Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War Liza Mundy
The history of the large number of American women who were actively recruited by the Army and Navy during World War 2 to work as cryptographers, some of whom made major breakthroughs in decoding German and Japanese messages.
Nice book about an interesting topic. My one complaint is that while the author tells us a lot about the women’s personal lives, including how they washed their hair, there isn’t much about how they actually broke codes.
Reading Monopolized by David Dayen which is about our current situation of unchecked corporate consolidation. I had seen a reference to it and went to go buy it only to see I had actually already bought it a few years ago. I took this as a sign I should actually read it. Only just started . It has a breezier tone than I expected and just reading the introduction will probably make you angry. Liking it so far.
Finished listening to The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. A good read on an interesting ‘what-if’ topic. The narrator/protagonist is a young Jewish boy from Newark who’s seven when Charles Lindbergh unexpectedly receives the 1940 GOP nomination for president and then, campaigning on a keep-us-out-of-the-war platform, steamrolls over FDR in the general election. Lindbergh, who was indeed a Nazi sympathizer and isolationist, institutes a number of anti-Semite policies that tear apart the boy’s family and community and eventually the entire nation. While the ending was somewhat anti-climactic and unsatisfying (at least to me), I enjoyed this book.
Well, at the risk of revealing a rather huge spoiler:
In the book, Pearl Harbor didn’t happen in 1941. However, over the course of the next year, President Lindbergh disappears when his plane goes down and isn’t found, the vice-president is so radical that the Congress calls for an emergency presidential election, FDR is elected to the presidency in November of 1942, and the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor in December of 1942.
Finished Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants, by James Vincent, which was very interesting, although I’ve read quite a bit about what it covers in other books, especially Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man.
Now I’m reading The Best of Connie Willis: Award Winning Stories, by Connie Willis.
Like @Dung_Beetle and @Elendil_s_Heir I recall “Obstinate Uncle Otis” from when I was (much) younger. About all I remembered is the title, which is memorable, and for some reason that the narrator was named Murchison Morks, also that the story happened in Vermont. I had forgotten the rest. Reread it just now and it really is delightful.
Thanks to those who responded to my John Irving musings. I actually read both Garp and Hotel New Hampshire when they came out, and then at least one, probably two, of his earlier books (The 158-Pound Marriage for sure, another one possibly). And as I said the themes and events and settings all seemed very similar, and I got tired of it.
I did read his late nineties novel The Fourth Hand, not completely sure why. I didn’t like it especially; while it wasn’t like Garp especially, it just didn’t work for me. Too much attention given to JFK Junior, for one thing. But that was it Irvingwise till I picked up Cider House Rules.
On the recommendation of @Railer13 I will give Owen Meany a whirl. I know some other people who think highly of it too. And thank you to @Elendil_s_Heir and @BetsQ for the referral to A Widow of One Year, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard of. As a widow(er) of (two) year(s) it’s possible it’ll speak to me particularly–or, y’know, not! Anyway, I have them both on order at the library.
I checked my copy of Alfred Hitchcock’s Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries (which is where I read it) and the title should be “The Mystery of the Man Who Evaporated.”
I just listened to CL Polk’s Even Though I Knew the End, which is this year’s Nebula winner for Best Novella. I would describe is as a noire, queer, fantastical murder mystery/love story. I enjoyed listening to it over a few nice walks.
Interesting! Would you like to tell us what the ending you had was? Now I’m curious.
I’ll tell you what did stand out for me. The version online started differently from what I remember. I THINK I recall a parenthetical “said Murchison Morks” in the first sentence–something like “My uncle Otis was an obstinate man (said Murchison Morks).” Also, I thought I remember something about “He was the most obstinate man in the state of Vermont, and if you know anything about Vermont you know that means he was the most obstinate man in the entire Union.” Neither of which appeared in the online version. Maybe my memory is wrong–after all, I didn’t recall anything more about the story. But now, as I said, I’m curious.
It’s phrased differently and ends a bit more abruptly. If you’ll PM me with your email address, I’ll send you a PDF of the version I have, drawn from the Hitchcock collection.
I’ve made attempts over the years to try to slog through books that will help me understand physics. It was always my worst subject in HS and college, as it just seemed so abstract to me. I tried Feynman and Sagan and some others, but they always seemed to disappear into the jargon. Very frustrating for someone who really wants to understand things at some level. I’ve now started Until the End of Time, by Brian Greene, and it seems like this one might be what I’ve been looking for. One might call it “physics for dummies”, but it’s a step above that. I’m only in the early part of it, but he’s done a decent job of explaining entropy in terms a lout like me can understand.
Have you ever read “Taking the Quantum Leap” by Fred Alan Wolf? I read it many years ago (stumbled across it at the library), and I remember it doing a very good job of making physics reasonably understandable to a layman.
It has been 20+ years since I read Barbara Hambly’s fantasy work, I had forgotten how repeatedly “out of the frying pan and into the fire” it is!
Still it’s a ride I am hella enjoying!
