Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up
Required to have a college degree, speak two languages, and possess the
political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess
serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between
5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at
the time of hire. Julia Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together
the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from Lynne
Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to
Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few black stewardesses of the era, as
they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life.
Cooke
brings to life the story of Pan Am stewardesses’ role in the Vietnam
War, as the airline added runs from Saigon to Hong Kong for planeloads
of weary young soldiers straight from the battlefields, who were off for
five days of R&R, and then flown back to war. Finally, with
Operation Babylift—the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the
fall of Saigon—the book’s special cast of stewardesses unites to play an
extraordinary role on the world stage.
Showing posts with label Society & Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Society & Culture. Show all posts
Saturday, December 10, 2022
Come Fly the World: the Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke
266 pages (March 2021)
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Review from Library Journal
Review from Publishers Weekly
Review from Shelf Awareness
Julia Cooke | Come Fly the World | Virtual Book Talk (Georgetown University Alumni Career Services):
This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.
Title Read-alikes: The Jet Sex: airline stewardesses and the making of an American icon by Victoria Vantoch; Fly Girl: a memoir by Ann Hood; The Great Stewardess Rebellion: how women launched a workplace rebellion at 30,000 feet by Nell McShane Wulfhart; The Good Girls Revolt: how the women of Newsweek sued their bosses and changed the workplace by Lynn Povich; Cockpit Confidential: everything you need to know about air travel : questions, answers, & reflections by Patrick Smith; The Great Air Race: glory, tragedy, and the dawn of American Aviation by John Lancaster; Inside Broadside: a decade of feminist journalism by Philindra Masters; Twelve Years of Turbulence: the inside story of American Airlines' battle for survival by Gary Kennedy; Confessions of a Qantas Flight Attendant: true tales and gossip from the galley by Owen Beddall; The Barbizon: the hotel that set women free by Paulina Bren; The Secret History of Home Economics: how trailblazing women harnessed the power of home and changed the way we live by Danielle Dreilinger; The Woman They Could Not Silence: one woman, her incredible fight for freedom and the men who tried to make her disappear by Kate Moore; and West with the Night by Beryl Markham.
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Yale needs women: how the first group of girls rewrote the rules of an Ivy League giant by Anne Gardiner Perkins
In the summer of 1969, from big cities to small towns,
young women across the country sent in applications to Yale University
for the first time. The Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating
"one thousand male leaders" each year had finally decided to open its
doors to the nation's top female students. The landmark decision was a
huge step forward for women's equality in education.
Or was it?
The
experience the first undergraduate women found when they stepped onto
Yale's imposing campus was not the same one their male peers enjoyed.
Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects,
and barred from many of the privileges an elite education was supposed
to offer, many of the first girls found themselves immersed in an
overwhelmingly male culture they were unprepared to face. Yale Needs Women is
the story of how these young women fought against the backward-leaning
traditions of a centuries-old institution and created the opportunities
that would carry them into the future. Anne Gardiner Perkins's
unflinching account of a group of young women striving for change is an
inspiring story of strength, resilience, and courage that continues to
resonate today.
373 pages (September 2019)
Book Page at BookBrowse.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Yale Needs Women | Intro For Book Clubs (SourcebooksInc):
Anne Gardiner Perkins of Yale Needs Women reflects 50 years after the university went coed (WTNH News8):
Title Read-alikes: The Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever by Kent Garrett; Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania by Frank Bruni; Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions by Jeffrey J. Selingo; Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus by Jennifer S. Hirsch & Shamus Khan; Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves A Second Chance at Education by Mike (Michael Anthony) Rose; Game On: Why College Admission Is Rigged and How You Can Beat the System by Susan F. Paterno; The College Dropout Scandal by David L. Kirp; Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins; Won’t Lose This Dream: How an Upstart Urban University Rewrote the Rules of a Broken System by Andrew Gumbel; Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell; The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs; The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy; and The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore.
Monday, January 11, 2021
March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women by Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, & Jane Smiley
On its 150th
anniversary, four acclaimed authors offer personal reflections on their
lifelong engagement with Louisa May Alcott's classic novel of girlhood
and growing up.
For the 150th anniversary of the publication of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley explore their strong lifelong personal engagement with Alcott's novel--what it has meant to them and why it still matters. Each takes as her subject one of the four March sisters, reflecting on their stories and what they have to teach us about life. Kate Bolick finds parallels in oldest sister Meg's brush with glamour at the Moffats' ball and her own complicated relationship with clothes. Jenny Zhang confesses to liking Jo least among the sisters when she first read the novel as a girl, uncomfortable in finding so much of herself in a character she feared was too unfeminine. Carmen Maria Machado writes about the real-life tragedy of Lizzie Alcott, the inspiration for third sister Beth, and the horror story that can result from not being the author of your own life's narrative. And Jane Smiley rehabilitates the reputation of youngest sister Amy, whom she sees as a modern feminist role model for those of us who are, well, not like the fiery Jo. These four voices come together to form a deep, funny, far-ranging meditation on the power of great literature to shape our lives.
For the 150th anniversary of the publication of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley explore their strong lifelong personal engagement with Alcott's novel--what it has meant to them and why it still matters. Each takes as her subject one of the four March sisters, reflecting on their stories and what they have to teach us about life. Kate Bolick finds parallels in oldest sister Meg's brush with glamour at the Moffats' ball and her own complicated relationship with clothes. Jenny Zhang confesses to liking Jo least among the sisters when she first read the novel as a girl, uncomfortable in finding so much of herself in a character she feared was too unfeminine. Carmen Maria Machado writes about the real-life tragedy of Lizzie Alcott, the inspiration for third sister Beth, and the horror story that can result from not being the author of your own life's narrative. And Jane Smiley rehabilitates the reputation of youngest sister Amy, whom she sees as a modern feminist role model for those of us who are, well, not like the fiery Jo. These four voices come together to form a deep, funny, far-ranging meditation on the power of great literature to shape our lives.
192 pages (August 2019)
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Kate Bolick & Carmen Maria Machado speaking at The Strand Book Store:
Title Read-alikes: Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy by Anne Boyd Rioux; The Measure of Our Lives by Toni Morrison; Sharp by Michelle Dean; Alice Adams by Carol Sklenicka; Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay; The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir; Coventry by Rachel Cusk; Why Women Read Fiction by Helen Taylor; Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag; Meg and Jo by Virninia Kantra; In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado; and Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn.
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Spare Parts : four undocumented teenagers, one ugly robot, and the battle for the American dream by Joshua Davis
Four undocumented Mexican American students, two great teachers, one robot-building contest...and a major motion picture.
In 2004, four Latino teenagers arrived at the Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They were born in Mexico but raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where they attended an underfunded public high school. No one had ever suggested to Oscar, Cristian, Luis, or Lorenzo that they might amount to much - but two inspiring science teachers had convinced these impoverished, undocumented kids from the desert who had never even seen the ocean that they should try to build an underwater robot.
And build a robot they did. Their robot wasn't pretty, especially compared to those of the competition. They were going up against some of the best collegiate engineers in the country, including a team from MIT backed by a $10,000 grant from ExxonMobil. The Phoenix teenagers had scraped together less than $1,000 and built their robot out of scavenged parts. This was never a level competition - and yet, against all odds... they won!
But this is just the beginning for these four, whose story - which became a key inspiration to the DREAMers movement - will go on to include first-generation college graduations, deportation, bean-picking in Mexico, and service in Afghanistan.
Joshua Davis' Spare Parts is a story about overcoming insurmountable odds and four young men who proved they were among the most patriotic and talented Americans in this country - even as the country tried to kick them out.
224 pages (December 2014)
Check availability
Book Page at BookBrowse.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Joshua Davis talks about the students on CNN:
Joshua Davis at the American Library Association Conference 2015:
This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.
Title Read-alikes: The Newcomers by Helen Thorpe; 14 Miles by D. W. Gibson; Science Fair Season by Judy Dutton; The New Cool by Neal Bascomb; School of Dreams by Edward Humes; The Newcomers by Helen Thorpe; The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley; The Book of Isaias by Daniel Connolly; Hold Fast to Dreams by Beth Zasloff; A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves by Jason DeParle; The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea; The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande; Some Assembly Required by Ann Andrews; and The Tortilla Curtain by T. Coraghessan Boyle.
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Just Mercy : a story of justice and redemption by Bryan Stevenson
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our timeBryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
336 pages (October 2014)
Book Page at BookBrowse.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for
the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library
card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
Book Trailer :
Title Read-alikes: Beneath a Ruthless Sun by Gilbert King; Convicting the Innocent by Stanley Cohen; What the Eyes Don't See by Mona Hanna-Attisha; Confessions of an Innocent Man by David R. Dow; The Work by Wes Moore; On the Run by Alice Goffman; A Knock at Midnight by Brittany K. Barnett; Deep Delta Justice by Matthew Van Meter; The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander; Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates; Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck; Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance; and Anatomy of Injustice by Ramond Bonner.
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