Reviews of The Aviator and the Showman
New Yorker Best Books of 2025 • New York Times Best Gift Books of 2025 • Amazon Top 20 Biographies and Memoirs of 2025 • NPR Books We Love • Smithsonian Magazine 10 Best History Books of 2025 • New York Post Best Books of 2025 • History.com Best History Books of 2025 • CBS Sunday Morning Summer Book Report Pick • New York Times “Books to Read in July” • Official New York Times Best books pick • An Amazon Best Book of July • A Barnes & Noble Best Book of July • LitHub Book Marks number two best reviewed book of July • Selected by The New Yorker for a major excerpt
New York Times Best Book of July
In this double biography, Shapiro illustrates the unlikely partnership — business and personal — of the flamboyant publishing impresario George Putnam and the earnest young social worker and part-time pilot, Amelia Earhart, whom he recruited in 1928 to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. As her manager/husband, Putnam pushed Earhart’s career in ever-riskier directions; the result was a tragic mystery that lingers today.
“A deep dive into this complicated heroine…In her book, Shapiro, a journalist, lists at length Earhart’s many landmark accomplishments, all of which required immense courage. She was the first female aviator to traverse the Atlantic Ocean. The first woman to fly nonstop solo from one North American coast to the other. And the first person to fly solo across the Pacific. That said, Shapiro reveals in painstaking detail that Earhart’s storied career did indeed involve many reckless and publicity-seeking adventures… thanks to the near-depraved ambitions of her husband.”
Town & Country “One of the 15 Best Books to Read This July”
How much do you think you know about Amelia Earhart? Think again. This deeply researched and endlessly fascinating new biography by Laurie Gwen Shapiro—who knows a good yarn when she spots one—charts not only the doomed pilot’s life in the cockpit, but also her business relationship with and marriage to the publishing scion George Putnam, whose influence helped shape her professional life and public persona. One takeaway? Be very careful when picking a copilot.
Publisher's Weekly Starred, Boxed Review
“[Shapiro’s] appealingly flawed Earhart is high-minded and courageous but also overconfident and careless; Putnam, meanwhile, is a narcissistic and manipulative con man who once staged his own kidnapping for publicity. This nuanced reprisal of Earhart’s life . . . makes her saga all the more captivating.”
The New Yorker The Best Books We Read This Week
Shapiro’s book, which was excerpted in the magazine, looks at Amelia Earhart without the usual mythologizing and finds an amiably cunning social climber (and error-prone pilot) whose rise to fame, guided in part by her publicity-savvy husband, resembles that of a modern-day influencer.
Los Angeles Times I fell hard for @lauriestories's "The Aviator and the Showman" and you will too: it is a glorious work of narrative nonfiction
“A vibrant account of the courtship and union of the famous pilot and her publisher husband whose intrusive management of his wife’s career may have cost her life… Shapiro dexterously untangles the Gordian knot of their entwined passions, shared ambitions and business bottom lines… a lavish, layered narrative that doubles as a primer on early aviation and the birth of blockbuster publishing. Shapiro captures the thrill of a leap into the unknown—recalling the works of Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger.”
Christian Science Monitor 10 Best Books of July 2025
Laurie Gwen Shapiro’s sprawling, cinematic account focuses on the marriage of aviator Amelia Earhart and publisher George Putnam. The author pierces Earhart’s mythic image by illuminating not only her bravery but also her recklessness; Earhart’s less well-known husband is portrayed as a publicity-obsessed con man.
The Washington Post Sunday Book Review
“A scintillating new biography … captures the strong-willed Earhart … in a propulsive narrative peppered with intoxicating background details … reveals what other biographers missed … an exciting, well-written account that offers new insight into a historical figure many people think they know, but really don’t.”
NPR Books We Love
“If you thought you knew Amelia Earhart from children’s storybooks, this biography will make you think again. Though she wasn’t the era’s only female aviator or even the best one, Amelia was the one who captured America’s imagination. The surprising reason: her husband, George Putnam, “the publishing world’s P.T. Barnum,” whose stunts and knack for publicity made Amelia a celebrity. They were quite the team – the showman and the daring aviator – until her final, tragic flight. This book gives us the lovely opportunity to know Amelia not just as an icon, but also a kindhearted and complex woman.”
Chicago Tribune “An exciting new book… that has already created a buzz.”
The Wall Street Journal
Bookpage Starred Review
“In the sprawling, cinematic The Aviator and the Showman, award-winning journalist Laurie Gwen Shapiro unfurls a tale of grand ambition, recklessness and courage…
Shapiro vividly recounts the highs and lows of Earhart and Putnam’s relationship… Drawing extensively on archives, diaries and previously undiscovered audio interviews.
The Aviator and the Showman tells a captivating tale shaped by the forces of ambition and love, and Earhart emerges as a curious, shrewd, intelligent and flawed woman who ‘soared beyond her era,’ providing for women a model of determination that changed aviation.”
Die Zeit (Germany) Recommended as the weekly reading tip
New York Post
More people have gotten Amelia Earhart wrong than perhaps any other person in the last century,” writes Laurie Gwen Shapiro in The Aviator and the Showman (Viking). “Wrong ‘facts’ about every single aspect of her life. Wrong conclusions about her personality, her career, her goals, her sexuality. And her disappearance.
The Atchison Globe
“Shapiro’s meticulous research and gripping storytelling make this not just a biography, but a revelation—an entirely new understanding of how Earhart constructed her own myth and why, nearly a century later, her name still resonates as powerfully as ever.”
Grand Journal
“Biographer Laurie Gwen Shapiro brings Harriet the Spy’s nosy tenacity to her new book on Amelia Earhart and George Putnam.”
The Ninety-Nines Magazine
“This is a story that will grip you from the beginning to the end, but it’s also a phenomenal reference book. The Notes section, the Bibliography, and the Index are simply extraordinary… To say that Shapiro has done her homework is an understatement.
This is not a ‘conspiracy controversy’ concerning Earhart’s last flight. It’s an examination of who she was – and who she was in relation to George Palmer Putnam. The interplay of their personalities and their life-goals is absolutely fascinating.
An extraordinary piece of literary work… It shows Earhart in a light appropriate to her time in the world and doesn’t diminish her fortitude, courage, and intelligence a bit.”
Bookreporter
“A meticulously researched biography… Shapiro offers readers an intimate, enthralling account of Earhart and Putnam — their love, mutual respect, shared benefits and encouragement as the world moved rapidly to new levels of technology… Earhart and her aviation cohort — alongside Putnam navigating the rapidly expanding realm of publicity — gave Americans a reason to look upward and imagine fresh world exploration.”
BookBub
Amelia Earhart’s story — and her mysterious disappearance during a flight — have long fascinated people. But less has been known about her marriage to George Putnam, who supported the pilot but often pushed her into dangerous stunts for fame. Through the lens of their partnership, you’ll see Earhart in a different light in this new book. New York Times bestselling author Candice Millard writes, “I thought I understood the story of Amelia Earhart. I could not have been more wrong. As Shapiro proves in this irresistible book, the full tale is so much more thrilling, inspiring, and outrageous than even the most ardent fan might imagine.”
Boston Globe
“In The Aviator and the Showman, Laurie Gwen Shapiro spins an entertaining… tale… Amelia’s feminism, her pacifism, and her progressive politics come through loud and clear… refreshing in contrast to the right-wing proclivities of her fellow iconic flier, Charles Lindbergh… The Amelia Earhart Shapiro introduces us to in these pages is well worth getting to know… ambitious, courageous, intelligent, curious, sexual, overconfident, lazy, kindhearted, shrewd, and flawed.”
Booklist
“In this gossipy dual biography of aviator Amelia Earhart and her husband, publisher George Putnam, Shapiro sets out to right what she purports has been a biographical history of errors “about every single aspect” of Earhart’s life and death. Drawing on archived records, diaries, and interviews with the couple and those who knew them, Shapiro crafts a narrative that is often surprisingly intimate about their thoughts and feelings.”
Kirkus
“Journalist Shapiro, unsatisfied with “whitewashed” biographies of Amelia Earhart, offers an evenhanded portrait of the iconic aviator, focusing on her relationship with publishing tycoon George P. Putnam…Capturing the tension and peril of early flying, Shapiro conveys, as well, Earhart’s unflagging ambition and courage. [The Aviator and the Showman is] a sympathetic, well-researched biography.”
Library Journal
“Among the many biographies of Earhart, Shapiro’s stands out with its melding of the aviator’s story with that of her less famous husband. Fans of aviation history will find this an engaging read.”
Pueblo Star Journal
“The book isn’t a dry biography or a rote retelling of history. It’s a narrative in full, one alive with character and tension. A story with stakes… That is what Shapiro has so masterfully done in this book.”
Author Reviews of The Aviator and the Showman
David Grann New York Times bestselling author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon
“Laurie Gwen Shapiro has dug deep into the archives, and emerged with an exhilarating tale of the adventurous life of Amelia Earhart and the remarkable relationship that helped to forge her legend. Yet Shapiro goes even further–stripping away the myths and revealing something far more profound and intricate and true. The Aviator and the Showman is one terrific book.”
Blanche Wiesen Cook New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1-3
“This profoundly researched, gripping journey is a must read. Filled with stunning details of the courageous life of feminist adventurer, politically radical, and generous social worker Amelia Earhart, as well as her self-serving promoter husband, and their networks of friends and allies, The Aviator and the Showman is captivating and heartening.”
Candice Millard New York Times bestselling author of River of the Gods
“I thought I understood the story of Amelia Earhart. I could not have been more wrong. As Shapiro proves in this irresistible book, the full tale is so much more thrilling, inspiring, and outrageous than even the most ardent fan might imagine. Read it. It is a wild ride!”
Keith O'Brien New York Times bestselling author of Fly Girls and Charlie Hustle
“Laurie Gwen Shapiro doesn’t give us a love story; she gives us something better—a compelling inside look at a complicated marriage that fundamentally changed the 20th century. In these pages, Amelia Earhart lives again.”
Russell Shorto author of Taking Manhattan and The Island at the Center of the World
“We need myths… and there comes a time when we need to unpack them. This revelatory book—in effect a double biography, vivid, cinematic, exuberantly fond of its subjects yet intent on excavating truth from layers of mythmaking—reveals the machinations behind Putnam’s push to make Earhart an aviation star, and her willingness to assume that role. “