Reviews for That's Not in My American History Book Library Edition

The average rating for That's Not in My American History Book Library Edition based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-04-22 00:00:00 Chadwick Holsopple This was kind of a cross between "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" & Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story", so fun but not really a great history. One of his inspirations for this book was Doug Storer (1899–1985) the guy who created & wrote radio programs from the 1930s to the 1960s, including "Ripley's Believe It or Not!". Ayers does tell some fine tales & they're factually correct, even mostly accurate, but his editing sometimes doesn't allow for the full story. In at least one case, he didn't even tell the rest of the story. I'm thinking of Sybil Ludington's midnight ride. While he set the record straight on Paul Revere & the rest, he fails to mention that Sybil rode 40 miles in a side saddle. I've seen a 70+ year old woman take a 3' jump in one at a gallop while riding to the hunt, but I still think they are deadfall devices created by a guy that hated women so that fact should have been mentioned. All kidding aside, there were a few other instances, such as that surrounding Benedict Arnold's career where he left out some of the best parts & subscribed motives that I didn't think were strictly accurate. Still, he sets the record straight on George Washington's biographer, Weems(?) who created such fictions as the cherry tree story. IMO, he doesn't villify Washington Irving properly for his fictitious contributions to our history. I couldn't find a table of contents for this book, but it's split into about a half dozen parts that each deal with an overall idea such as 'Forgotten Heroes', 'Lost Between the Pages', & such. That made for some repetition, but not too much. Very well narrated & a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-03-30 00:00:00 Michael Gildersleeve While I truly did enjoy this book, I'm going to spend most of the review complaining about it. As implied by the title, Ayres reveals several of the lesser-known facts of American history, which is awesome for a history buff like me. He certainly doesn't lack for content, explaining how the Wright Brothers weren't the first human aviators, Betsy Ross didn't create the first American flag, and the Wild West wasn't really as wild as Hollywood has led us to believe. However, there are others that present similar information with better style and more panache, so this is not the first place to turn for American history trivia. Ayres' introduction (in which he lays out his great disgust for the way American history is taught in public schools, thinly veiling his belief that if he were in charge of writing history textbooks, they'd be a lot better) is so dry and pompous, that I almost gave up. Luckily that is the worst part of the book. Unfortunately, it never gets much better than mediocre. Ayres stick to the newspaperman's style of "tell it to them, tell it to them with detail, and then tell it to them again" a little too strictly, as I often felt like I was hearing the exact same information repeated several times. I thought maybe my CD player was acting up, but alas, his writing was really that poor. Maybe if he made his introductions more introductory, rather than headline-like snippets of the content, they'd be less obnoxious. Of course then his actual content would have to be written in a more lively manner too. While the facts he relays can't help but be interesting, that's really in spite of his somewhat dry presentation. American high school students would only be slightly less bored with him than their regular text books. While I came out of the public school system enthralled by history, after listening to this book, I can see his point for the need of more accurate and interesting instruction in the subject. I just wished he hadn't been so heavy-handed in getting his point across. The thought running through my head for the majority of this book was how someone like Bill Bryson (my personal favorite, but there are others equally talented) could make this book so much more fun to read.