2024
It is a shame. Ms. Kogan has a way with words and this book is quite readable in each of its MANY segments but as a cohesive story not so much. As I often find myself think as I read books today--PICK A LANE, if you can't figure how to advance a plot line then DROP IT--don't just let it dangle. My lesson is to put more value on my reading time, it is a precious commodity.
In honor of 2024's international Woman's Month I decided to devote some reading time to some unsung females and their often heroic contributions to history--even if most of their accomplishments were often shoved "under the rug".
Once again, Ms. Purnell has done herself proud, serving up a well paced and astute account of the curiously unsung life of Winston Churchill's wife-- Clementine. Until recently she was just a barely mentioned footnote in history. She deserved better and Ms. Purnell serves her cause well. I look forward to reading anything Ms. Purnell writes (and if I secretly hope she writes about Hedy Lammar--who can blame me)
In honor of 2024's international Woman's Month I decided to devote some reading time to some unsung females and their often heroic contributions to history--even if most of their accomplishments were often shoved "under the rug".
Hedy Lammar, well known as a famous and beautiful 1940's Hollywood starlet. Born in Austria to Jewish parents, she became a scandalous actress, but soon married an Austrian arms dealer with connections to Hitler and the Nazi regime. She escapes to America and Hollywood. However, the truly fascinating part of her story was that born out the fascination with her father's work as an engineer and his tutelage, through study she became a bit of an engineer, herself. With the help of an American scientist she developed technology that would have enabled Allied submarines to locate and target Nazi submarines using a wireless locating device. Of course, as a woman, she wasn't believed, and even after testing that proved it's effiency, it was still discounted and not approved by the Military--because no "respected" man could ever be expected to trust a woman's work in this field. I like reading about these unsung women but wow, the misogeny of the patriarchy is very hard to swallow.
Long after the rights to her patented technology expired another man finally "recongized" it's genious and used the technology towards the creation of modern communication and the internet. This is a fictionalized version of part of Ms. Lammar's life, and maybe I'm biased but I prefer autobiographies and thoroughly fleshed out ones at that. It is because I read this book sandwiched between two Sonia Purnell books--this left me wanting more.
