Category Archives: Books

Fall of Giants

Books

Author: Ken Follett

I’ve had this one on my bookshelf for a long time. It’s almost 1000 pages so I really wanted to be in the right mood for it and that mood hadn’t struck me yet. I recently rearranged my bookshelf from the largest book down to the smallest and this ended up being the first in the row.

I don’t know why I waited so long to read it; I liked all the characters and, having watched Downton Abbey, I could see where everyone fit into the many social circles described in the book.

This is the first book in a trilogy; I’ve already checked for book two at the library but it is currently on loan so I’ll have to wait.

 

Goodreads Rating * * * *

The Steady Running of the Hour

Books

Author: Justin Go

 

It took me a long time to get through this book but not because I didn’t find it interesting – I was busy with other things.

There are actually two intertwined stories; the chapters alternate between the two. Tristen is a young man who has just learned he might inherit a fortune if he can prove he is a descendant of Ashley, a man who died while trying to summit Mount Everest. One of the storylines follows Tristen and the other storyline follows Ashley and Imogen’s troubled relationship.

I like a clean ending and in this I was disappointed but I enjoyed the book.

 

Goodreads Rating * * *

Mother of Ten (Whisper My Secret #2)

Books

Author: JB Rowley

 

This second book in the Whisper My Secret series was less interesting than the first. I expected to learn more about the author’s search to find her lost half-brothers and sister but there wasn’t much about the search. The author goes into detail about her family’s life (she had six full-siblings) in the Australian bush and the eventual realization that her mother had three children that were taken from her.

 

Goodreads Rating * * *

 

Hidden Figures (The Movie and the Book)

Books, Movies

Author: Margo Lee Shetterly

I thought I was going to miss the movie due to my trip to Christy’s but I lucked out and it was on as a “regular” feature rather than one of our Cinematheque showings. I ordered the book from the Library but didn’t get it finished before seeing the movie (and getting it back late cost me $1 in fines).

The movie focuses on Katherine who was the “human computer” who ran most of the numbers for John Glenn’s first trip into space. Her friends, Mary and Dorothy, also had very active professional lives; Mary became one of the first female (and black) engineers working at NASA and Dorothy became one of the first FORTRAN programmers. After reading the book, I realize that they dramatized a lot of incidents that weren’t covered in the book, but the movie certainly brought the characters to life.

The book starts during the Second World War when the NACA were hiring the brightest mathematicians (many of whom were African-American women) to help design superior aircraft. When the war ended the large corp of “coloured computers” worked to improve commercial flights. Once the space race began, NASA hired most of these women to support research into space travel. While describing the incredible skills of the many women involved in these two agencies, the book also goes into detail about what was happening elsewhere in the country – segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, and inequalities based on sex.

Although the book gives lots of interesting facts about the work these women did, the movie is much more entertaining.

 

Goodreads Rating * * *