The most recommended books about the Wright brothers

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9 authors created a book list connected to the Wright brothers, and here are their favorite Wright brothers books.
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Book cover of Flight Not Improbable: Octave Chanute and the Worldwide Race Toward Flight

Markus Raffel Author Of The Flying Man: Otto Lilienthal-History, Flights and Photographs

From my list on daring adventures with historical content.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am working and lecturing on experimental aerodynamics since decades and started flying hang gliders and powered aircraft long ago. And the older I got, the more I became fascinated by daring adventures with historical content, especially related to the history of flight and the early aeronautical pioneers. But the most I was fascinated by Otto Lilienthal, the man who worked systematically towards flight before and finally succeeded flying with nothing else than willow wood, fabric, and steel wires, materials that existed already long before. Inspired by his attitude and courage I started investigating and flying museum made authentic replicas in California to prove their flying qualities a second time.

Markus' book list on daring adventures with historical content

Markus Raffel Why did Markus love this book?

This book focuses on Octave Chanute's work in aeronautics.

He is best known for his scientific and collaborative support of the Wright Brothers. But as the author clearly demonstrates, this engineer's contributions to the field of aviation have often been underestimated, even though almost every famous and not-so-famous aviation enthusiast contacted him and used the readily available drawings of his glider to build and then learn to fly their own design.

Chanute's biplane glider design, developed and first flown in 1896 in the Indiana Dunes along Lake Michigan, proved to be a key step in the evolution of the flying machine.

By freely sharing not only drawings of the general design of this aircraft, but also the lessons learned, the biplane became the starting point or prototype for many experimenters and can be considered the foundation of the modern airplane.

By Simine Short,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Flight Not Improbable as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book is a must-read for all those interested in the evolution of airplanes.

Its protagonist, Octave Chanute, is best known for his scientific and collaborative approach to the engineering problems related to the development of flight and for the support he gave to the many aeronautical pioneers, including the Wright Brothers. But, as the author clearly demonstrates, this engineer's contributions in the aeronautical field have frequently been underestimated, even though almost every famous and not so famous aeronautical enthusiast contacted him and used the readily available drawings of his glider to build and then learn to fly in their…


Book cover of How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery

Carl Nordgren Author Of Becoming A Creative Genius (again)

From my list on appreciating your natural entrepreneurial genius.

Why am I passionate about this?

I never believed the idea that creativity was for a gifted few. Throughout my life, as a teenage fishing guide, an entrepreneur and college professor, novelist, and creativity guide, the folks I’ve met are rich with creative and entrepreneurial qualities. My calling is to help you appreciate your creative genius so that it appreciates in value for you. Growing your creatively entrepreneurial genius is the best way to prepare for a future of unknowable unknowns, the best way to build careers we desire, the best way to fully appreciate life. I offer various perspectiveS on core creative and entrepreneurial concepts so you can construct the best path to your personal renewal and growth.

Carl's book list on appreciating your natural entrepreneurial genius

Carl Nordgren Why did Carl love this book?

I used this in class the last semester I taught at Duke; had I continued to teach I would have used it again. The students and I found it was two things—as it tells the Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery it also spotlights creative strategies and entrepreneurial behaviors in the stories it shares. It’s an entertaining history and narrative of creative and entrepreneurial successes; both teach us, guide us, maybe even inspire us. I’m the father of three daughters and appreciated the stories he’s uncovered of many life-changing innovations that women led but men claimed. 

By Kevin Ashton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Fly a Horse as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the vein of Susan Cain's QUIET and Malcolm Gladwell's DAVID AND GOLIATH, HOW TO FLY A HORSE is a smart, empowering book that dispels the myths around genius and creativity.

There is a myth about how something new comes to be; that geniuses have dramatic moments of insight where great things and thoughts are born whole. Poems are written in dreams. Symphonies are composed complete. Science is accomplished with eureka shrieks. Businesses are built by magic touch.

The myth is wrong. Anyone can create. Necessity is not the mother of invention. We all are.

In How to Fly a…


Book cover of Wood, Wire, Wings: Emma Lilian Todd Invents an Airplane

Vicky Fang Author Of Invent-a-Pet

From my list on inspiring girls in STEM.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love encouraging kids to explore engineering, design, and technology! I am a former Google product designer for kids and families. I started writing to address a growing need for coding education, particularly for girls and kids of color. Stories are a wonderful way to demonstrate concepts and to invite kids to approach STEM with creativity and imagination. I picked a range of books for this post, from non-fiction to fantastic, because different kids will respond to different kinds of stories. Through these books, I hope that kids will find inspiration and tools for creative problem-solving, for STEM and beyond.

Vicky's book list on inspiring girls in STEM

Vicky Fang Why did Vicky love this book?

This non-fiction book about Emma Lilian Todd by Kirsten Williams Larson and illustrated by Tracy Subisak offers an inspiring story about a woman engineer inventing an airplane. The story and illustrations do a fantastic job of showing the real-world process of design thinking, with research and failures along the way. I love the themes of perseverance and the important message that great inventions build upon one another.

By Kirsten Larson, Tracy Subisak (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Wood, Wire, Wings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 7, 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

NCSS/CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book * NSTA Best STEM Book List

This riveting nonfiction picture book biography explores both the failures and successes of self-taught engineer Emma Lilian Todd as she tackles one of the greatest challenges of the early 1900s: designing an airplane.

Emma Lilian Todd's mind was always soaring--she loved to solve problems. Lilian tinkered and fiddled with all sorts of objects, turning dreams into useful inventions. As a child, she took apart and reassembled clocks to figure out how they worked. As an adult, typing up patents at the U.S. Patent Office, Lilian built the inventions…


Book cover of The Wright Sister: Katharine Wright and Her Famous Brothers

Tracey Enerson Wood Author Of The President's Wife

From my list on amazing women whose stories were lost or hidden.

Why am I passionate about this?

 As a military wife, and daughter, sister, mother, and mother-in-law to military members, I gained a strong perspective of what it is like to be behind the scenes, keeping the family together and building my own career while supporting the important missions of the men around me. In my reading, I’m drawn to historical fiction, as I feel it makes the stories come alive for me. I love a good story, and what entertains and informs even better than the documented facts are the dialog, relationships, and emotions of the characters. So it seems only natural to write about the amazing women behind the curtain in history in the engaging and memorable form of novels.

Tracey's book list on amazing women whose stories were lost or hidden

Tracey Enerson Wood Why did Tracey love this book?

Every schoolchild learns the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright and the famous first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk.

But how many know of the brilliant, irrepressible, and extroverted woman who supported them throughout and is a key reason for their success? The woman who travelled to France and met with presidents, kings, and queens to sell the idea of aviation, when the American people weren’t yet believers?

In keeping with my desire to learn the rest of the story, especially the women in the background who made the grand events possible, I am studying the story of Katharine Wright Haskell.

Both heartwarming and tragic at times, it is a story of the American dream at a time when it seemed anything was possible.

By Richard Maurer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Wright Sister as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

Not many people know that the Wright brothers had a sister, Katharine Wright. She supported her high-flying, inventor brothers through their aviation triumphs and struggles. This is her story.

On a chill December day in 1903, a young woman came home from her teaching job in Dayton, Ohio, to find a telegram waiting for her. The woman was Katharine Wright; the telegram, from her brother Orville, announced the first successful airplane flight in history. In this, the first authoritative biography of the Wright brothers’ sister, Richard Maurer tells Katharine’s story. Smart and well-educated, she was both confidant and caregiver to…


Book cover of The Wright Brothers

Mary F. Ehrlander Author Of Walter Harper, Alaska Native Son

From Mary's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Mary's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Mary F. Ehrlander Why did Mary love this book?

I love a history book that takes me behind the scenes or headlines to learn about the actual human experience – a book that leaves me thinking, “I had no idea!” That’s how I felt as I read McCullough’s account of Wilbur and Orville Wright’s relentless efforts to build a “flying machine.” The keen observation skills, methodical approach, mechanical intelligence, and dogged determination that led to their success, coupled with their stoicism and lack of vanity, make them truly heroic and inspiring figures.

I was also drawn to McCullough’s touching depiction of the brothers’ uncommonly compatible working relationship and the support they drew from their close-knit family that contributed to their success. A loyal long-term housekeeper and an equally faithful and capable employee further illustrated the role that warm, trusting personal relationships played in the brothers’ success. The book is both enlightening and a feel-good story that I’ve been recommending…

By David McCullough,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Wright Brothers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The incredible true story of the origin of human flight, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.

Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did?

David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the surprising, profoundly human story of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Far more…


Book cover of Fighter Heroes of WWI: The Extraordinary Story of the Pioneering Airmen of the Great War

Melvyn Fickling Author Of Farewell to the Glory Boys: A Battle of Arras Novel

From my list on the battles, corps and aftermath of WW1 for women.

Why am I passionate about this?

I had finished The Bluebird Trilogy, three novels that centred on the first half of the Second World War, and I heard echoes of the Great War ringing faintly in the egos of my older characters. I started to read more of the history and was drawn to the aerial maelstrom that befell the RFC over Arras in 1917. I was also interested in working with a larger cast of characters, many transients, and telling their stories over a short stretch of time. The result was Major Claypole and Jackdaw Squadron, Glory Boys every last one.

Melvyn's book list on the battles, corps and aftermath of WW1 for women

Melvyn Fickling Why did Melvyn love this book?

Barely a decade after The Wright brothers’ first tentative take-off, flying machines were thrown into the scorching crucible of war in Europe. The men who flew them were pioneers, members of what many saw as a military flying club. But the flying club soon developed into a bear-pit of mortal combat, fought behind synchronised machine guns without the solace of a parachute. Levine paints his pictures with the personal accounts and anecdotes of the pilots that fought these battles, seeking to understand the feelings and motivations of the young men who volunteered to risk all in the frightening new theatre of aerial warfare. These truths, are in many instances, stranger than fiction, forged, as they were, on the cutting edge of the new aviation technology.

By Joshua Levine,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fighter Heroes of WWI as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The first heroes of the air.

Rewriting the rules of military engagement and changing the course of modern history as a result, the pioneering airmen of the First World War took incredible risks to perform their vital contribution to the war effort.

Fighter Heroes of WWI is a narrative history that conveys the perils of early flight, the thrills of being airborne, and the horrors of war in the air at a time when pilots carried little defensive armament and no parachutes.

The men who joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1914 were the original heroes of flying, treading into…


Book cover of The Birth of British Aviation: Prisoners of Hope

Tracey Curtis-Taylor Author Of Bird

From my list on pioneering aviation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for flying old aeroplanes led me to the pilots who flew them in history, and my particular fascination is with the interwar period and the ‘Golden Age of Aviation’, which saw the establishment of the early commercial air routes and the historic solo flights by pilots flying basic machines and pushing themselves and their aircraft to the very limits of endurance to prove that it could be done. I was absolutely mesmerised by the stories of their bravery and obsession. My recommended books all share the theme of pioneering aviation as this has been a consuming interest for much of my adult life, both in and out of the cockpit. 

Tracey's book list on pioneering aviation

Tracey Curtis-Taylor Why did Tracey love this book?

I loved reading about these very early pioneers who today are largely forgotten or never known, notably Frank McLean, who met the Wright brothers, and went on to cut an irresistibly romantic, dare-devil figure. 

He became an overnight celebrity when he flew a flimsy seaplane between the towers of Tower Bridge in London in 1912. After the First World War, he was one of the first pilots flying to Africa and down the Nile in what would become one of the early air routes for Imperial Airways in the 1930s.  

Also, Charles Rolls, of Rolls-Royce fame, who was tragically killed in a freak incident at the Bournemouth air display in 1910, the first Brit to be killed in a flying accident. 

By Helen Landau,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Birth of British Aviation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Birth of British Aviation: Prisoners of Hope


Book cover of Flight Not Improbable: Octave Chanute and the Worldwide Race Toward Flight
Book cover of How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery
Book cover of Wood, Wire, Wings: Emma Lilian Todd Invents an Airplane

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