Jet Set: The People, the Planes, the Glamour, and the Romance in Aviation's Glory Years Hardcover - 2014

Media reviews

“Aeronautics history, high times from the 1950s and ’60s, incredibly versatile name-dropping (from Mrs. John Jacob Astor to Christine Keeler of the Profumo scandal) and Sinatra’s ‘Come Fly With Me’ as a kind of theme song [all] connected to the glamorous days of air travel.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
 
“What a book William Stadium has written. . . . The Kennedys, the Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra, and early financiers like Eddie Gilbert are dealt with in depth. . . . I lived intimately through it all in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s and I am yet to find a mistake in author Stadiem’s amazing book. Order it now. All the players are here.”—Liz Smith, syndicated columnist
 
“William Stadiem sexes up the glory days of aviation in Jet Set. Fly me!”—Vanity Fair
 
“William Stadiem’s Jet Set takes you where no modern airliner can: to a time . . . when the means of travel was as exotic as the destination, and sometimes more so. The aerodynamic Kennedys were in the White House, Braniff stewardesses wore uniforms designed by Emilio Pucci . . . and no tourist made a move without consulting Fielding’s Travel Guide to Europe, a 900-page compendium of the continent’s finest restaurants and most companionable ‘hostesses.’”—Town & Country

“An interesting, entertaining read, full of colorful characters and the author’s thoughtful contemplation of the world of aviation.”—Publishers Weekly

“An intoxicating spin through an era of supreme elegance and dazzling innovation, Jet Set more than lives up to its turbocharged title. With a sharp eye for detail and a knack for sparkling prose, William Stadiem re-creates the heady days when artists, tycoons, and viscounts sipped Canadian Club and dined on lobster thermidor while zooming across a new frontier. In doing so, he pays homage to the true American visionaries who made that luxurious travel possible—the engineers and entrepreneurs who understood just how much the long-range airplane could transform our world.”—Brendan I. Koerner, author of The Skies Belong to Us

“The only thing more delicious than the idea for this book is William Stadiem’s execution. Rich in incident, set among the glitterati of America’s most glamorous era, Jet Set is first-rate history that reads like a novel.”—Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City and American Rose
 
“Jet Set is a fast-paced, jauntily written excursion back to a more glamorous era, when people dressed up for airplane flights and onboard meals might include fois gras and champagne—the historical moment when Americans first began to think of themselves as citizen-travelers. William Stadiem provides a knowing account of the pioneering airline executives who built the planes that made luxury affordable, and high-flying gossip-column staples like Frank Sinatra, Ian Fleming, and Jackie Kennedy. You’ll never look at air travel the same way again.”—Matthew Goodman, author of Eighty Days
 
“Jet Set is a fascinating social history of the glory days of the boldface-names crowd in Europe and the United States since World War II. William Stadiem’s engrossing story is elegantly propelled by the engines of an equally interesting parallel account of how the innovations of modern aviation forever changed the tone and texture of tourism (think ‘mass over class’). Political intrigue, spy stories, Hollywood hijinks, and wryly chronicled bed-hopping make this the rare page-turner that’s also witty and very well written.”—Alexander Lobrano, author of Hungry for Paris and Hungry for France