The following review is from Amazon, by "ladiechat." I'm blushing!
When I was in the fourth grade, the day I received my textbooks, I curled up on my bed and read my history book all the way through. I was not necessarily a history buff. I just liked a good story. Lehman has written a book full of good stories. He writes in an animated style that gives the reader a hint of the excitement he must have felt as he unearthed each tidbit about what I had always considered a blah city. He combines human interest stories with the dates, statistics and geography of traditional history books. One can imagine a young Catherine Moore going about her duties as unofficial lighthouse keeper, growing old in the job. Yet, at the same time, the importance of the merchant business in that time and place is not lost on the reader.
The beauty of reading this book is that I can open it up to a random chapter and step into a time long ago that foreshadows the Bridgeport of today. I can see beyond the abandoned factories and mansions turned multi-family dwellings and rooming houses to catch a glimpse of a city both gentile and earthy, bucolic and vibrant.
It's not your father's history book. It is the biography of a city. Lehman pieces together the squares of events to create a quilt of Bridgeport history that warms the heart of anyone familiar with the city.
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