The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Nonfiction
Nothing stopped them—repeated failure, misinformation, primitive living conditions, injuries, competition, a disbelieving public—nothing. They made their own parts, and remade them, and remade them. When the engine they bought was too heavy, they made an engine. When the calculations on which they based their design proved inaccurate, they worked out their own from scratch. Famed historian McCullough (1776, John Adams, Mornings on Horseback) delves into the upbringing which led them to persevere, the details of their work, the people who helped them, and what happened to them after the world acknowledged their achievement. A wonderful history of the beginning of human flight.