Reader recommendation: Eighty Days
Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.
April 18, 2013
Reading Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman is like taking your own journey around the world in 1889-90. A New York newspaper's ploy to raise circulation by supporting a female reporter's attempt to beat the fictional Phileas Fogg's 80-day journey around the world is countered by a magazine's sending, on a few hours notice, their own writer in the opposite direction to make it a race. Well-researched tales of the trips and the times make for enjoyable reading.