Book description
In the essays collected here William Langewiesche considers how
flying has altered not only how we move about the earth, but also how
we view our world and our place in it. With vivid descriptions of the
aesthetics and excitement of flight, Langewiesche also writes of the
risks that go with this beauty: the perils of air traffic control, and
the dangers of nervous passengers and bad weather.
Full of spare and elegant prose, Aloft is a fascinating
journey into the new, profound dimension that flight has added to the
human experience.
Formidable talent ... a journalist whose cool, precise and economical
reporting is harnessed to an invigorating moral and intellectual
perspective
William Langewiesche is an author and journalist. He is
currently Vanity Fair's international correspondent, having made his
name writing for Atlantic Monthly. His strong, evocative prose is used
to devastating effect on a range of issues. Before embarking on a
writing career he worked as a pilot for fifteen years from the age of
18. He has been termed one of the leading writers of The New New
Journalism, a group of writers who have secured a place at the centre
of contemporary American literature, as Tom Wolfe and The New
Journalism did in the sixties.
John Banville's novels include The Book of Evidence,
The Sea, and The Infinities. The Infinities will be
publlished next month.
