Flight of Dreams

I thought I would get a lot of reading done on the recent transatlantic cruise I took.  I was quite mistaken!  There were so many interesting talks and lectures every day, not to mention the amazing library on board my Viking ship, that I was hard pressed to carve out time to sit back and actually read.

I brought Ariel Lawhon's Flight of Dreams (#1,100) with me.  It poses one possible theory of what caused the zeppelin The Hindenburg to crash and burn on landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 by following the lives on board of several of the actual passengers and crew.  The Stewardess, the Navigator, the Journalist, and the Cabin Boy all have their own secrets, and their own reasons for wanting to reach America.  Ms. Lawhon weaves these elements together to present plausible motivations for the cause of the fire onboard.  Not everyone makes it out alive.

We're probably all familiar with the newsreel footage of the disaster unfolding, so I was somewhat surprised to learn how many people did survive the crash.  It seems impossible from seeing it on screen.  Nevertheless, it marked the end of an era and put a stop to official Nazi flights over one of America's most important cities.