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The Invisible Woman

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The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck
Format:  Digital Audiobook
Who it’s for:  Adults

This is a historical novel about an American woman named Virginia Hall, and her work as a secret agent during World War II.  Leading up to the war, Hall worked as an embassy secretary and desperately wanted to get into the American Foreign Service.  Not only was it rare for women to be accepted into the AFSA at the time, but rules were in place that forbid hiring people with disabilities as diplomats.  At the age of 27, Hall had accidentally shot herself in the left foot while hunting birds.  Her leg had been amputated below the knee and she wore a wooden prosthesis.

Virginia Hall eventually made her way to Europe as an ambulance driver for France, where she was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in England.   She operated mainly out of France, where she was able to arrange contacts, assist intelligence agents, help British airmen who were shot down or had crashed over Europe, and help dozens escape France to neutral Spain and onward back to England.

After learning to become a wireless operator, Hall was contacted by the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS).  She was hired to train resistance groups in France called Maquis, so that they could support the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 with sabotage and guerrilla activities.  The Invisible Woman focuses on Hall’s work at this time (disguised as an old woman named Diane), and introduces us to the villagers, farmers, and housewives who risked their lives in support of Allied efforts.

For her efforts in France, Hall was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross in September, 1945, the only one awarded to a civilian woman in World War II.  Robuck brings to life the courage that some of the most obscure people demonstrated in order to defeat the Nazis.

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Migrations

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Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
Format:  Book
Who it’s for:  Adults

Picture a future where most animals have become extinct.  Scientists are studying how to keep those remaining from complete termination.  The answer may lie with the Arctic terns.  Franny Stone is convinced of this truth.  To prove it to herself, Franny has made her way to Greenland with the goal of talking a fishing crew into following the terns on their last migration.  If Franny can get the crew to follow the terns that she has been able to catch and tag, she is convinced that the fishermen will find the fish they desperately need to support their livelihood, and Franny will prove her theory.

Here the mystery begins.  As the crew attempts to follow the terns through frigidly calm seas and unrelenting storms, the reader learns about the dangers of daily life on a fishing vessel, and Franny’s past life. One becomes intent on trying to figure out just who Franny is and what she has left behind.  The author describes Franny in the perilous present and then shifts to the past to explore who Franny was as a child, teenager and adult.  Why are the terns so important to her?  What is Franny running from? Why was she in jail? Where are her parents? Where is her husband?  Will the crew survive their dangerous journey? Will the terns survive their migration?  Will it be their last? The listener hangs on to the author’s every word until all answers are revealed in the story’s thrilling conclusion.

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Hillbilly Elegy

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Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
Format: Digital audiobook
Who it’s for: Adults

J.D. Vance grew up in the Rust Belt town of Middletown, Ohio.  He is the grandson of a poor, uneducated couple who left their Appalachian roots at a very young age for a better life in Ohio.

Although part of the white middle-class in Ohio, J.D.’s family could never quite escape the Appalachian stereotype described as “uneducated and prone to impulsive acts of violence”.  Life for J.D. and his family was chaotic and dysfunctional, fraught with the social problems of his hometown including alcoholism, drug addiction, and constant money problems.

J.D.’s family struggled like many working-class American families from small towns do.  But J.D. was fortunate.  He had the constant love and support of his grandmother and extended family members. J.D.’s grandmother taught him that working hard matters as well as taking responsibility for one’s choices.

Hillbilly Elegy is J.D. Vance’s story of surviving the dysfunction of white working class America to become a graduate of Ohio State University and Yale Law School.  It is his own explanation of how the Appalachian values passed down from his grandparents actually helped him survive the stigma of the poor American and taught him that if he worked hard enough, he could make it.

The audio version of this book is narrated by the author.

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Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan

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Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan
Format: Book
Who It’s For: Adults

After graduating from college and working for a year, Kelly Corrigan and a good friend decided to set out on the adventure of a lifetime.  Everything was great until they began to run out of money in Australia.  Instead of asking their parents to wire them money, Kelly and her friend decided to get jobs.

Kelly took a job as a live-in nanny for the Tanner family.  The mother of the family had just passed away after battling cancer.  Kelly was responsible for taking the children to school, doing their laundry, cooking their meals, taking care of them when they returned home, cleaning up after them, and getting them ready for bed.

Glitter and Glue is a memoir in which Kelly examines her relationship with her mother while being the substitute mother for the Tanner children.  The book is heartwarming.  Kelly has a style of writing that will leave you laughing and sometimes crying.  It will leave you thinking of your relationship with your own mother and reflecting on what it means for one parent to be the “glitter” and one parent to be the “glue”.  This is a book that you won’t be able to put down.

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Untamed

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Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Format: Book, Ebook, Overdrive Audio
Who it’s for:  Adults

Glennon Doyle is the author of a blog and two best-selling memoirs, a public speaker, and the founder of a nonprofit organization Together Rising. These accomplishments show that she is a successful woman, but Untamed her third memoir, shows that Doyle is a painfully honest woman as well.

Doyle begins the first chapter of her book describing a trip to the zoo with her children. While there, they watch a cheetah who has been trained to chase a stuffed bunny like a dog.  Watching this performance presents Doyle with the sudden insight that her life as a woman has been like that cheetah’s.  She realizes that she has spent her entire life feeling “caged” and trying to be loved by doing what she has been “trained” to do.

In Untamed, Doyle explains how she finally broke free of feeling caged.  She empowers all women, through her incredible insight and experiences, to find their own version of humanity and follow it.  Doyle encourages women to trust their intuition and to “find what makes your heart ache and follow it”.

As you read this book you’ll find yourself highlighting inspirational quotes and stories that you’ll want to refer back to later.  You will experience the art of a great storyteller and her willingness to break free of cultural norms in order to establish a life that works best for her and her children.  I listened to this book through RB Digital and found that I wanted to check the hardback copy out as well, just so that I could re-read some of the most inspiring parts.

In Untamed, Doyle teaches us what it means to be brave enough to abandon what the world expects of us instead of abandoning our true selves.  Doyle challenges women to ask themselves “What do I love? What makes me come alive?, What is beauty to me, and when do I take the time to fill up with it? Who is the soul beneath all of these roles?”  Those are great questions for all of us to ponder.

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Atomic Habits: An Easy Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

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Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones  by James Clear
Format:  Book, ebook, Digital Audiobook, Book on CD
Who it’s for:  Adults

In Atomic Habits, James Clear teaches his readers how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master a system of reaching your goals by changing the way you think about your progress.  If you focus each day on working just 1% toward reaching your goal, and you repeat that process each day, you are cumulatively closer to reaching your goal as opposed to being farther from it.

Clear encourages his readers to follow his four laws of creating a good habit.  They are: Make it Obvious, Make it Attractive, Make it Easy and Make it Satisfying.  Once good habits are formed, these come together to create a system for a person, that will allow him or her to obtain their goals successfully.

I listened to this book in digital audiobook form.  The book is narrated by the author and includes true stories of the accomplishments of athletes, artists, entertainers and businesspeople which emphasize the successes of Clear’s way of re-thinking habit changing behavior.  I thought that Clear’s “system” approach whereby a person aims to create good habits in order to stay motivated and on track, was a new way of thinking about attaining our goals. This is a very interesting book.

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