Customer Reviews

Around The World On Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry's Extraordinary Ride

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

WHAT A FUN, INTERESTING AND EDUCATIONAL BOOK. It has Insight, Fashion, Women's Liberation, 19th Century Social History, Sports, Achievement, and so much more. The research Mr. Zheutlin did amazes me. On a personal note I research early cycling history and have done so for almost 40 years. His facts are accurate and he has found so much new material that it is hard to explain my amazement. If you are looking for a good read, interesting photographs, a different subject, amazing insight and a tour of the last part of the 19th Century, this is your book. You'll enjoy it!

This true story of Annie (Kopchovsky)Londonderry is an exhilarating and fascinating romp through history with a companion the reader can't help but admire for her gumption, cleverness, and determination.

Annie was the first woman to ride her bicycle around the world, possibly as part of a contest. It's just as likely, however, that she fabricated an excuse to travel because she felt claustrophobic, trapped within the societal constraints placed on women during the Victorian era. The author, Peter Zheutlin, writes Annie's story with tenderness (he's a descendent of Annie's, but I suspect he would do so regardless), yet also with appropriate skepticism and rich historical detail. (Read the endnotes!)

While following in the wake of her fierce independence and almost reckless energy, the reader also explores the impact Annie's journey had on the advancement of women's rights, as well as uncomfortable questions it posed about traditional roles - including her own role as wife and mother.

I'm recommending "Around the World on Two Wheels" for my book club selection next month. We'll have plenty of issues to discuss, and we'll get to do so in the company of one incredibly memorable character -- Annie Londonderry.

I agree with the other reviewers that Annie Londonderry's story is one of a charming, brash, lying, self-promoting, scoundrel whose adventure meshed with, if not influenced, feminism, freedom of dress, and use of the bicycle by women. However, there is constant repetition of Annie as a charming, brash, lying, self-promoting --etc. etc. etc. (Get the picture?) Many times I said, "Enough already. I know that. Get on with the story." Relating an incident speaks for itself. There is no need to add after each that she was a charming, brash, etc. etc. Some of the information included in the epilogue, the afterword, and the appendix (is there a need for all three?)could have been included within the text, substituting for the redundancy, and explaining in greater depth Annie's personality and interaction with her family. The changing social customs of the period and the history of bicycling tied with Annie's antics would be a better read without the padding. I appreciated the bibliography and notes.

I agree with the other reviewers that the story of Annie Londonderry's bike trip is both interesting and noteworthy--regardless of how much of it was actually fictitious. Obviously, for a woman in the late 19th century to go on a 15 month adventure around the world, be it by train, boat, bike or foot, remains an amazing feat, and deserves respect for the stereotypes it broke, and the countless young women it undoubtedly inspired. My only criticism of the book was that it was written in a somewhat choppy format, and didn't seem to flow very smoothly. This was probably due to the choppy, inconsistent nature of Annie's trip, and the accounts that went into piecing the story together. One of the most interesting parts of the book came in the Afterword, when the author explains his personal connection to Annie, and the research and efforts he had to undertake to tell her story. I wish he could've found a way to weave his own story into hers throughout the book. Finally, as an individual who biked across America in the late 1990s, I found her tales of hospitality from complete strangers along the road, a nice reminder of all the wonderful people we met on our own trip. Indeed, though a century has passed, the kindness of strangers toward adventurous souls remains happily unchanged.

The background material is fascinating and in the hands of a novelist or more talented journalist, it might have made an entertaining book. As treated here, with a great deal of editing, it could have made a nice feature story. The approach is journalistic, a chronology of facts, mostly where Annie was when, what hotels she stayed in (by far thoroughly documented part of the account), who she had contact with, and a very few impressions of her recorded by contemporaries, and tedious repetitions of how plucky, brash, etc (maybe ten adjectives total) she must have been to have made the appearances and impressions she did and covered the ground she did. The best parts of the book, besides the bare facts themselves, were the author's account of his own relationship with her and his own story of discovery. At least it had some life and the people some dimension and reality. A fictionalized account might have given these qualities to the protagonist, but the journalist's preference for just the facts or perhaps a familial reverence which prohibited any liberties with them, leaves this a very flat and repetitious account with little life to it

What was a tiny Jewish mother from Boston with two young children doing hopping on a bicycle, making a $5000 wager, and embarking on a remarkable journey around the world? In 1894!!! In this captivating story, you meet Annie Londonderry, arguably the world's first sports marketing expert, who created a persona and a story line that was beyond belief. The tale of her amazing journey--some real, some fantasy--is the stuff from which legends emerge. Zheutlin weaves a magical story here and he obviously has done his homework...lots of it. The richness of detail enhances the storytelling and makes Annie's world come alive. It is a must-read for those who want to be transported to another era and meet an unforgettable character. I can't wait for the movie!

There is little to tell about Annie's ride around the world, other than the fact that she didn't ride around the world--she mostly sailed on ships and rode the rails, all the while lying through her teeth, which we are supposed to find charming and adorable (or so the author tells us . . . again and again and again). Since the book is billed as the tale of a great adventure rather than the tale of a great swindle, this is a bit of a disappointment, to say the least. The author himself admits that there is not much material available about Annie, but this doesn't stop him from boring us for 170 pages or from beginning a mind-numbing number of sentences with the word "indeed," the crutch of many a college term paper writer. (Indeed, I probably did it myself in my youth.) There is simply not enough here to justify even a short book, and this slim, feeble effort probably should have found a home in the pages of a cycling magazine--2,000 words or so should have done the trick. A time waster.

Is this an adventure story or the tale of a clever fraud? Either way, it's a heck of a book.

Annie Kopchovsky, a 24-year-old woman with a husband and small children at home in Brooklyn, undertakes a bicycle journey around the world. If she can complete the trip in less than fifteen months, there's $15,000 in it for her, which was big money in the 1890s.

Starting with her alias of Annie Londonderry, she finds it expedient to fudge on the truth from time to time. She allows people to assume she is younger than she is and that she is single. She neglects to mention that she is Jewish, fearing that knowing she was Jewish would prejudice people against her.

Annie did ride her bicycle a great distance (and this was no lightweight and streamlined racing bike -- it was a heavy and bulky contraption) but it's impossible to say how much her trip around the world was on a bicycle and how much was in trains or cars. She didn't keep a diary as far as we can tell, and she only wrote home occasionally. Newspaper accounts of varying degrees of competent journalism are the only evidence we have of her progress.

The story of Peter Zheutlin's detective work in finding out what actually took place over a hundred years ago is just as interesting as the (possibly true) account of Annie Kopchovsky's bizarre tale and its aftermath.

Other recommended books: Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America, The Great Swim.

Instead of running to buy this book, bicycle there! I could not stop reading the story, and finished it over the weekend based upon my father's enthusiastic recommendation. What an amazing true story Peter Z. has discovered, digging from his family tree. This would make a blockbuster movie. It would secure at least an oscar nomination for the lucky actress who gets the role of Annie Londonberry, perhaps someone such as Natalie Portman?
Mr. Zheutlin is an erudite story teller and I can't wait to read his next book.
R. Bornstein, Ft Lauderdale, FL

"Around the World on Two Wheels" is the fascinating and highly amusing tale of how Annie Kopchovsky, a Jewish immigrant and mother of three living in Boston in the 1890s, singlehandedly reinvented herself as "Annie Londonderry," the subject of a high stakes wager over whether it was possible for a woman to cycle around the world. While the wager and much of Annie's recollection of her journey is apocryphal, she did succeed in circling the globe, all the time spinning fantastic travel tales to willing and gullible newspapermen.

Zheutlin has done a marvelous job in researching the tale of Annie, a distant relative, and also in separating the facts from the many fictions she put forward. He also puts Annie's groundbreaking journey in the proper historical/societal context.

A great read that will appeal to a large cross section of readers.