Fly Girls (Young Readers Edition)
How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History
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Narrated by:
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Erin Bennett
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By:
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Keith O'Brien
About this listen
The untold story of five women who fought to compete against men in the high-stakes national air races of the 1920s and 1930s - and won.
Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multiday events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Well, the men were hailed. Female pilots were more often ridiculed than praised for what the press portrayed as silly efforts to horn in on a manly, and deadly, pursuit.
Fly Girls recounts how a cadre of women banded together to break the original glass ceiling: the entrenched prejudice that conspired to keep them out of the sky. O'Brien weaves together the stories of five remarkable women: Florence Klingensmith, a high school dropout who worked for a dry cleaner in Fargo, North Dakota; Ruth Elder, an Alabama divorcee; Amelia Earhart, the most famous, but not necessarily the most skilled; Ruth Nichols, who chafed at the constraints of her blue-blood family's expectations; and Louise Thaden, the mother of two young kids who got her start selling coal in Wichita. Together, they fought for the chance to race against the men - and in 1936, one of them would triumph in the toughest race of all.
Like Hidden Figures and Girls of Atomic City, Fly Girls celebrates a little-known slice of history in which tenacious, trailblazing women braved all obstacles to achieve greatness.
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Story
Mira Slovak was born in Czechoslovakia and endured both the Nazi occupation and the brutal Russian liberation. He joined the Czech Air Force, rising to captain by the age of 21. When he could no longer tolerate life under the Communists, he hijacked an airliner and flew across the Iron Curtain to freedom. He outlasted communism, and when it collapsed in 1990, he returned to his home, only to realize his true home was and always would be the US.
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Free to live as an American.
- By cosmitron on 06-08-18
By: David Williams
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Double Ace
- The Life of Robert Lee Scott Jr., Pilot, Hero, and Teller of Tall Tales
- By: Robert Coram
- Narrated by: Barry Press
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Lee Scott was larger than life. A decorated Eagle Scout who barely graduated from high school, the young man from Macon, Georgia, with an oversize personality used dogged determination to achieve his childhood dream of becoming a famed fighter pilot. First capturing national attention during World War II, Scott, a West Point graduate, flew missions in China alongside the legendary "Flying Tigers", where his reckless courage and victories against the enemy made headlines.
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Tiger Fan
- By Robert M. on 12-23-17
By: Robert Coram
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One Summer
- America, 1927
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the most admired nonfiction writers of our time retells the story of one truly fabulous year in the life of his native country - a fascinating and gripping narrative featuring such outsized American heroes as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and yes Herbert Hoover, and a gallery of criminals (Al Capone), eccentrics (Shipwreck Kelly), and close-mouthed politicians (Calvin Coolidge). It was the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things and came of age in a big, brawling manner. What a country. What a summer. And what a writer to bring it all so vividly alive.
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Why 1927?
- By Mark on 10-18-13
By: Bill Bryson
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Wilbur and Orville
- A Biography of the Wright Brothers
- By: Fred Howard
- Narrated by: Larry McKeever
- Length: 21 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The Wrights' longest flight in 1903 covered 852 feet and lasted 59 seconds. In 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles in 38 minutes and the issue was no longer how to fly but how to cash in. Their effort to exploit their invention is a suspense story of the best kind; their voyage into flight and into American history is a gripping tale from takeoff to landing.
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Interesting but not hard to put down...
- By James on 03-17-12
By: Fred Howard
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Sully
- My Search for What Really Matters
- By: Chesley B. Sullenberger, Jeffrey Zaslow
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie, Chesley B. Sullenberger
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 15, 2009, the world witnessed a remarkable emergency landing when Captain "Sully" Sullenberger skillfully glided US Airways flight 1549 onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew. His cool actions not only averted tragedy but made him a hero and an inspiration worldwide. His story is now a major motion picture from director/producer Clint Eastwood and starring Tom Hanks, Laura Linney, and Aaron Eckhart.
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Really Dull.
- By Nick on 09-14-16
By: Chesley B. Sullenberger, and others
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Man Who Flew The Memphis Belle
- By: Robert Morgan, Ron Powers
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
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As a young man growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, Robert Morgan was a fast-driving party boy - a hell-raiser. But when his mother committed suicide upon learning she had inoperable brain cancer, Morgan's life changed dramatically. He was no longer a carefree playboy; he was a man searching for meaning. He found that meaning at the controls of an airplane, and in the flak-and fighter-filled skies over Occupied France and Nazi Germany.
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Abridged Version = Butchered
- By Kyle on 01-03-17
By: Robert Morgan, and others
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The Arsenal of Democracy
- FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War
- By: A. J. Baime
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The Arsenal of Democracy tells the incredible story of how Detroit answered the call, centering on Henry Ford and his tortured son Edsel, who, when asked if they could deliver 50,000 airplanes, made an outrageous claim: Ford Motor Company would erect a plant that could yield a “bomber an hour”. Critics scoffed: Ford didn’t make planes; they made simple, affordable cars. But bucking his father’s resistance, Edsel charged ahead.
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Misleading title
- By Kindle Customer on 12-01-14
By: A. J. Baime
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The Flying Tigers
- The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan
- By: Sam Kleiner
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Sam Kleiner’s The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma.
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This really happened.
- By Jason on 07-26-20
By: Sam Kleiner
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The Lost Pilots
- The Spectacular Rise and Scandalous Fall of Aviation's Golden Couple
- By: Corey Mead
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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During the height of the roaring '20s, Jessie Miller longs for adventure. Fleeing a passionless marriage in the backwaters of Australia, 23-year-old Jessie arrives in London and promptly falls in with the Bright Young Things, those gin-soaked boho-chic intellectuals draped in suits, flapper dresses, and pearls. At a party Jessie meets Captain William Lancaster, married himself and fresh from the Royal Air Force, with a scheme in his head to become as famous as Charles Lindbergh, who has just crossed the Atlantic. Lancaster will do Lindy one better: fly from London to Melbourne, and in Jessie Miller he’s found the perfect co-pilot.
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Boring narrative
- By M. Hoyt on 07-31-18
By: Corey Mead
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First Man
- The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
- By: James R. Hansen
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon.
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Not really 'unabridged'
- By A Reader on 06-06-18
By: James R. Hansen
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Soul Survivor
- The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot
- By: Bruce Leininger, Andrea Leininger
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of James Leininger, who---a little more than two weeks after his second birthday---began having blood-curdling nightmares that just would not stop. When James began screaming out recurring phrases like "Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!" the Leiningers finally admitted that they truly had to take notice.
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A wonderful true life story
- By Nancy on 01-09-10
By: Bruce Leininger, and others