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Join us for the January book of the month selection, Hidden Figures by Margo Lee Shetterley
The movie version looks really good. It’s in theaters next week, so I’m hoping to get this read before seeing the movie
Done! Really enjoyed this book, and would love to see the movie eventually, to see how it compares. I really enjoyed all of the history and information. I loved all the nerdy physics and math stuff. Loved it! Writing style-wise, I thought the author did a pretty good job. This is not easy material to present. Sometimes, when she was talking about a certain character, and then would veer off into history, I’d get lost a little bit back with the character. But, this was not a huge deal, and overall, the book was still great. So glad I had a chance to read this one!
Oh, and I was fortunate enough to actually live near a bunch of the places in the book, which helped me visualize a lot more. I had an apartment & shopped in the town where Goddard Space Flight Center is located. Several other places I have either been to or are familiar with. There were several places that I would love to go back and visit now that my interest is piqued.
My physics & math & computer genius freak-show of a brother had interned, and then worked at & visited many of the places in the book–JPL, APL, Goddard, etc.. So proud of his crazy work, and so cool that he has that brain to do what he does!
I’ve got a little under 100 pages to go. Enjoying it, but I really need people to stop interrupting my lunch time reading.
Oh, and I thought it was cool that MLS mentioned Clark in her book! Loved that! She was referring to a movie he starred in the 1930s called Test Pilot about the dangerous and craziness of the test pilots of that time period. Apparently the filmmakers did some research at Langley back in the aviation days. It is a good movie to get an idea of what Test Pilots actually did back in the early days of aviation.
Finished this a few weeks back. Really, really liked it. Both the life side and the crazy nerdy physics and math stuff. It bothers me a little bit (though it doesn’t surprise me) that this is really the first time this part of history has been brought to the public’s attention. History tends to ignore those things and people in the background, those who do the stuff that allows the “big” names to take the glory and credit.
Just as I was finishing the book, I caught part of the movie Apollo 13 on tv. I’ve always loved the movie for its generally great movie-ness (pacing, story, ability to keep the view at the edge even though it’s well known how it ends), but this time I saw it in a little bit of a different light. Women aren’t represented at ALL in the film except as wives and mothers (and yes I know, it was based on Lost Moon which is Jim Lovell’s telling of events). The thing is there are moments in the film that take place in the back rooms and hallways with the people who did the math and so there had to be women there.
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