[0VS]⇒ Read I Was Amelia Earhart Jane Mendelsohn 9780679776369 Books

I Was Amelia Earhart Jane Mendelsohn 9780679776369 Books

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I Was Amelia Earhart Jane Mendelsohn 9780679776369 Books

Author Mendelsohn probably didn't need to add the name Earhart after Amelia since anyone older than 30 probably can't think of anyone else named Amelia. Like Lindbergh there was only one. And in our mind's eye she is forever 39, classy, slender, athletic, good looking with a "kiss my butt" attitude and the guts of a burglar.

She knew from young she would be a heroine and didn't suffer the faint of heart. When the word went out across what passed as the media in 1939 that her plane was missing millions of just plain folks held their collective breaths. It is not a spoiler to say that she slipped out of the firmament that day in 1939 into that historical status of one of the great enigmas of the twentieth century. As far as we know Amelia and her plane have never been seen again.

It goes without saying that theories surrounding her disappearance are as common as dust. As time dragged on and we plunged into WWII one of the favorites was that she was taken prisoner with all that entails. Others believed she was stranded some where on a desert island. Searches for her remains and that of her plane continue to this day as the clock and calendar stride inexorably onward toward 75 years since that faithful day.

But this book is only marginally about that. The build up to the day she flew off to conquer the world is told in little vignettes from her personal life. We are treated in this fictional version of a part of her life to the occasional doubts and depression that invaded her veneer. We meet her husband and promoter George P. Putnam. We are introduced to her navigator Fred Noonan who is portrayed as a hopeless if not hopeful alcoholic. He is competent and talented but with his looks, personality and propensity for the sauce this hail fellow was usually pretty much worthless first thing in the morning. With this companion and a compromised communication system Amelia set off to circumnavigate the globe equatorially in her beloved Lockheed Electra 10E.

In the second half of this novel Jane Mendelsohn recounts the time following their disappearance. It is told to us in Earhart's own words with occasional narration. Amelia Earhart was an accomplished and successful writer and was the Aviation Editor for Cosmopolitan. The log book which Amelia kept during the time after her exit from our world reflects her introspective self analysis and evolution of her understanding of relationships not only between humans but with the rest of nature and the cosmos. Both she and Noonan go through a bit of metamorphosis and become by turns estranged and close. The author does not over embellish but the writing is nearly poetry. My favorite line is As they flew into oblivion "... wondering which of us was more forsaken: the navigator who didn't care where we were going or the pilot who didn't care if we ever got there."

No conclusions, no wrapping up, no great mystery solved; a good companionable read that puts you right there on the beach. I'll say no more. Short and sweet. 3* GIBO


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I Was Amelia Earhart Jane Mendelsohn 9780679776369 Books Reviews

Well, this was an interesting book and one I enjoyed. Wish I could write like this lady.
Will read again.
I wanted to keep reading to know how this would end. It definitely kept me interested and was a nice way to think about what may have happened (at least partly) to Amelia Earhart.
Amelia Earhart was married in her sister's home not far from where I live and I saw her signiture on an old register when I visited the Narragansett Hotel on Block Island, R.I.several years ago.
The book was interesting from the respect that recent evidence seems to further the theory that Amelia and her navigator landed on Howland Island and died there. The novel softens the blow of the thinking that they suffered a violent death when their plane ran out of gas and plunged into the Pacific ocean.
A good read and I highly recommend to people who still wonder and speculate about Amelia's fate.
I had read "I Was Amelia Earhart" well over ten years ago and always counted it as one of my favorite books. After seeing an Amelia Earhart special on NatGeo channel recently, one that covered all the speculations about what happened to her, I realized I missed the little book! Not finding it on my bookshelves (obviously not returned by the last person I'd loaned it to), I headed to and was so glad to find some used copies in good shape--practically perfect shape, in fact. The style is enchanting, switching without the reader's notice between first and third person and the detail is true to the imagination of a person wondering about her end. It IS a little book...about vertical postcard size and just over 130 pages...but not little in its effect. I highly recommend this book.
The first part of the book is wonderful. In it, the author added what she conceived to possibly have been Amelia Earhart's thoughts on top of actual history. Part 2 is a story about "life" after the plane crash-landed on a deserted island. All in all, it was a pleasant reading experience. It fits nicely into the category of "beach reading."
It’s an okay book, but it really irritated me because it switched pronouns in the middle of paragraphs, moving from “I” to “she” or “her”. The whole book switches back and forth from first person to third, and I can handle that, but not within the same paragraph. Seems either sloppy or gimmicky. Don’t know which is worse, but it affects the read, at least to me.
Our local library selected this book as the choice for Westport Reads, a community month-long event during which the entire town is supposed to read the same book. I understand why they chose this book as certainly the questions of how we live are paramount to the book. The author imagines Amelia Earhart's life both future and past from the perspective (mostly) of Earhart if she had survived and landed on an atoll or small island with her navigator. The two find peace that neither had achieved within the context of their normal lives and the text asks the question,"What is paradise to you?" As most of us know, it's not what we might expect. Thus, the book was a good choice for starting conversations throughout a town. Historical fiction is tricky, because the author imposes insight onto not entirely fictitious characters as they are based on individuals who actually existed and had their own experiences, consequences and systems of belief. It's pleasant to consider alternate existences and that's what fiction is all about. But, historical fiction can be tricky. The author maintains Amelia's voice and makes a believable argument towards catharsis. I struggle more with the genre in general than with her approach. It's entirely fair to imagine, "what if..." and a well-known historical figure such as Earhart inspires curiosity.
Author Mendelsohn probably didn't need to add the name Earhart after Amelia since anyone older than 30 probably can't think of anyone else named Amelia. Like Lindbergh there was only one. And in our mind's eye she is forever 39, classy, slender, athletic, good looking with a "kiss my butt" attitude and the guts of a burglar.

She knew from young she would be a heroine and didn't suffer the faint of heart. When the word went out across what passed as the media in 1939 that her plane was missing millions of just plain folks held their collective breaths. It is not a spoiler to say that she slipped out of the firmament that day in 1939 into that historical status of one of the great enigmas of the twentieth century. As far as we know Amelia and her plane have never been seen again.

It goes without saying that theories surrounding her disappearance are as common as dust. As time dragged on and we plunged into WWII one of the favorites was that she was taken prisoner with all that entails. Others believed she was stranded some where on a desert island. Searches for her remains and that of her plane continue to this day as the clock and calendar stride inexorably onward toward 75 years since that faithful day.

But this book is only marginally about that. The build up to the day she flew off to conquer the world is told in little vignettes from her personal life. We are treated in this fictional version of a part of her life to the occasional doubts and depression that invaded her veneer. We meet her husband and promoter George P. Putnam. We are introduced to her navigator Fred Noonan who is portrayed as a hopeless if not hopeful alcoholic. He is competent and talented but with his looks, personality and propensity for the sauce this hail fellow was usually pretty much worthless first thing in the morning. With this companion and a compromised communication system Amelia set off to circumnavigate the globe equatorially in her beloved Lockheed Electra 10E.

In the second half of this novel Jane Mendelsohn recounts the time following their disappearance. It is told to us in Earhart's own words with occasional narration. Amelia Earhart was an accomplished and successful writer and was the Aviation Editor for Cosmopolitan. The log book which Amelia kept during the time after her exit from our world reflects her introspective self analysis and evolution of her understanding of relationships not only between humans but with the rest of nature and the cosmos. Both she and Noonan go through a bit of metamorphosis and become by turns estranged and close. The author does not over embellish but the writing is nearly poetry. My favorite line is As they flew into oblivion "... wondering which of us was more forsaken the navigator who didn't care where we were going or the pilot who didn't care if we ever got there."

No conclusions, no wrapping up, no great mystery solved; a good companionable read that puts you right there on the beach. I'll say no more. Short and sweet. 3* GIBO