Join author John Lancaster for a visual presentation on his acclaimed work of nonfiction The Great Air Race on Friday, January 13, 2023, at 12 noon in the Port Washington Public Library’s Lapham Meeting Room.

This event will be both in-person and available on Zoom. Visit pwpl.org/events to register or for more information.

Lancaster’s new book details a fascinating but little-known moment in the history of Long Island and American aviation: the transcontinental air race of October 1919 that saw scores of pilots compete for the fastest roundtrip time between New York (specifically, Roosevelt Field) and San Francisco in frail, open-cockpit biplanes.

Riveting the nation, the aviators pioneered the first coast-to-coast air route, braving blizzards and driving rain as they landed in fields or at the edges of cliffs.

The race, despite much drama and tragedy, was a milestone in the development of commercial aviation. The Great Air Race is a captivating story of man and machine and the debut of a major new popular historian.

Among the many stellar reviews, The Washington Post writes, “It’s hard to imagine a more ideal narrator…Lancaster tells a vivid story and makes a moving case that these early martyrs at the takeoff of domestic aviation gave the rest of us a future in the sky.”
Lancaster also will describe how in 2019, a century after the race, he flew the route from Long Island to San Francisco and back again in his two-seater plane, making all of the same stops that the daring pilots made in 1919.

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Library. Books will be available for purchase and signing.