Sticks & Wires & Cloth is about escaping into the skies of a bygone era in a 1929-design biplane, an episodic log of the author's five years traveling around Texas and most of the rest of the United States. Anne Hopkins brings a fresh voice to writing about life in the skies, demystifying biplane flying much as Katherine Graham did newspaper publishing. Firmly and patiently, Anne takes her reader by the hand, helps him into the front cockpit, and keeps him there through fair weather and foul, moments of joy and terror. Her story is full of the details of coping with an old cramped aircraft, yet in the end she has left us savoring its magic and wonder.