Second Quarter Book Club Recap

It's time for another bonus episode, which means that the Third Girl in The Truck is back with us! Our Book Club Correspondent, Sage, is back to join us for the  quarterly Book Club recap! We're rehashing the selections for April through June and leaving nothing on the cutting room floor! We had some really great picks for this quarter, and we started out with Slinging Doughnuts for The Boys by James H. Madison- because it wouldn't be a Clubmobile book club pick if there weren't donuts and coffee involved! We continue on with And If I Perish, following along with the frontline nurses of the US Army. Propaganda Girls by Lisa Rogak takes us on the journey of four women and their service in the OSS- four independent stories that become intertwined throughout the war. Finally, we head back to the honefront and visit with the women of the WASP, and the original women of the Ferry Comand in WASP of The Ferry Command: Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds. Did you read along with us? Each of these books tells an incredibly different wartime story, each important in its own way. The Clubmobile is open and the coffee is hot, so grab a cup and a fresh sinker and join us for another Book Club recap! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey guys, here come the dolllies. They got fresh sinkers, hot coffee, and the sweetest smile.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome back to the Club Mobile, everybody.

SPEAKER_04 0:18

Hi everyone, welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

She's so perky this morning.

SPEAKER_04 0:22

I have to be. Listen, I've been up since fall. Snip snappy.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I think people would be amazed at the hour at which we do this, mostly for you, not so much for me. Yeah. But it literally is for me. It is. It's for you. We are back with another bonus book club episode for you guys, which means Third Girl on the Truck is hanging out with us today. Sage is here.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

It's our favorite day of all the days because Sage gets to hang out with us.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Love getting to deal with this with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Good. So do we. There was never a better built-in book club correspondent slash friend than you. Exactly. It was like the universe just said, hey, you can have this friend, and guess what? They're also going to be able to do this. They also do this. They're good with the books.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Exactly. If you guys read along with us, as you should have been, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Shame on you if you didn't. What were we doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:30

We had a great, great set of books this past quarter. We had Slinging Donuts for the Boys by James H. Madison, and If I Perish by Evelyn Monahan, Propaganda Girls by Lisa Rogak, and Wasp of the Fairy Command, Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds by Sarah Brian Rickman.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

We had a nice like round out of the books. I think we covered a lot of different topics, which was good.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

Yeah, I think so. Let's let's go from the top. Slinging donuts for the boys. Sage, how did you feel about it? I know that we all like kind of when we read it, we were all sort of weeping together at one point.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah, yeah. This I loved this one. You know, I love uh an epistolary moment, lots of letters. Um I was crying by the end of this one.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yes. Thanks. Just going for it. The Red Cross continues to leave us crying at the end of all the books.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

Yeah. Yes. So if you haven't read along, it's the story of Donut Dolly, Elizabeth Richardson, who was with the Clubmobile Kansas City, and she begins in Leicester. Um, and she sort of moves on through that area of England.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

She visits with the 82nd Airborne quite a bit while she's in Leicester. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Yeah. And very unfortunately, towards the end of her service, she does pass away in in an aviation accident.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Non-combat aviation, non-combat.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

The war is over.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, the war is over. It's past the E-day, and she's given a 48-hour pass, and she's on her way to France, yeah, Paris to meet up with her sweetheart.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

And she's flying over there. She loved flying. Like once she got a taste of being able to kind of puddle jump between spots, she fell in love with it. And she was with a friend who was a pilot and it was a very experienced pilot.

unknown 3:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

And it was just a freak accident.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Yeah. Incredibly sad.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

It is incredibly sad.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Um but but for how sad it ends, it's a wonderful book, and her letters to her family are very loving. And she's she seemed like a very sweet girl. I will say that towards the end, I was already upset because most of her letters begin with, Why isn't anyone writing me back? Oh yes, I'm not receiving any mail. Maybe it's just the war, but I I don't think they were replying. I don't think they were no, I think they were responding.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

I remember there was like one letter where she was like, Maybe I should just like only be sending letters to my brother because he's the only one who's replying.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

He's the only consistent one.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

And then she yeah, she gets very vulnerable about it in her journal entries because towards a certain point the letters kind of intertwine with her personal journal entries. And she does get letters from her friends back home. Yes. Yeah. She gets letters from friends, she gets letters from her brother, but her parents, it's very it was very a very odd um thing going on there that her parents were not writing to their daughter who was so far away during war.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

Yeah, very odd dynamic.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

But she had a very out, she had a very good outlook on life throughout all of it. And she was very spunky and had like this really great spark about her. And yeah, I love that you kind of piece together little bits of where she was, and then like you realize you read something in another book, and it's like, oh, Liz Richardson was in this area when this was happening. And I think one of the things that we pinpointed was that was during the re not repatriation, um, during the time when the POW camps were being um liberated and the men were being kind of put into these, not I don't want to call them camps, but they were calling them camps. So it was like camp lucky strike, they were like overspilled, like overflow or overspill when they would kind of book all the men to say, okay, you're we have you, okay, now you're gonna go here and you're gonna go home. That John Egan from the hundredth passed right through where Liz Richardson was serving in La Havre, France. Did I say that right? La Havre. La Havre. She sounds better when she says it. But it's that's where Camp Lucky Strike kind of met, and the men would pass through before they were sent on a troop ship home. And there's a diary entry from John Egan that the hundredth recently shared where he's like, you know, passed through Camp Lucky Strike, uh, spent a few days, the champagne was really good. And it's like Liz Richardson talks about how much champagne they were drinking at that time. And I'm like, oh my god, I bet you he's like, We drank or drank champagne at a chateau. And I'm like, I bet you that they crossed paths and now like they didn't know each other at all. But we could put it together, and that's always like such a cool thing to me where I'm like, wait a minute, this here and this here, and it like it puts a whole puzzle together, and it's just I love books for that reason. I really do.

SPEAKER_04 6:50

Yeah, when we can like you know connect things, you can connect the dots, but it's really, really good. I I loved this one, even though of course it did leave me crying. Um, I really, really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So five stars for Liz Richardson.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

Yeah, five stars, all the stars.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Five donuts for Liz Richardson.

SPEAKER_04 7:09

Five donuts for all the donuts for Liz.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yes, let her and she's buried in Normandy.

SPEAKER_04 7:15

She is, yeah, I believe so. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

She's buried in France. And I I think that the she's only one of four women there, and the other three are the women from the 6888, correct? I think so.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

One of them is one of them is the woman, one of the women from the 688, and I think the other two might be nurses. Oh, yes, maybe nurses. Yeah, yeah. Um, I know that was it the Red Cross that helped pay for the families to go and visit the grave site as well. So her brother had been there and her parents had been there, and after the fact, obviously. I'm surprised they didn't, you know, repatriate her.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yes, me too. I'm very surprised they didn't repatriate her. But I think she loved it so much over there.

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, she loved it so much that maybe they thought she's she would prefer being here where she was having a great time. So it's it's a great book. I'm really happy that that James Madison, you know, fell into this rabbit hole because he began writing it because he saw her her gravestone, right? Yeah. And then he was like, Oh, she's only one of four in here. What's what's this story? Yeah. So very, very good. Next up is And If I Perish by Evelyn Monahan. This was the first time we've had a book where we've been like split. Yeah. I think this is the first time the three of us all have differing opinions on a book. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't I read most of it and then I didn't touch it for three months. And I finished it in time for this. Um it has an excellent, like when you read the blurb, you're like, this is gonna be great. It's about uh army nurses.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Um yeah, these are the the frontline combat nurses.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Yeah, the combat nurses and the whole idea of it is excellent and great, but the problem I had with it was I had numerous problems, the chapters were incredibly long. Yeah, that I agree with after a while. The text was too small.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

The text is incredibly small.

SPEAKER_04 9:31

So easy while the while the chapters are so long, you've got this tiny text, and you're like, oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

So it's almost like reading double the length of these already long chapters. And look, I'm not right, like, and none of us here are afraid to be like 500 pages, I'm on it, right? Yeah, easy, easy, easy. That's like a thousand pages at the end of the day. That's double the work. And yeah, after a while, your eyes start to cross.

SPEAKER_04 9:57

That's what it was. And I was like, I'm actually pained reading this.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yes, I actually was I was actually like, I have to close this. Yeah, like I was like, maybe I think I need a Tylenol, my head hurts just from straining to read the words.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

Let's get a bigger text version. Oh, wait, those don't exist. And then the other issue I personally had with it was that it was while I know that you need some context of why the nurses were there and why they were set up in certain places. I didn't need to know a hundred percent of what the men were doing. I can go Google that. Um, I don't know what the women were doing because I can't Google that. Thus, I need a book to tell me a book that has been written. Right.

SPEAKER_05 10:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

To tell me what they were doing, because the information that they're writing about is not easily accessible as what all the men were doing. Because the the battles they talk about, they're right there, they're at my fingertips. What the women did, it was sort of, I don't know, maybe but that was my issue with it. Was that it starts out strong with what the women were doing? It does.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

And I feel partially responsible for this book landing on our list because I picked it up at the museum.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

No, and I saw the cover.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

I bought it first.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

It sounds really good. Did you the blow and everything makes you makes it seem like it's going to be all about the girls?

SPEAKER_01 11:22

I saw the cover of it in the gift shop at the museum in New Orleans, and I said to the my my aunt, and I was like, See if you find that because it was just one in a display. And I said, See if you see that anywhere else. I'm looking for it. And she's like, I don't see it. So I asked one of the people working, I was like, Do you have any more of these? And he went, he kid was like stretch armstrong. He was like gumby. He reached all the way up and took it off the shelf. And he was like, Here, you can take this one. I was like, Okay, thanks. Thanks. I guess. And I woman to me, it was like, there's a woman on the cover, she's wearing a helmet. She's not got her back to the cover. I could see her face. I was like, this is gonna be good, right? Oh, nurses, yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

Yeah, we were like, amazing. This is the first book on nurses that we have read.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

And you guys got to it before I did in my rotation of what I was reading. And the two of you had your very strong opinions on it. And I was like, immediately, I said, I'm not gonna like this book. They don't like it, I'm not gonna like it. But surprisingly, surprisingly, I was the odd man out. I really enjoyed it. Aside from my small gripes with it, which were the length of the chapters and the size of the text. Um my other gripe was that I would really I've never ever in any book I have ever read seen Operation Tidal Wave Torch.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

It's one of the things that I've never seen the invasion of North Africa and Sicily referred to as D-Day. Yeah, it was they were calling it D-Day North Africa, D-Day Sicily. It was just they had their names, right? They had names. Yeah, D-Day was D-Day, D-Day was June 6th. I've never seen D-Day referred in other operations before. It's either just been the name of the operation or the invasion of North Africa or the Mediterranean campaign or the invasion of Sicily. And to me, I was like, D-Day. I was like, they're landing in Africa. Why are they calling it D-Day? Right? They're in Tunisia. They're in they're landing in Tunisia. Why are they calling this D-Day? It's not D-Day. Um, and that was a problem for me because I was like, now you're shadow. I feel like you're overshadowing, like you're trying to give everything a D-Day. No, not every landing was D-Day. But I think I took it to more of a personal approach because my grandfather was in Tunisia. My grandfather was in Sicily, he was in Naples. I think he was at Anzio. I don't recall. I can't ask him. He's long gone. Um, but I remember reading it, reading it, and then it was the episode of World War II with Tom Hanks on History Channel, and they were showing that campaign. And now I was like, I've just put the text to the pictures and the videos.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

And I called my dad and I said, How did he make it home? I said, by I how how did he survive? How did he make it home? I don't understand. So I kind of felt like I had this now map of what he did and this kind of written explanation of what he was doing and what he saw. And then I kind of stopped and went, okay, without if he hadn't have survived, I wouldn't be here. Right. Exactly. Or our name would still, our name would have carried on because his first son was born during the war. My dad's oldest brother was born during the war.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

So yes, our last name would have carried on, but would there have been three other sons after that son? No. Would my, you know, you know, I wouldn't be here. And I it was a very kind of personal thing, I think, for me to read it. Of course. So while I did have my problems with like more so like formatting issues, I would say it's more formatting, not content for me. Agreed. I do though feel like we could have gotten more of what the women were doing. And I do understand they worked incredibly close with the nurses, and you have to know about the doctors because the nurses work hand in hand with the doctors.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

And it all kind of unravels itself. But I do see it from your point too, where I'm like, you know, oh, they, you know, the boys set up our pup tents and then the boys did this and then the engineers did that. And it's like, but what were when the engineers were went when the engineers left your area and went and did this? Why are we hearing about what they did over there? Why aren't I hearing about what happened after the engineers left? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I wanted to hear more of. So I do agree with it from both of your perspectives on that side. But I did enjoy it. It was a long read. Look, that book took me over a month to get through.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

And usually we're quite on it. We can do like two, three weeks, and we're like, oh, I'm done.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yes. The text is so small that one pothole on the bus, and I was like, where was I? I'm like, where was I? Which word where the hell was I reading? Like, and then I would just end up reading the whole page over again.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Yeah, so it takes even more time.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

It would take me even more time.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah, over a month to read that book.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

Insane. Did you both catch, like speaking of formatting issues, did you both catch where so there I forget which page it's on, but there is a picture of a a couple of nurses, and and there's two guys in between them. And it says, um, name of nurse died during this bombing incident.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

And we hadn't even gotten to where that bombing incident happened yet. So yeah, you know she's dead before it even happens.

SPEAKER_04 16:53

And then three pages later, it's like, unfortunately, nurse name passed away. Yeah, I know you told me three pages ago, but I was reading about her now. Yeah, like what? Yeah, so that bugged me. That was when I was like, I'm good for a minute.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

The start of it was so strong with what they were doing when they first first get to North Africa, when they have to clean up that hospital, and then they do the Christmas celebration there. I was like, This is really great. And then it and then it was like you kind of watched it kind of tank a little bit there.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Yeah. But for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

And then there was another bit where oh, the the when the the ship gets bombed. Yes. There's a lot on the girls there as well. When the the when the chief nurse is killed in Anzio and the one nurse has to dress her in her class A's and prepare her. Yeah, that's another bit where it's like this is the kind of content I'm looking for in a book about frontline combat nurses. Agreed. If I want to know what the engineers in the 82nd were doing, or the engineers behind Patton's Third Army, or if I want to hear about the the soldier that was in bed practically dying, that Patton said you deserved to be shot, I would go pick up a book and read about Patton. Like, yeah. So I did enjoy the content because to me it was very personal, but I did want more of the women. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_04 18:23

Yeah. Sage.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah. Um see I'm with Winnie. I think the formatting and just the chat the chapters for as long as they were, we did not need 75% of it to be about what the fellows were doing.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Because I feel like we're kind of clocked on to what they were doing anyway. If we read a passage about a frontline nurse is in is in a certain spot in Africa, we're like, oh, this is happening. We can we we we can make the connection. Correct. Other people might not be able to, but we would have made the connection. Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

So while it might be a good book for certain people, yeah, it wasn't great for us, and it's no, it's no great to the people that wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

No, it's they put a lot of effort in. You could tell they did a lot of research.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Yeah, very well researched.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

I did recommend it to my aunt, the one that I was with in the museum when I bought it. I recommended it to her. But my aunt is a nurse, and I said to her, I think you would enjoy this because she's still learning more about the war in general. So I was like, I think you would enjoy this. It's good. It would it's not my favorite by far that we've read. It's not my favorite this quarter that we've read. Um, but I enjoyed it. Would it be something I go back to? Maybe only in a research, maybe only for research purposes. Like if I was looking for a specific bit of something and I knew it was in that book, I would pull it off the shelf.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

But I feel like we would we would flick through it and be like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

It's good for that. It would serve its purpose for that, but I don't think I'd go back to it and read it cover to cover again. No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

I don't think so. I I think this is the first time I've ever done this.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

This is the first time I think we've ever been like, I didn't like it or had very strong opinions on something.

SPEAKER_04 20:10

It's like, oh no, and I feel bad.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

But like I feel bad, but I'm not trashing their book. I'm just saying it's not for me. Yeah.

unknown 20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:19

Not for me. It's like a three out of five for me. Very well researched.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Very well researched. Very well researched.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

I wish that there had been more about the thing that attracted me to it. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:32

That's that's that's my gripe with it. Yes. Was that it wasn't enough. Um enjoyed it for the parts that did include what we picked it up for. Correct. Aside from that, no, like a three, and it's a week three out of five. It's like a oh, if I give it anything lower, I will dream about it tonight and have nightmares. Correct. Because I will just feel bad. Yeah. We all is that the consensus three out of five.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

A week three out of five.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

Week three, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Maybe someday we'll come back to it.

SPEAKER_04 21:06

Yeah, we'll give it another go at some point, but it's not.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

But I would like to dig further into the nurses that were in Tunisia and stuff, which which then would would push us towards finding out what we initially sought to find out in this book.

SPEAKER_04 21:21

Exactly. Up next, we have my favorite of the quarter, Propaganda Girls by Lisa Rogak. Loved it.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Another book. I will say this was also another book I picked up at the museum that I was like, we need to read this.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

We need to read this.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

I think all three, three of the four in this quarter I bought at the museum and I sent pictures of them back to you guys. And I was like, let's get these going.

SPEAKER_04 21:41

Let's get this done.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

Um, I loved it. It was quick and it was concise. And um it was short enough that I could manage, I could manage to get it. The chapters were nice and nice and concise and very good.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

I didn't lose my place on the page while I was reading it.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

So I really enjoyed learning more about Marlene Dietreck because while I obviously I know her work and I know her movies and her songs, I didn't know about this side of her career. I knew about I knew about her renouncing her German citizenship. I knew about her her very large spat with Hitler. I knew all about it, but I didn't know like the the details. So this was really fun to get into for me.

SPEAKER_05 22:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Every time I hear her name, I think of that bit in Band of Brothers where Wild Bill yells, Marlena, is that you? But it's also um it's also Welsh, Harry Welsh, Marlena Dietrich in Reams. I'm going to Reims.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

I'm going to Reams. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

He's like, fuck it, why not? I mean But Wild Bill is in such a delusion in the forest in Bath Stone that he hears somebody singing and he yells, Marlena, is that you?

SPEAKER_04 22:57

It's beautiful. I really liked it. I really enjoyed how it was obviously very well researched, but it was concise. You could give it to someone that didn't know about the war very much. Correct. And you could say, Here, this is great. This is a good starting point for you to start learning. Yeah. Um, very, very enjoyable. And it was the one of the first books I could get from my local library. It was very exciting for me. I was like, it finally has something. So I read it really early on, and I got to read very easily.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

So I think it might have been one of the first ones I read.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

It was one of the first ones I read, yeah. Actually, no, I read uh I read Liz Richardson first, and then I read this one because I I already owned the book about Liz. Yes. And then I got this one from the library. Very good, very concise. I really, really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

And I think it's not just about Marlene and Dietrich. No, there are other women. There are three other women. There are three other girls. There are three other women. And they all serve, they all kind of do something different.

SPEAKER_05 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

But then eventually they all become intertwined with each other. Which is really cool. Very, very cool.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

Very enjoyable. Yeah, I think I think again we all agreed on. I think, yeah, the previous book is we didn't agree on. I think this one we very much agreed that it was it was great. This is the one I would like be recommending the most to everyone to read. Yes. Yeah, I would. Because it's a great place to start.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

And it gives you four different um four different pinpoints in the war, too. Like, you know, um, Marlena is prominent in Hollywood and she renounces her German citizenship and she becomes like public enemy number one to Hitler. Like he's desperate to get her. Betty McDonald was a reporter in Hawaii who was in the middle of Pearl Harbor. Like she saw it happen from her home up in the mountains and came down and reported on it. And then, you know, Jane Hutton was married to a naval attaché who was living in Tokyo at the time of the war. She becomes kind of like this POW in Tokyo. They kind of just her and all the other wives and children that are living in this area, they just lock them into their home. They put them all in one home and like lock them in.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

And then there's um, I want to make sure I get her name right, Zuska, Zuska. And she grew up in Czechoslovakia and she flees as the war is kind of encroaching on her doorstep. And then they all end up working for the OSS in a different capacity, which is I think so cool. Very, very cool. Four different four different backgrounds, four completely different women, yeah, all fighting and serving for one purpose.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

I will recommend the audiobook for this one. Really? Particularly when it comes to pronunciations and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yeah, good. Good. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

This was actually my second time reading it because amazing. Yes, because Gabby, I I started listening to it like when you first sent it in the group chat.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Which was a while ago at this point. Because I think I bought this one. Yeah, it was like October. It was last October when I came home with it. I came home, I don't know how I got all those books in my suitcase. I came home with like four books, genuinely sweatshirt, all these little knickknacks and things. And I was just like shoving them in my suitcase. Sit on it, and then it will squish. And then I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna put them in the shopping bag and carry the shopping bag on the plane.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

Yeah, agreed. Yeah. I yeah, I think we all really enjoyed this one because it is an easy read and a great starting point to finding out about the women of the OSS. It is like a gateway, it's a gateway book into further further stuff. You you read these names and you can easily Google them and then we can expand upon it. And that I really enjoyed that. So I wish it had been longer, actually.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

I wish it wasn't as concise. Love that it was concise. I wish it had had more length to it.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

I do kind of want to find another book about the women of the OSS.

SPEAKER_04 27:39

Okay, I'm sure it's interesting. Yeah. There's got to be something, right? Yeah. Um I'd for sure give this a four like a four and a half out of five. Yeah. My only gripe with it was that I wish it had been longer. That's my bit more meat around the bones. I'm glad we we got as much as we did. Yeah. But I would have liked more. I needed it to give more. So yeah. I think four four and a half for me. Yeah. Like we're all reaching a consensus of yes, we all agree. Final book. We had a lot to say about this. Our final book is Wasp of the Fairy Command, Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds by Sarah Brian Rickman. We didn't know this was the third in a trilogy until But I don't think that you need to read the other two before you read this one.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

She just wrote two other books about the Wasp and the and the Women's Air Force Fairy Inc.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Knowing as much as we know about the Wasp.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah, that was the thing. Knowing what we know about the Wasp and Jackie Cochrane and Nancy Love, I don't think we needed the other two books to be like, this book isn't making sense. I think it made perfect sense.

SPEAKER_04 28:55

Absolutely. Because lots to say about this one. I'm trying to be nice and polite. I again was proven right that Jackie Cochran opened a door for a group of women, and then when she did not get her way, she slammed that door in their faces and achieved everything else that those women could have achieved.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Correct. I um terrible. I have made my decision that as far as a human being, Jackie Cochran was not a nice person. Jackie Cochrane.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

I do empathize with her.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

I empathize with her. She had a tough life, she had a terrible childhood. Do I think that she is a strong woman for building the empire that she built? Absolutely. Do I think that her moral compass just doesn't exist when it comes to other people? Absolutely. Correct.

SPEAKER_05 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

That's the that's the best way to put it. She was, she has no moral compass for anybody but herself. So while she did do a lot of great things, they were only for Jackie.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

We can empathize that she had a terrible upbringing and she had a terrible start to life, but that does not excuse her behavior later in life.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

She walked all over Nancy Love.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

And Nancy just said, all right, just to stop the argument.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

So fine, give her what she wants.

SPEAKER_04 30:21

But Nancy wanted to win the war.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

People were incredibly correct when they made the assumption that Jackie had Hap Arnold in her pocket.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Oh God.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

However, there are certain points in this book where you read through it and you go, Hap really just gave her what she wanted to get her the get her the fuck off his back. He had he had nothing to use. He had the war to win, and she's like, Nancy Love wants to do this. He's like, whatever, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Shut up, go away. It's giving younger siblings.

SPEAKER_04 30:53

Yes. I would say that the older sibling has something. Yes. That's how my kids fight. Where they fight over something, and I just go, sort it out yourselves. Whatever. Figure it out. This isn't my problem. This is a you problem. Sort it out. So I feel very much I understand Hap Arnold's opinions in that respect. Where he's like, I really don't care. I've got shit to do. I'm trying to win a war here. This isn't my problem.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

There is a whole bunch of information in this book that I was so glad to finally get, which was more on the uh the women who flew but never went through Sweetwater. They never went through Avenger Field, they were never trained by Jackie. They were Nancy's girls, right? These were Nancy's girls. These were the originals. And there were a select number of Wasp graduates who did fly with the originals. They were early classes.

SPEAKER_04 31:54

And I think our uh there she is.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Our gal, Josie Egan, Josie Pitts at the time flew with the originals. Um my friend's in there. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_04 32:07

Literally, that's what happened.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

That's what happened. We all got to that point, and then it says, you know, flying in this division out of you know Long Island to Long Island to New Jersey, Joe Pitts.

SPEAKER_04 32:17

And I went, My friend's in there.

unknown 32:20

That's my friend.

SPEAKER_04 32:21

That's my friend.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Um and then my kids are looking at me like a go. These were women who had an outstanding number of flight time, an outstanding number of flying hours before. And Nancy had high requirements. As she should. Nancy set the bar really, really high. And then at the time that Nancy's doing this, Jackie's still over in London with the ATA.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

And Jackie gets wind of it with, you know, she comes back and she's got a chip on her shoulder and a bug up her ass about it because Hap promised me I could fly. Well, Hap sent you to England to fly. He told you to build a unit in the ATA of US women. He sent you there to fly, but it wasn't enough publicity for her. So she came home. At a certain point, she was just taking women with zero flying hours into a venture field. This is no shade to the women. This is no shade to the girls. Anybody who graduated and is a and was a wasp was a wasp. I I respect every single one of them. How did they respect? Just to prove her point. She was taking she was taking women with like the either zero experience or the bare minimum. They had nothing really under their belts as far as what they could do skill-wise. Yeah. And then it was like the people in charge of the Air Force training curriculum had to amend everything to fit this now. Whereas the first maybe five or six classes of the WASP had high flying hours and a high skill set. Yep. They just had to learn how to fly the army way.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

These women at the end really just had to learn how to fly. And I know that, like, you know, we could say Marie Mountain Clark was in class 44-1, but Marie was flying well before she signed up for the WASP.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

Yeah, Marie was.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Marie was flying well before she signed up for the Wasp. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

Which makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

But like when as I'm reading, the the required hours are getting lower, lower and lower. The lowest was like 18. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

And I'm like, this isn't gonna work.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

It's not a lot. Really, it's not a lot. That's really, if you think about it, six lessons. Yeah. Yeah. Really? And you can do that in a week. Even now, you can do that in a week. If you take a week off work and you learn how to fly, you can get 18 hours of flying solo in less than a week. Yeah. So it's not a whole lot. And then obviously it came to the bill for them to be grouped in with the whack, and Jackie Cochran's kicking and screaming and stamping her foot because if it's not it because Happy didn't get on, so she was like, Well, I'm not doing that. So it was like that's my own. Did anyone get on? I'm seeing a common denominator here, and it's not everybody else. It's her.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

You know that there's people actually. Oh, she was definitely a pygmy. Oh god. People act there's a conspiracy out there that people actually think that sh her and her husband, because they funded Amelia Earhart's flight, that she died en route. That through that's the reason that her and her husband funded it was to kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:47

No, that does track.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Well, you hate to think so low of somebody.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

Yeah, but also they knew that the navigator was a known application.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Yeah, Jackie, yeah, Jackie and her husband knew the navigator was a drunk and apparently tried to talk her out of it, but yet you funded it anyway.

SPEAKER_04 36:06

Yeah, it's a strange yeah, yeah, very, very strange. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Um, she went on to I want to dive more into that at some point. Right? Let me in there. Back in fourth grade, I did a presentation on Amelia Earhart. I've been obsessed with her ever since. So, like I did.

SPEAKER_04 36:21

I also did. I did too. I love those brass. Mine was on the conspiracy of when they found that woman, and they were like, She's Amelia Earhart because she looks a bit like her, like how she would look at 60 years old. And this woman's like, What the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Mine was just a book report, mine was just a uh history report on Amelia Earhart. Um, I'm pretty sure I did mine long before both of you ever did yours.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Um was like a like living, like living museum thing where like we all like dressed up as our people.

SPEAKER_04 36:53

I love that. So you stop it. I need pictures now. Yes, we'll find some. Thank you. No, mine was on that hysteria where some guy was like, I found Amelia Earhart, she fainted it. I remember that, and now she's living in Kansas. I remember that, yes. And I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

I loved a conspiracy. I still do love a conspiracy, but back then especially, I was like, Yeah, I'm eating this up. And then there was a there was a program on um on channel five where this woman, it really creeped me out where the beginning was the woman saying, I'm not Amelia Earhart, and it like echoed, and I was like, I'm 12, and I'm sat like since then I've been like, I love a conspiracy. Um, but yeah, you know when something like really freaks you out, but you have to sit and you're like, oh my god, I need to know that she wasn't her, obviously, but the fact that some guy was like, you look like Amelia Earhart would if she was your age, therefore, let me create this hysteria. It must be. Um, but no, I felt like this book was incredibly well researched. I love that the points of view of the of the wafts of Nancy's original girls because we haven't had that. We haven't had that.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

There's so much of the like wasp literature focuses on like Jackie's girls.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

Yeah, it was nice to be.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

I loved that this was a bit of a change from that.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Yeah, yeah. And so much of the wasp literature focuses on Jackie herself. Yeah, I don't want that anymore.

SPEAKER_04 38:29

I want to know about the women, and I want to know more about Nancy. I feel like Nancy's kind of left in the background, and all of these women, you know, upon disbandment, they were asked to give their opinions. This is years and years later when this book is being written, and they're saying that Nancy was great, how lovely Nancy was, and then there's a few women that are like, um, I'm angry at Jackie. If she'd have just, you know, put her attitude aside, we could have been grouped in with the whack, we could have received benefits, we could be buried where we wanted to be buried. When we die, we don't get obviously if these poor women had died before 77 after disbandment.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

And some of them did.

SPEAKER_04 39:11

Some of them did. And they wouldn't receive a veteran's service.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Right.

SPEAKER_04 39:18

Horrible. So, you know, if she'd have just if she would have just put everything aside and got these women in within the whack, she still would have had the power she wanted, but she didn't want to work alongside anyone.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Like at the end of the day, she had to you like you have to realize this is not about you. It's about you, there are there are a thousand women serving under you. You are responsible for their well-being. Yeah, you are responsible for them. And it trickles down to the same way that you know, if you look at the men, the US Army Air Force. Yeah, Air Force was not an individual unit during World War II. They were part of the army. This would have been the female equivalent to that.

SPEAKER_04 40:03

But for some reason, she just wouldn't she couldn't see it that way.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

She was so television, she couldn't see it that way.

SPEAKER_04 40:10

Nancy was all for it. Nancy was like, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Anything that gets them the benefits that they did that they need and deserve. Because look at the women in the ATA, they had insurance, they had benefits, they had equal pay. Equal pay. If one of them died in service, they were buried properly.

SPEAKER_04 40:31

I think as well, you know, Nancy felt the disparity because she had married well. Um, she would be receiving certain benefits being the wife of who she was married to. Correct. Um, you know, she was like, I want the same for everybody else. It shouldn't be just me getting all the glory. She wanted to share it around, and that's the that's the huge difference between Jackie and Nancy. They had the same end goal, but I feel like Nancy was going for it straight. She was just up and down, off we go. Yes. And she would fly with her girls.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

She wouldn't fly with her girls. She would check out on a plane before any of her girls got into it.

SPEAKER_04 41:13

Yeah, and she would test it and she would bring it back, or she would ferry it herself and she would come back and say, Oh, it was it was great.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

How do we feel about that B17 issue? Holy God.

SPEAKER_04 41:26

When I read Speaking of Oh my, when I I mean, we kind of knew the basics, all three of us. We knew the basics of the situation.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

I didn't know the details of it like that.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

The details. Goodness gracious. I was horrified.

SPEAKER_04 41:41

I mean, like, how could you be so so insecure and so wanting to be in charge that badly that you essentially buck it up for everyone else?

SPEAKER_01 41:54

It essentially solidifies that Jackie wasn't a girl's girl.

SPEAKER_04 41:57

Yeah. Absolutely. And I feel like we always say this, and you know, we always say she wasn't for the women, even though she maintained that she was. Um so it's it's a very difficult subject to broach because you know, we we watched uh the the movie by uh by Jess. We watched that short movie and we interviewed uh Jess and and uh Nancy, who plays Jackie. Um at the same time, it's so it's such an odd situation because that movie's not so much about about Jackie, it's not about this, it's not about this part of Jackie's life.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

It touches on it briefly, but it's about Jackie as a person and her struggle and and coming up from nothing, which once again I empathize with that. Um it does not I have empathy for her, and I I I think that it's incredible that she built a cosmetics empire and she became this well-to-do person. Like, hey, good on you, you you claudge way out of the bottom.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

But as somebody who came from nothing, wouldn't you now that you have everything, want to help people who also need she didn't do that? Yeah, her women needed her to be there for them, they needed her in their corner and they put their faith in her as a leader, and she didn't deliver, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

She I feel like she feel like she abandoned them.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

I feel like she and when she'd show up, she'd show up wrapped in a fur coat.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doing rationing. Come on, girl. Come on, girl. Um, but no, the book was great, incredibly well researched. Oh shit, want us to seek out the other two just for enjoyment. Because I feel like at this point we know. Yeah. We didn't know this part, but we we know the first two. Um, definitely a five for me. Yeah, five content. I wish it was less unwieldy because it's one of those big, bigger it's not a book you can hold comfortably for a long period of time. That's another crap.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

I'm glad I got the ebook then.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Yes. It's a yeah, she's hefty, but she's not as hefty as like like and if I perish is a thick, thick book, but it's short.

SPEAKER_04 44:24

But it's soft and you can kind of hold it.

SPEAKER_05 44:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:28

Whereas this one, it's on this, it's on the same paper as Elizabeth's book.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:35

It's the same material as that, and the spine never cracks. You know the ones. So you're like holding it.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Sometimes you go like this with it, it's like it's like just open up a little more, just a little gift.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

For sure, a five. I really enjoyed it. And um you wouldn't know if it you wouldn't know it was one of a trilogy until we found out. We were like, oh cool. Then no, for sure, five.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

And then I was like, sorry guys, I didn't realize there were two more ahead of this when I picked it up, but but we but we know the information from the other two anyway, but still we're gonna get there.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

I think we still should. We should still do those two as well.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Maybe we'll get some fun new facts.

SPEAKER_04 45:18

Yeah, exactly. No, um, all four were great. I'm really glad we had a great mix, me too, yeah. Of of all of them.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

I do want to find another book about the nurses. Same just to Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 45:36

It was so I didn't want to know about the man. I picked it up to learn about them, and then I ended up learning more about the guys, which I already knew. Yeah, so yeah. To the listeners, if you guys have any recommendations, please, because this was rough. This was a hard one. Gabby, do you want to do the an announce the next four?

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Yes. Even though we've put this out on the Instagram already, but just in case for any of our listeners who don't have socials, yeah, you can get the list right here from us. I'm gonna read it to you. Or you can get the list on our new website. Promo, promo, promo. Promotion, lovely. You can get this list and all previous lists are linked back on our website. So if you don't have Instagram or Facebook, there you go. Um, so for July, August, and September, we are reading The Girl and the Bombardier by our friend Susan Tate Ancony, Meet Me at Rainbow Corner by Celia Emory, Kick Kennedy by Barbara Lemming, and all the way The Life of Baseball Trailblazer, Maybelle Blair. Is there anyone in that list that you guys are really excited to get into?

SPEAKER_04 47:01

So excited to do Rainbow Corner by Celia Emory. I love Celia, she's one of my favorite actresses. So knowing that she wrote a book that is about one of my favorite things. Like, can we get any more queen? Come on, girl.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

I am currently reading. I'm currently reading Rainbow Corner.

SPEAKER_04 47:19

So I love Celia, and I'm super excited to get into Kit Kennedy also because I am sat and waiting for for the series.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

I'm excited to get into Kit Kennedy too because she served in the Red Cross, right? So there's she did there's that for us, and she was friends with Taddy Spats, I believe.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

And they were also friends with Feitcha, Feitcha Pitts.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Yeah, they were. Feitcha. Feitcha Pitts went over to England on the boat with with Kick and Taddy. She was room. She roomed with both of them. So it's, you know, it's I feel like it's the Spider-Man women where all three of them are pointing at each other. Um, but I'm also really excited to read um all the way about Maybelle Blair because you guys all know I love I love a League of Their Own. I love the Women's Baseball League. Um and Maybelle Blair is still alive, and that bit to me is just very special because she still goes out and does so many events, and she has a cane, but her cane is a baseball bat. Amazing, which I love, which is so cute.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Incredible. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

So cute. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

I'm really excited for all the way, um, especially with the new the news about the women's pro baseball league.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Yeah, yes. And I love that they started with four teams for that because there were only four teams when the league started in the 40s.

SPEAKER_04 48:49

Yeah, really do love that. Very exciting. I'm excited for all of them, but particularly those. So I think we're gonna have another really great, really great few months reading. Yeah. On to our new little section of book club recaps. What are we all reading right now? What are we reading? Winnie, what are you reading right now? Uh, I have quite the pile. I don't know if it's if you do follow our socials. I posted uh a couple months ago this huge bag of of books from the library. All my holds came in at once, and I had nine to get through. And then I got through all of them, and now I'm I have another four. She has a problem. Hang on. I have an issue. Listen, I've got lots of time on my hands.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

I'm right there with the bestie.

SPEAKER_04 49:39

Right. I'm currently reading The Freedom Line by Peter Eisner, which is about the Comet Line and about um Didi Lahange, um, as they help down airmen cross the border and get back to their bases. I'm reading Codename Lisa by Larry Loftus, which is about um SOE agent. So that's very exciting. Um uh off World War II topics. I'm reading Wellness by Nathan Hill, which is um I don't even know how to describe it, but it's very modern. I think it's very slice of life. Um it's like the modern connotations of marriages and relationships, and it's fiction, but it could be very, very true to life. Already have a fan cast in my head for it. That's how much I'm enjoying it. And I'm also rereading Say Nothing by Patrick Rad and Keefe. Um but the three that I have finished, and I really want to recommend to everyone, are The Poet and the Silk Girl by Satsuki Ina, which is about um a married couple who during World War II are sent to the Japanese internment camps. And Satsuki and her brother were born while her parents were interred in the camps. They were there for four years, and um her parents didn't want to answer yes to being um to being conscripted, to being drafted into the Japanese American section of the army. So they answered no on the survey, and that meant that they were quote unquote renouncing their US citizenship, but they weren't. They just didn't want to serve a country that was betraying them, essentially. So the parents are separated, the mother stays with the children in one camp, and the father's sent to prison, essentially, for saying that he's still loyal to Japan. But from my opinion, why would you be loyal to a country that's betraying you based on what you look like? Why would you stay loyal? But again, like I always say, everyone was in a panic. Everyone thought that, you know, if you were Japanese, you were the reason for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. If you looked Japanese, it was your fault. You were obviously spying for them. The second book I read that I really enjoyed is called Glory in Their Spirit by Sandra M. Balzinius, and it is about the four African-American whacks that went on strike. Um, because they were being well being trained. They were being trained as nurses in the WAC, but they were only scrubbing floors and doing menial jobs. There are racist connotations of that. And then a lot of their white seniors were saying that I don't want coloured nurses, you're here to scrub the floors and clean toilets. You're here to not do the job you were told you were doing. So four of them went on strike and they were court-martialed, and they were sentenced to years of hard labor until the charges were dropped because they were essentially provoked into dropping the strike and dropping the dropping the reasons they were doing it. They all went back to work. All four of them. And then they ended their time in the WAC, and that was that you never hear from them ever again. Um, and a final one was Ethel Rosenberg, an American tragedy by Anne Seber. This was a rabbit hole I leaped into recently. Um the name is familiar to everyone, so I don't think I need to explain it, but the name was not familiar to me because we don't learn about her in England. Um it's a lot to get into, and I'm already taking up most of everyone's time with the other three books I've mentioned. Um, but if you do not know who Ethel Rosenberg is, Google, dive in. Um I'm excited to get into an episode about her eventually because the story does start in World War II. So while it does carry on into the 50s, um, the starting point is a subject that we can really get into. So that's exciting. Lots of stuff going on in my brain. Lots of time with my head down and reading. So very fun. What about you guys?

SPEAKER_01 54:15

What have you been doing? I am currently reading Meet Me at Rainbow Corner. Um, I'm in the very early bits of it. I'm only about 115 pages in. Um how is it? It is very good. I I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I like that she gives you a cast list at the beginning of the book so that you kind of know who everybody is and where like what part of the military and like what country they're serving for. I have recently gotten to the bit of it where the espionage is kicking in. So it's like there are some uh very dark corners in Rainbow Corner. And I literally was I was surprising out yesterday. I went to get a pedicure, so I always take a book with me so I can read. And just as she was finishing and asking me to get up and move over to sit where they're gonna dry, where I had to dry my toes, I was like, oh, and I finished the chapter and I was like, damn it, and I had to close the book. Um no, but it's very good, it's very, very good. Um, I am also beginning the book on Maybelle Blair and also reading Private Johnny Johnston Whack by Edith Miriam Johnston, which is basically a series of letters of Private Johnston during World War II and her time in the women's auxiliary army corps before they become the whack.

SPEAKER_04 55:50

Before they become the singular, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

But then she knows obviously she does transition into the singular whack. And uh I will leave you with I am reading it for research purposes.

SPEAKER_05 56:02

Hooray!

SPEAKER_01 56:04

I am reading it for research purposes, yes. We're very excited, very lots of cool things happening over here, lots of cool stuff.

SPEAKER_04 56:12

Sage, what about you? I think we're reading at the well, we're reading multiples at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Quite the list. Um my copy of May Bel Blair's books came out at the library, so I'm reading that. Yeah, and and I'm reading um A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. Um it's essentially about um the World War II spy Virginia Hall, um, which I do I feel like it's very appropriate for July, which is Disability Pride Month. She uh was an amputee. She was, yeah. Yes. Yeah. And she was doing all her spy things as an amputee, which was I think very cool. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Especially then. I love that you call it her spy things.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

She's doing her spy things. Her spy things. Um and then I've also read uh quite a few other books. Um one of my favorites was Mother Was a Gunner's Mate by Josette Dermoty Wingo.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Um, so good. Yeah, I need to do it to get into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

It's uh it's a memoir, I believe. Um, and it's about um Josette, who was a uh part of the waves. Yeah, women accepted for volunteer emergency service in the Navy during World War II. And um so about her time there. It's very cool. Um the next one is um a little bit different, but it's it's called Echoes of Infamy. It's the third in a series, it's a third in a sort of murder mystery series that takes place um just post World War II. Um the previous two books, I believe, take place during World War II. But it's about um there's a murder that happens, and then um this husband and wife detective team um essentially have to team up with um this soldier who was part of the Japanese American army. Um and his family were in the internment camps, and it's all about like the impact of that post-World War II. Um it's murder mystery, fiction, it's very cool. Yes. Sounds great. Um I have a long list, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_04 58:53

It's the same length as mine, don't worry about it. Mine's the same.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Um next one is Cody Girls by Liza Mundy. Um it's about essentially the American counterpart to um Fletchley Park and the Code Breakers. Um and all about the uh women who are stationed there. It's very cool.

unknown 59:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Yeah. Um next up was uh Coffin Corner Voice.

SPEAKER_04 59:22

I know you really enjoyed that one. He is so good.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

So good. Yes. Um it's essentially the story of this bomber group or this one bomber crew who takes off for their very first mission and is shot down.

SPEAKER_03 59:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

And it's their first flight, and then they're dead. And so it's about um all ten of the crew trying to find their way out of Germany, or like some of them end up as POWs, some of them are just forever on the run until they get out of Germany. And it's such a good book. It's so good.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:12

Yeah, we need to read that one too. That sounds great. I just put it on my list. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Yes, and then the last one on my list is uh it's A Thousand Sisters, the heroic airwomen of the Soviet Union and World War II by Elizabeth Wine? I want to say ween.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:33

I want to say ween. Yeah, I know you really like that one too.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

You really enjoyed that. You were sending us snippets from inside the book for like a whole week, and I was like, this is really good.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:44

Need to get in there too. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Yeah, it's about um the women aviators of the Soviet Union during World War II. Um and it's uh they were the first um women to get to fly combat in World War II. The first and only women.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

It's so good. That's incredible. This one, this book is, I feel like, geared more towards like a younger audience, like young adult, more high school age, but it's still so good. It's really good if you want like a basic yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:23

What a great starting point, especially, and I always sort of feel um a little bit, you know, envious on behalf of like the wasp when you've got other places just accepting women flying in combat, and they're like, cool, go ahead, you need to fill a spot anyway. Right. And then the struggles that the girls here had to endure just to be able to ferry from Long Island to New Jersey somewhere else, right? 40 minutes, Long Island to New Jersey, and that everyone's kicking off. Like, oh they all sound great. We're very, very busy.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

We're very busy, very busy, very busy reading things.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:05

Everyone got some great recommendations, I think. And um, yeah, we're really excited to get into this next quarter.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

I can't believe we're in third quarter already for this.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:15

I know, isn't that crazy? Yes, isn't that insane?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

I can't believe that where is the time going?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:22

It's running away from us because all we're doing is reading. Yeah, literally. All we're doing is all we're doing is reading everything, so it goes quickly. We hope you guys join us in in reading these next ones. Um, we're really excited for them. Um, and let us know what you thought of the previous ones. Drop us a message. Um I'm working on making a Goodreads story graph isn't sitting well with anyone. The user interface is frustrating. Wow. So I'm gonna be attempting to move our reviews to Goodreads, so keep an eye out for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

We will post the link um in the make sure it gets on our on our socials, on the website, it'll be there. And as always, guys, if you have a book you think we should be reading, or if you've read something that you think would suit us well, or just have a recommendation in general, just drop it in our inbox, email it to us. We are very accessible.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:24

Because what's one more book in the every pile? But hey, what a great way to spend your time there.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

What do you collect? Books.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:34

Books. Books. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us. We hope you enjoyed our little our little chin wag about books. I should. I always do.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:46

I always do. I love talking about the books that we're reading.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:49

Right. And thank you, Sage, again, for joining us. It's always always our favorite when you're here. Yes. Really is. We will see you guys soon, and thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

Bye, everyone. Bye bye.