More Reading Recommendations from Young @ Heart Book Club

At Young @ Heart Bookclub we LOVE learning more about real people. It might be a biography, factual non-fiction or fiction based on real life. Some of this month’s top picks were:

**** Four Stars, Oh Wow That Was Different!: Embers of the Hands: hidden histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough
Instead of focusing only on the well-known characters and raiding parties of Viking history, ‘Embers’ is divided into topics such as Play, Love, Religion and Travel. Pictures of everyday objects like combs, love notes, chess pieces and children’s drawings make this book of Viking artifacts come alive for the reader. It is sometimes quite dry in detail, but overall beautifully reconstructs the ordinary lives of a wide variety of relatable Norse people, showing the changes over time as they assimilated from other cultures.

*** Three Stars, Did not Finish: Tesla: Wizard at War by Marc J Seifer
Born during an electrical storm in 1856, Nikola Tesla’s name may now be famous, but who was this complex visionary inventor, mathematician and scientist? He contributed to the discovery of AC current, wi-fi and x-ray technology but also had plans for an Earthquake Machine, the Thought Camera, and the Particle Beam Death Ray. Consensus was that although this is a good book, about a fascinating person and well researched, it was also quite technical towards the end which made it a little hard going.

**** Four Stars, Ewwwww Gross - That’s Really Interesting!: The Real Silent Witness: shocking cases from the world of forensic science by Wensley Clarkson
Partly true crime, partly a love letter to the TV show, fans of Silent Witness will enjoy this true crime book. The first half tells the story of DNA discovery through to its use in modern criminology, while the second half is a collection of real cases where forensics have been instrumental in the outcome. Wensley shows us a wonderful science that can solve baffling mysteries and cold cases as techniques improve, but also a potential trap where human interpretation can make mistakes and condemn the innocent. For fertile imaginations, there is a terrific description of the perfect body disposal. (There’s a pun in there, but you’ll have to read to the end to get it!)

**** Four Stars, She did What???: The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
Born Jewish in Austria, strategically married young to an arms dealer in the 1930s, Hedy is treated as arm candy. She overhears many dinner party conversations between powerful leaders, and eventually escapes to, of all places, Hollywood. Her beauty and talent bring her movie stardom. She may be sometimes vain and wanton, but never forgets her roots. Hedy leverages her contacts and uses her scientific brilliance to devise a torpedo guidance system that will help end the war more swiftly, as well as other inventions that changed the face of communications. An intriguing fictional look at the life of Hedy Lamarr which makes you wonder what she might have achieved in a less misogynistic time and place. A good read, but for a book trying to show her intelligence and contribution to science it perhaps spends too much time describing her clothes and looks.

Posted by Elizabeth

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