Jones does show much evidence to demonstrate his claim, and I have been moved into the same opinion. The book is over 1200 pages, and at times tedious, but I found it to be well worth the time spent. Mr. Jones is into his eighties,and I think he should be commended for the accomplishment of his life's goal.

Jones documents more information in his book than any other thus far. While he presents his conclusions about who was responsible for the kidnapping, he leaves many avenues for other verdicts that may eventually come along. While the book is difficult to put down, there are times when the author presents needless details. On several occasions, he leads us through several pages that eventually go nowhere when a brief paragraph would have been sufficient. I have read dozens of books on the Lindbergh kidnapping case but this is the most complete so far. The book will make the reader very cautious concerning police and prosecuting practices in capital cases.

Sad to report that Mr. Wayne Jones passed away on Saturday, July 4, 1998. Although at times this book is tedious reading and, when needed, repetitious, it is a book that must be read if one is interested in the true story of the Lindburg kidnapping.

A. Scott Berg has created a compelling work which fully explores the complex mind of Charles A. Lindbergh. In using the writings and personal diaries of Lindbergh wife, Anne Morrow, Berg creates a foil which enables the reader to place a very public life in context. After finishing Berg's work, it is impossible to either celebrate the achievements of Lindbergh or condemn his misguided and overt actions to place responsibility for America's participation in an impending war on what he viewed as groups who did not necessarily hold American interests at heart. Quite striking is his projection for the aftermath of WWII: a significantly weakened Europe, the rise of Soviet power, and the on going role of the US as a reluctant world police force. Unfortunatly, we still have today the legacy of the results of this war. Throughout the book, Berg successfully develops Lindbergh's increasingly self obsessive personality. It becomes even more pronounced perhaps as a reaction to the overly excessive interest America placed on an inherently unprepared and reluctant popular hero. To what extent were we in part to blame for who Lindbergh became in his adult life? Berg's ability to draw the reader into this debate is skilled even if at times he provides rather execssive amounts of detail. Yet in sum, Berg has created a timeless piece which leaves a haunting sadness at its end. This is perhaps the lesson to be learned for Lindbergh's life, one full of promise yet so unfilled at its end.

From the moment his wheels touched ground at Orly Airport in Paris in May of 1927, Charles Lindbergh's life started on an incredible second journey over which he often seemed to have little guidance or control, a whirlwind life spent in the suffocating death-grasp of public attention. In this wonderful biography by A. Scott Berg, we are invited to take this momentous ride alongside "Lucky Lindy" from his birth and early beginnings to his efforts to gain fame and recognition by becoming the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic. Yet in a way totally unanticipated by the enigmatic and somewhat naïve Lindbergh, this was only the beginning of an incredible life. For in accomplishing this spellbinding feat, to this brilliantly enterprising young man's amazement, the fame and fortune he had so eagerly sought to achieve soon took control over the direction and destiny of his life.

This is a book full of surprising twists and turns, and the reader is led on an entertaining and exotic excursion unto the interior of a marvelously complicated man's life, as well as into the realities of the story-book romance with his beautiful young wife, the former Anne Morrow, an ambassador's daughter. Their courtship and marriage fueled the public's imagination, and they became figures that loomed larger than life in the tabloid journalism of the early 1930s. Lindbergh found himself fashioned into the first modern day media superstar, a person so celebrated and famous it sometimes seems he spent the balance of his life's energy trying to escape such attention. As a result of his own personal qualities and frailties, and his uneasy and sometimes uncomprehending place in American spotlight, he was both deified and demonized in the public press again and again.

Each event in his all-too public personal odyssey is examined here, from the trip into fame and fortune aboard the "Spirit of Saint Louis" to his romance and marriage to Anne Morrow, from their life in the spotlight to the incredible ordeal of the kidnapping and death of their infant son, which resulted in the most celebrated and controversial trials and subsequent executions in modern American history. Berg examines the evidence of the kidnapping, which eventually led to the Lindberghs fleeing for their sanity sake on an odyssey taking them to England, an island off the coast of France, and to Nazi Germany, where Lindbergh's fascination with Hitler's regime and technical prowess led him to eventual political adventurism of his own with the "America First" movement. In unsuccessfully challenging Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lindbergh lost both his public credibility and cache, becoming vilified in the press for his questionable political views and dubious patriotism.

When war came Lindbergh was flatly refused any active role, but eventually found himself a way into the fracas first as a commercial test pilot, and later as an unofficial pilot in the South Pacific, where he performed brilliantly as a combat pilot with over fifty missions to his credit. After the war he became involved in a number of environmental, humanitarian, and medical issues, and devoted himself to anonymous public service, purposefully hidden from popular scrutiny and public view. In his strange and eclectic odyssey, he had caught public imagination, but had kept his own complexities and personal demons hidden from view. Lindbergh is in many ways a tragic figure, a person tripped by fate into being believed as a figure bigger than life, when in fact he was unequal to the task. He was, after all, only human, and tragically so at that. This is a fascinating and entertaining book about one of the most enigmatic and puzzling figures in 20th century history. I highly recommend it.

In one sense, Charles Lindbergh was a flash-in-the-pan. Had he not flown solo from New York to Paris in 1927, chances are no one would have heard of him. Lindbergh is also living proof that society must take care not to elevate "heroes" to a position beyond that which they deserve or have earned by merit. Take away the New York to Paris flight, and we are left with a college dropout with anti-Semitic views and dangerous theories of racial superiority. I attribute these attitudes more to ignorance and naivete than evil design, but still, Lindbergh failed to grasp the need for the United States to react against German and Japanese aggression and lacked the intelligence to project an unquestionable patriotic image during the Second World War.

Now, for my really radical theory about this book: who is Scott Berg? Isn't coincidental that Lindberg had a son named "Scott Lindbergh"? A. Scott Berg / Scott Lindbergh. Is it the same person?