The Astronaut Wives Club

There are a few books every year that I really look forward to. The award for that book this summer goes to Lily Koppel's The Astronaut Wives Club. I saw it in the Hachette catalogue a few months back and I fell in love. I love the cover. I loved the concept. I generally love when women's stories are told but I was especially interested in this one.

I haven't read a whole lot about the space program. A professor (who taught a totally unrelated topic) introduced me to The Right Stuff -- both the movie and the book. A few years later I'd fill a short-term temp position at the Canadian Space Agency, which immediately followed and was related to Chris Hadfield's first space walk. (This is an all the more amazing thing due to my almost complete and total lack of French.) I didn't meet him but I did get to go on a tour of CSA and see things that not everyone sees. There was no other word for it other than "cool".

I wouldn't say I know much about space, the Canadian space program, or NASA but I dabble a bit here and there. As fascinating as space can be (and it CAN be) I've always been more interested in the people. When we're talking about the early years of NASA, I especially find the dichotomy between the public image of the astronauts and their families and their private lives to be fascinating. There were huge efforts made to make them appear to be perfect, and given the backdrop of the Cold War I understand it. But the astronauts weren't perfect... nor were their wives.

The astrnaut wives appeared to be perfect -- Stepford even -- but beneath the pastel dresses and the perfect hairstyles they were something far better than perfect -- they were real women. They were women put in extraordinary circumstances. Imagine it was your partner being placed into a rocket that had a sketchy track record and being flung up into the sky. Imagine being married to the person who was going to be the first American to orbit the earth. Imagine your spouse being one of three people who would be the first humans to orbit the moon and knowing that no one was really sure they'd make it back from the far side of the moon. Now imagine doing it with the press camped on your front lawn, peaking through your windows and following your every move -- your every facial expression -- with their cameras poised to record it all during what they called the Death Watch.

Add into that the fact that your husband was rarely home. When he was home you weren't supposed to add stress to his life. You had to deal with things on your own. Sick kids? Deal with it. Building a house? Have fun! Something broken? Fix it or find someone to fix it.

We haven't even gotten to what those husbands may or may not have been doing while they were at the Cape. Ah yes, the other women. The Cape Cookies. You didn't want to know, they didn't want you to know and if you did you might have to do something about it. Divorce wasn't an option for anyone who seriously wanted to go into space. NASA just simply wasn't down with that. Their astronauts and their families had to be more American than apple pie and that left no room for divorce.

The wives, thank goodness, had each other. The Original Seven, The Next Nine, The Fourteen, The Nineteen... they may not have all gotten along and they not have liked each other all the time but they knew how to band together when they needed to. With just a phone call people would be there with drinks and food. They'd be there to help, to cry, to let you lean on them. They'd be there for you during the Death Watch and they'd celebrate with champagne at the end of the succesful mission.

Lili Koppel's The Astronaut Wives Club gives you a peek at the extraordinary circumstances through which these women attempted to live their lives. They weren't always happy times and very few of the marriages of the early astronauts would last. Some of the women went on to find their happy endings, others did not, but they got through the NASA years with a little bit of help from their friends.

His Majesty's Hope: A Maggie Hope Mystery By Susan Elia MacNeal

Dear Maggie, 

Oh Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. You've been on quite the roller coaster, haven't you? You were just minding your own business, typing away for Prime Minister Churchill and doing a darned good job of it. Ok, fine. You were bored but aside from that life was just fine. You had a house in London, you were doing good work and you had fabulous friends. I'm especially fond of David. Then you got mixed up in codes and schemes and one of your best friends tried to kill the Prime Minister and you helped diffuse a bomb. Oh, and you found out your father was alive even though you'd been told he was dead your whole life.

Then you go to spy school and that doesn't go swimmingly, which I totally understand as someone who never did any better than bronze in the Canada Fitness Test. (Fact: While I would likely do better at some things today, I'd be worse at others and I suspect I'd only earn the dreaded "participation badge". *shudder*) But Frain and Churchill understood just how valuable you really were and placed you in the royal household. You tutored Lilibeth in math, taught her codes, and stumbled into a few mysteries. You learned that you still have a lot to learn about this whole secret agent thing and letting your personal feelings get in the way. You also learned that you have power when you are in the field and how to use it when someone is being an ass to you. You stopped a plot to kidnap a member of the royal family in a way that involved escaping from a u-boat. Well done you! Unfortunately it followed by the news that your father is not the only one to come back from the supposed dead and hey, your mother is alive! And she's not a very good person. 

You noticed I omitted your love life because well, I was pretty gutted about John. Not as much as you, of course, but still gutted. I'm sure Hugh seemed like a really swell guy and I thought you guys worked really well together professionally but I was dubious about the romantic aspect of things. You see, I knew things that you didn't know. Things that you found out in this book and well, I have to say that we were both surprised on some points. Hugh has some growing up to do and I'm really quite concerned about some of the choices I think he's making. (I may be wrong... but if I'm not you want to run in the other direction Maggie. Fast.) And John... I don't even know what to say about John at this point. He broke my heart right along with yours and I don't blame you at all for going on a gin bender. I would too.

As for your family... I kind of want to smack your dad. Official Secrets Acts be damned, he needs to sit down and have a decent conversation with you. About everything. (You know, some day people will be released from the Official Secrets Act and will tell their stories and we will hold you all in awe.) Your mother is a real piece of work. I say that somewhat admiringly. She's certainly not a good person but you have to admire her survival instinct. And she has great kids. Yes, kids. Plural. You have a sister! Elise! She's fabulous. I'm so glad you became friends but I'm so sorry you didn't get to tell Elise about your connection to each other. Or talk to her about it all because of everything that happened.

Speaking of everything that happened... you need to listen to Frain, Maggie. Don't argue. He's right. I understand why you don't want to listen to him, I really do. It's a physical reminder of everything. It's everything you didn't know that you felt you should have and how everything can go wrong. I know it hurts and I know you are taking comfort in the physical pain because it feels right. But it has go Maggie. Listen to Frain. I know you are mad at him the same way you are mad at everyone and rightfully so but he's still right. (And isn't that annoying?)

Please give my love to David. He's also had quite the year. I hope he's recovering nicely and that he's very happy with his situation.

PS. I don't know if you are aware but Mrs. Churchill likes you very much and worries about you. So does the Prime Minister, in his own way.

----- 

Disclosure: I received an ARC of His Majesty's Hope from Susan Elia MacNeal's publicist. All opinions here are my own and I was not compensated for this review. I really do love Maggie and I'll be buying my own copy of His Majesty's Hope soon because the ARC does not have the right cover and OMG I love the covers for these books so that simply will not do.

Princess Elizabeth's Spy

We've already established that with Mr. Churchill's Secretary Susan Elia MacNeal hit my personal happy spots. In creating the Maggie Hope mysteries series she created my own personal brand of literary crack. WWII. London. Spies. Smart women. Those things all make me a happy reader. When I finished Mr. Churchill's Secretary I immediately gobbled down Princess Elizabeth's Spy.

I didn't write about it at the time because I wasn't really sure what to say. I loved it but there was something else -- something more -- I wanted to say but I wasn't really sure what it was. I've had a copy of His Majesty's Hope for awhile but before I read it wanted to reread Princess Elizabeth's Spy because there are things in there that are important to the third book and some of those things were a bit hazy. When I reread Princess Elizabeth's Spy this week I hit upon what that feeling of something more was. 

Relief. 

I love Maggie Hope. She's smart. She's knows it. She's not afraid of it. She's not afraid of much, actually. And while she faltered a bit in Mr. Churchill's Secretary it would be easy to think that it was because of her inexperience, which is was, and that she'd get over it. I was worried that once she trained up a bit she'd hit a spot where I might not like her quite so much. I was concerned that she'd become too perfect - a kind of Mary Poppins meets Mary Sue meets Nancy Drew. 

Thank goodness that didn't happen. Maggie Hope did not suddenly become perfect. She made mistakes -- big ones. Costly ones, even. She lets her opinions of people get in the way of seeing what is happening around her. She's remains human -- an exceptionally smart human but human all the same. 

I would like to thank the author for that. I'd also like to thank her for her novelization of the royal family in this book. "You got him right in the n-n-n-naughty bits" and "if it doesn't have fur and fart, you don't like it" are completing for my favourite lines in the novel. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (who was not The Queen Mother at the time but that's how I shall always think of her in my head) almost always made me laugh. Lilibeth and Margaret have a fabulous sisterly relationship, adept at pushing each other's buttons as sisters should be. Even the corgis were perfectly misbehaved. 

There are other things I'd like to talk about but won't because SPOILERS. Let's just say there are a few gut punches in this one. Some stuff at the end made me gasp a wee bit and I kind of missed the significance of a certain name the first time around so I'm really happy I reread it before starting His Majesty's Hope. 

Joseph Anton

There are time when you inhabit a book and there are times when a book inhabits you. Salman Rushdie's Joseph Anton was a little bit of both for me. All last week I'd go to sleep with what I'd read going around in circles in my mind. That was far preferable to the events of last week being there. I don't really know how to explain it but there was something comforting about reading Joseph Anton last week. I've never read Rushdie's books and I didn't really know what to expect when I started his autobiography.

I have a suspicion that you read his novels them much the same way you read this book -- you read them slowly. You read them thoughtfully. And at times you read them deeply. It was a book that I had to focus on and pay attention to. I couldn't skim. I couldn't read it with one eye on the news. No, in order to read this I had to shut everything off and focus.

There was a certain amount of relief in that.

There was also an amount of relief in knowing that someone was personally threatened, who lived every day with a threat hanging over his head, came out ok on the other side. I needed that last week.

If you read reviews you'll read plenty about how Rushdie has an ego larger than Greenland. That he thinks very well of himself and that he name drops. You'll read how he doesn't apologize even though other people think he should. You'll read that he's arrogant and often not very kind to others in his narrative.

It's true. He is egotistical and arrogant. He's not always kind. He doesn't apologize for writing a novel that made many people angry. He stands by his claim that it was never his intention for that to happen. Do I personally believe him? For the most part, yes. I think every novelist knows that some people will not like their book. I think there are novels that are written with the knowledge that they may make people angry. I don't think any novelist expects to be subjected to a fatwa or strives to live their life under constant protection and threat. No apology he could have made -- had he wanted to, which he did not and I understand that -- would have made it go away. It wouldn't have made it better. It may have made some of his critics feel better for a moment, but overall I doubt it would have changed much.

People also don't like that he wrote the biography in the third-person but I also understand why he did that. Those years of his life... he wasn't allowed to be him. He could not be called by his own name. He had to choose another name and he chose Joseph Anton. It was then shortened to Joe. His protectors called him Joe. His friends called him Joe. He wasn't Salman, not even in his own home. He was not Joe and Joe was not him. Joe was a character he was forced to play. Third-person makes sense to me.

Salman Rushdie isn't always likeable. That's ok, too. I didn't read Joseph Anton to like him. I read it because I didn't really know much about the The Satanic Verses and why everything happened. I was too young when the fatwa was pronounced to really understand it. I didn't really know what it meant. I do now.

Eighty Days

When I heard about about Matthew Goodman's Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World I knew I wanted to read it. Luckily for me the lovely people at Random House of Canada sent me a review copy so I could get my hands on it quickly. It's taken me almost as many days as their trip to finish the book. It didn't take that long because of the book but rather because while Bly and Bisland were racing around the world I was riding long with them on my stationary bike.

We had bought a new stationary bike right before I received the book. I hate the stationary bike. I like the new one better than our old one but that's not exactly saying a lot. I work from home, I can't outside in the winter (I can't breathe) and so, stationary bike it was. The first few times I got on our new bike I could stop looking at the clock and wondering it was really too soon to stop (it always was). One day I realized that if I propped the book up *just so* and used the book mark that Darcie sent me I could read and exercise at the same time.

This was win/win. February was a busy month and March wasn't much better. This way I was getting exercise and reading time at the same time. The book covered up the timer and I discovered that I really didn't mind being on the bike for longer periods of time as long as I had something entertaining to distract me. 

And Eighty Days certainly was entertaining. Nellie Bly was a classic newspaperwoman. She didn't just break the mould, she created a new one. Bly's main thing was investigative journalism and she was good at it. Her big break came with her expose of the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island she did for the New York World. She had herself admitted to the asylum so that she could write about the conditions there while knowing that no one really knew how they'd get her out. It took 10 days for her to be released and her resulting story resulted in an official investigation into the conditions at the asylum and brought Bly some measure of fame.

Bly put that fame to good use. She continued to pitch stories to her editors that other female reporters like would not have been able to. Her big proposal was a solo trip around the world, using only means of transportation available to all travellers, and to do it in less than the 80 days that the fictional character Phileas Fogg took in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Her editors didn't jump on it right away but she was patient. It took a year but she was finally given approval to prepare for the trip. The New York World only gave her two days to get everything in order and then she was off.

But she wouldn't be the only woman that set off on a trip around the world on November 14, 1889. When the New York World's competitors at Cosmopolitan found out that Nellie Bly had embarked on a journey around the world they called their Elizabeth Bisland into the office and informed her that she had only a few hours to get her affairs in order. She would leave that evening only heading west rather than east. It was thought that the western passage would be faster and she was already starting six hours behind. Her trip was planned so last minute that Nellie Bly wouldn't even know there was another woman in the race until she reached the other side of the world.

The two women were very different. While Bly preferred investigative journalism, Bisland mostly covered the literary scene. This was not a trip she ever dreamed of or enjoyed starting. Yet Bisland, the only one in the race who knew she was racing more than just a character in a book, seemed to enjoy it more. Bly was always concerned with getting to the next port and always had her eye on the final destination. When she had days spent in port she didn't seek out stories, but rather grew anxious over the delays. She enjoyed little of what she saw. Bisland, on the other hand, sought out pleasure and friendships. She shopped and went sightseeing. Japan became one of her favourite places in the world and she would visit both it and China again later in life. Though it must be said that Bly showed up with the most "interesting" souvenir of the trip. She bought herself a pet monkey a century before Michael Jackson thought it was would be cool to have a chimpanzee as a pet. (Did I just date myself? Maybe I should say more than a century before Justin Bieber had a pet monkey?)

Is it a spoiler to tell you who made it to the finish line first? Since it's historical record -- and easily available on Wikipedia -- it's probably not and yet I don't think I will. Part of the reading of any book, whether it's fiction or not, is in discovery.Bly and Bisland made plenty of discoveries on their trip and they are well worth reading.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of Eigthy Days from Random House of Canada. All opinions expressed are my own. 

Do Book Blogs Sell Books?

Over the last couple of months I've seen a lot of discussions online about discoverability. How to book buyers discover books they want to read? Do they use tools? Do they read reviews? Is discoverability a problem? And, of course, there are always discussions about whether or not finding a book one wants to read actually leads to purchasing that book. Then you add book blogs into the equation and people start to question whether book blogs sell books. I kind of feel like people aren't asking quite the right question. I feel like people are asking if online book discoverability -- via book blogs or otherwise -- leads to book purchases when the question should be does book discoverability lead to book purchases in a measurable way.

I've been around the book blogging sphere for a fairly long time. I've been blogging here since 2005 and I was reading book blogs before I started doing it myself. It's rare that I buy books I haven't first discovered online. It's very rare I buy a book that I haven't been convinced to buy because of a book blog. Book blogs are not my exclusive source of discoverability, but they are the primary reason why I read or buy books. I appreciate that I can follow a book blog for years and get to know a person's likes and dislikes and how they compare to my own. When certain bloggers say a book is good, I trust their opinions and it gets added to the list of books I want to read. Likewise, there are bloggers who may say that they didn't like x about a book and I know I'm going to love it. I trust people's opinions, even when they don't fully coincide with my own.

But that doesn't mean I immediately rush out and purchase the book. I don't click on a direct link within a blog or a website and purchase the book. It's simply not how it works for me. Quite often months will go buy before I purchase the book. The path to purchase -- especially if it's fiction -- often involves a stop at the library before I plunk down money on a book. Let me use some examples.

I first read about Susan Elia MacNeal's Mr. Churchill's Secretary via the Scandalous Woman blog. I knew from reading the review it was a book I would totally love. I made a note of it. I didn't buy it. I didn't even add it to my library list because I was totally swamped at the time but I remembered it. A few months passed and when I saw there was a signing at for the second Maggie Hope book, Princess Elizabeth's Spy, at BookExpo America I had to go. I stood in line and got my advanced copy signed. I still had not read the first book. In fact, I didn't read Mr. Churchill's Secretary until the end of that summer and when I did it I got a copy from the library. After I finished it, I read my advanced copy of Princess Elizabeth's Spy.

My family is big on Christmas lists so I added a copy of Mr. Churchill's Secretary to my wish list. I received it. That's sale #1 from that blog post eight months earlier. While it is true that I did read the book through the library first, had that option not been available to me I would have purchased it because the blog review had convinced me I would love the book (which I did). In January, I bought copies of both Mr. Churchill's Secretary and Princess Elizabeth's Spy for a friend. Those are purchases #2 and #3, which can all be traced back to my reading a post on Scandalous Women the previous April. Is there a way for the anyone to track that? Nope.

Another example is Rick Riordan's books. My friend Denise had mentioned the Percy Jackson books many times. I believe the first time was around 2006. Denise kept blogging about the books and I kept paying attention but I didn't pick up one of his books until 2009. Yep, it took me more than three years of Denise regularly mentioning them on her blog before I read them. I proceeded to read all of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books from the library. Then I bought the five book boxed set. Then I read all the Kane Chronicle books from the library. I bought the box set, bringing it up to eight purchased books. When the Heroes of Olympus series started I didn't even bother with trying to get the book from the library. I bought them all and to do I'm now up to 11 purchased books from that author. Is there any way to tie those books to when I discovered them? Nope. Would I have read the books had my friend not blogged about them so many times online? Maybe. Maybe not.

I am not buying a lot of physical books right now because there is currently not enough space on my shelves for the books I've already purchased. When I do buy books, it's usually e-books and I average a couple of those a month. I don't know I could point to a novel I've bought in the last several years that I haven't discovered online and I'm not sure there are any a book blog did not to sell me, albeit indirectly. My nonfiction purchases aren't so cut and dry. I impulsively buy history books, especially if they are WWI and WWII histories, and they skew things. However, if you remove my impulse history book purchases from the equation, almost all of the non-fiction I've purchased also comes via book blog recommendations.

For me, and I suspect for many others, the normal path from discovery to purchase isn't as simple as see a book on a blog, click a link and Bam! My path is twisty, full of turns, frequently slower than a tortoise, and involves lots of library detours. I don't purchase books in a way that's usefully measurable to anyone. I don't even always remember which blog I found the book on, I often just know that I read a really good review of it on a blog.

Book blogs do sell books, but in my case the way in which they do it simply cannot be measured. I don't believe I'm alone. I think a lot of you are with me and walk your own slow, twisty trail to purchase. But maybe I'm wrong.

How do you find books? How does discoverability turn into buying?

A Bookish Throw Pillow

I have a lot of canvas bags. I mean, a lot of them. I've been to a lot of conferences the last few years and as a result I end up with a lot of bags. We've donated a bunch of them but we've still got a couple dozen kicking around.

We will never use them all as bags so I've been looking around for things to do with them. I found this blog post about upcycling a canvas bag into a throw pillow. I thought a few of them with bookish prints might go well in either our media room or home office.

While I have a really nice Chronicle Books bag I decided to try with something else first. I also had a bag for Chris Colfer's The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell. I thought the mostly solid background would be a bit more forgiving than the patterned Chronicle Books bag.

It's a really easy process. You just remove the straps, stuff it and then sew it closed. The original blogger used embroidery thread, which I thought was pretty. The foam chip stuffing I used was really messy so I went for a more solid seam.




Not bad for my first try! It didn't take long -- less than an hour. And trust me, if I can do this, you can do this!

Fooling Houdini

I first heard about Alex Stone's book, Fooling Houdini from Alex Stone. He was at a party I attended at Book Expo America and was luring people to talk with him by showing off his impressive card tricks. I didn't get a change to talk to him until the end of the night, at which point he showed off one of the tricks in his book and gave me a signed card. I tried to find it to take a photo and put it in this post but alas, it has disappeared into the black hole that is my office. (My office is also where business cards go to die.)

I don't want to say that I'm not a fan of magic -- that's not really true -- but I'm not someone who has ever really looked for magic shows or sought out card tricks. What really lured me into Fooling Houdini was the reference to math geeks. I kind of, not completely secretly, love math. I was curious about exactly what he'd be exposing during the book. We he tell us how the tricks were really done? How much math and geekery would be involved? The answer is just enough.

"Magic, at its core, is about toying with the limits of perception. And any neuroscientist will tell you, one can learn a lot about the brain by studying those bizarre moments wherein it succumbs to illusion. Magic lives in those moments." Page 6

Stone lifts up the curtain a lot but he didn't, in my opinion, reveal everything. Yet I often found myself wondering how other magicians felt about the book. Stone doesn't hide the fact that after he wrote an article on a very similar topic, he found himself blacklisted from many magic circles. He had broken the commandment, "Thou shalt not reveal any secrets."

This is what it comes down to for me -- he reveals how some things are done but he also reveals that other magicians can watch each other and still wonder how someone does something. He pointed out that you can know exactly how something is done and still be blown away by a move. After reading this book, I can have an idea about how some tricks are performed but I can't do it myself nor can I really "see" how someone does it.

In a way, magic is a lot like writing. I can know the letters and the grammar. I can know how to write. That doesn't make reading something someone else wrote any less spectacular. I may know an author's writing process. I could even follow it. But my end result would not be nearly as fabulous as theirs, not even if I spent my whole life practising.

A good magic trick is like the best novel you've ever read. To write a novel the author had to sit down and write words and sentences and tell us a story. The execution and the end result can still leave you breathless.

Mr. Churchill's Secretary: A Maggie Hope Mystery

I love spies. I especially love female spies. Ditto female double-agents.

Back in the spring I featured Elizabeth Mahon's review of Mr. Churchill's Secretary on BlogHer and I said in my introduction how the book seemed to hit all my sweet readerly spots. It's historical fiction. It's set in WWII London. It features a smart woman. And there's even some code breaking and a Bletchley Park connection. What wasn't there for me to like?

I had a really busy spring so I didn't get around to grabbing it right away. When I was at BookExpo America I was the annoying person at the publisher's booth bugging them about where the line was for Susan Elia MacNeal's signing was a good 30 minutes before her signing. I snagged myself a signed copy of Princess Elizabeth's Spy even though I still hadn't read Mr. Churchill's Secretary. And still I waited because I was busy and I knew I didn't have time to fall into a book the way I was likely to fall into this one.

By the time the end of the summer rolled around I was ready. It was a long weekend and we took a quick detour on the way home from the Canadian National Exhibition to grab a copy from the library. (Yes, I'm talking about a book I read at the end of summer. THAT'S HOW FAR BEHIND I AM.) Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down.

I liked Maggie a whole lot. She's smart. She's not just a little smart, she's very smart and she knows that if she were a man she'd have way more opportunities available to her. She also is not fond of letting that stop her. She pushes. She prods. She gets herself into trouble because of it. Maggie is, quite simply, awesome.

Another thing that I loved about what Susan Elia MacNeal did with the novel is that's it's an alternate history. It doesn't follow the true events of WWII. It takes a lot of from them but it adds new events and scenarios. MacNeal doesn't try to make her story fit the limits of history and her story is the all the stronger because of it. And while I do love steampunk and magic, it's nice to see someone doing an alternate history without those elements.

I've been trying hard to get more books off my shelves and out of the house. We simply have too many. I haven't been buying books aside from cookbooks (a weakness, though one that's also running into space issues) and e-books. It's a sign of how much I loved this book when I put it on my Christmas list and was thrilled to receive it.

If you like novels set in WWII, with a little bit of mystery, some seriously smart women and that is just a whole lot of fun you should get acquainted with Maggie Hope. Immediately.

What will be your first book of 2013?

I am currently not reading any books. I need to pick one up later today (or maybe tomorrow) and start reading. I can't decide what book I want to read. Do I grab a library book? One from my stacks? A new book? A reread?

What will be your first book of 2013?