I love the time period this book encompasses, the mid to late 1930's. Lots of good music, writing, events that hadn't been squashed by the coming of World War II.

There is no doubt that Orgill did her research. Wow! She knows it all and does a good job of painting a vivid picture of what the streets of America were like back then. But that's all this book is, a vivid picture of life back then. No real compelling narrative. Just plenty of creative tidbits to highlight some of the characters like Count Basie, FDR and Joe Louis.

I have to say that the few pages on Lewis are the highlights of this short and colorful book. ( )

Although I'm a history major, I don't often read nonfiction for fun. This book, however, not only discusses some of my favourite themes (swing music and the 30's in general), but does so in a surprisingly easy-to-read manner. One of the reviews called the book "danceable", and I agree that it certainly has a rhythm that is easy to get into. While the focus is on Count Basie and his rise to stardom in the big band scene, Orgill also discusses what else was going on in the USA at that point, to further set the scene. Her discussion bounces from boxing (Joe Louis and Max Schmeling) to Amelia Earhart to Eleanor and FDR to Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Edgar Burgen and George Burns (and Gracie Allen, too, of course), and back again. It almost reads like a whirlwind, but once you start, it's difficult to put down. ( )

It took me forever to get through Dream Lucky - and were it not for the obligation of the Early Reviewer program, I never would have bothered to finish it. Dream Lucky consists of a series of vignettes, each of which is an event in the years between 1936 and 1938 - Joe Louis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Langston Hughes, Amelia Earheart, Count Basie - all make highly disconnected cameos. Each cameo is presented as a "news event" or, I assume, a radio play. If you know anything at all about any part of the time (or have seen the right episodes of American Experience) some sections will be merely skimming the surface of what you already know. In areas of the time you know little about the book presents enough to confuse you but not enough to wet your appetite. The book is devoid of any context and always present an uncritical, unidimensional, and seemingly politically correct view of the characters. I can not think of an audience for which this book would be a good introduction to the time period and it certainly is a bad choice for anyone is who an avid reader of American history. Finally I was somewhat confused as to whether this was a young adult book or not - the author has won awards for early YA books. I have concluded that it was not aimed at the young adult market - however, in sections the writing reads as though the author forgot that fact. ( )

Billie Holiday performing in blackface, Eleanor Roosevelt sharing a racially stereotyped joke with her newspaper readers, Benny Goodman dropping by a black jazz club to listen to Count Basie play: These sound like scenes from an imaginative historical novel, but they are among the delightful and tantalizing historical events reported in “Dream Lucky: When FDR was in the White House, Count Basie was on the radio, and everyone wore a hat…”
Author Roxane Orgill, a former music critic who in recent years has written books for children, turned to the period from 1936 and 1938 and the emergence of swing as the dominant American music of the era for her first book for grown-ups. Some of the stories are outrageous: Mrs. Roosevelt, who in later years was reviled by liberals, writing in her daily newspaper column, “Many of us do not appreciate what we owe the colored race for its good humor and its quaint ways of saying and doing things,” before reprinting tasteless dialect joke from a book called “Chocolate Drops from the South;” a club manager in Detroit who insisted Billie Holiday wear black greasepaint because she looked white next to the members of Count Basie’s orchestra; Adolf Hitler wishing boxer Max Schmeling “every success” in his fight with Joe Louis.
“Dream Lucky” – the name comes from a Jimmy Rushing song – offers a series of well documented historical vignettes, people by names like Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Orson Welles, and Lanston Hughes. It recounts the parts of history too intimate to be recorded in textbooks that flesh out our understanding of a storied era. ( )

It took a little while for me to get used to the tone of this book -- the author's voice, and her approach to history and storytelling. Once I figured out, however, to think of it as the print equivalent of a jazz album, with the author riffing on a series of repeated themes, the book became not only much more accessible, but enjoyable. Even ... dare I say? ... swinging.

"Dream Lucky" isn't really a history book about the days "when FDR was in the White House, Count Basie was on the radio, and everyone wore a hat," even though it sometimes feels like it wants to be. Nor is it really a view of America during the years in question, except insofar as it defines what we were all listening to on the radio. With the exception of a description of Basie's road trip through the south and midwest, this is a New York-centric story, and an impressionist sort of story at that, weaving a little politics and some current events around the story of Basie's rise from a moderate level of fame and success in Kansas City to the big time in the Big Apple. It's an interesting approach, and within that narrower focus Roxane Orgill pulls it off well. And whereas I tend to judge a book in part on how many other books on the topic it makes me want to read, "Dream Lucky" has given me a whole list of CDs to track down and listen to, which I think is just as good a sign of merit (I'm pleased to say I already had several of the recordings she cites, including Benny Goodman's landmark 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, which you really need to hear if you haven't yet).

Again like jazz, this relaxed and, at first glance, erratic way of storytelling may not be to everyone's taste. But if you're inclined to give it a try, I think you'll find it a rewarding way to spend a few hours. ( )