Description
Unforgettably good book about an eccentric aviator and the thrilling early days of flight.
From Paul Hoffman, the acclaimed author of The Man Who Loved Only Numbers , comes this engaging true story of the man who was once hailed worldwide as the conqueror of the air — Alberto Santos-Dumont. Because the Wright brothers worked in secrecy, word of their first flights had not reached Europe when Santos-Dumont took to the skies in 1906. The dashing and impeccably dressed aeronaut stunned and delighted Paris, barhopping around the city in a one-man dirigible he invented, circling above crowds and crashing into rooftops. Yet Santos-Dumont was a frenzied genius tortured by the weight of his own creation. Wings of Madness is a riveting, brilliantly told story of this tormented man who helped to usher in the modern age and who epitomized the increasingly tortured spirit of the twentieth century — it is elegant, fascinating, and deeply moving.
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