Nonfiction November: Fiction/Nonfiction Book Pairing

This week's topic is hosted by Katie at Doing Dewey, and it is a topic near and dear to my heart: books that go together. 

One of my favorite nonfiction books this year was A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, by Sonia Purnell, and one of my favorite novels of 2020 was Code Name Hélène, by Ariel Lawhon. Both books were about female spies during WWII who helped the French Resistance. Both were absolutely riveting. While Code Name Hélène was a novel, it was based on the life of a real person.

Here's what I wrote about A Woman of No Importance back in August: 

This is one of the best books of 2021. Could not put it down. Virginia Hall was incredible--brave, passionate, capable. She persisted. Despite a prosthetic leg. Despite the old boys network. Despite the Gestapo, betrayals, and red tape, she really, truly helped liberate France and end WWII. This is non-fiction at its finest. I started out listening to an audio version but switched to print because there are a lot of names and locations and organizations to keep track of, but a truly marvelous read. 

And here's my blurb about Code Name Helene:

I read a few reviews from other bloggers and felt this would be good. WWII, set in Marseille and the Dordogne region of France, French resistance - premise great! To be honest, during the first half I was not sure I would love it--the main character, Nancy, was a bit too perfect (beautiful, brilliant, brave, etc) but I was totally engrossed in the second half and couldn't put it down. Then, I read the afterword and learned that it was based on a real person who did all these extraordinary things.

Another nice matchup is the nonfiction book, Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II, by Liza Mundy and The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn. The nonfiction is about Americans and The Rose Code is about their English counterparts working at Bletchley Park, but these two books go very nicely together and help to put the role women played in winning the war into much sharper focus. 

Side note - I loved The Rose Code so much that I listened to it a second time on a road trip. And there's a TV series under development based on the book!

Here's what I wrote about The Rose Code last spring: 

I loved the characters of The Rose Code, from socialite Osla who dated the future Duke of Edinburgh and who was based on the real-life Osla Benning to working girl Mab from London's East End to mousey Beth, and how they grew and developed and matured. The Bletchley Park setting was fascinating (now on my must-visit list) as was the process of code breaking. I loved reading about how the various departments contributed to the whole, mostly without the cogs in the machinery having an understanding of what role their cog played. Final note--the best part of the book is the last third. Reads like a thriller!

I do tend to read about a subject, whether that be code breaking and spies during WWII, or War of the Roses and Tudor history, or Italy, or Northumberland, or whatever else strikes a chord, so the matchups are usually not hard for me to make!

Hope you are all enjoying Nonfiction November.

 

August Roundup

 Dog days of summer--garden harvest--shorter days--cooking, again, finally.

Over the past two weekends, I have made salsa, pickled beets, braised carrots and processed carrots for the freezer, zucchini bread, roasted tomato soup, and croutons for the soup--using tomatoes, peppers, onions, shallots, garlic, carrots, beets, and zucchini from the garden. All this while telling a neighbor that "I just don't cook anymore!" Go figure!

Oh, yes, and I've been reading. Here's my potpourri.

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, by Sonia Purnell - this is one of the best books of 2021. Could not put it down. Virginia Hall was incredible--brave, passionate, capable. She persisted. Despite a prosthetic leg. Despite the old boys network. Despite the Gestapo, betrayals, and red tape, she really, truly helped liberate France and end WWII. This is non-fiction at its finest. I started out listening to an audio version but switched to print because there are a lot of names and locations and organizations to keep track of, but a truly marvelous read. A perfect companion book to Code Name Helene.

Virginia Hall - she persisted!

My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris, by Alexander Lobrano - another non-fiction, but this time a memoir. Really enjoyed this for the love of food, the love of Paris and France, and the insights into life as a journalist. Just a few years older than me, I recognized the world of Lobrano's childhood, the prejudices, the need to fit square pegs in round holes, the need to smooth over trauma and pretend everything was always all right. Poignant, interesting, and mouth-watering!

The Last Detective, by Peter Lovesey - attention Austen fans! This one's for you. Set in Bath in the 1990s, this is the first in the author's Peter Diamond mystery series. Peter Diamond is okay--not my favorite mystery solver, but the reason I read the book was for the Jane Austen connection. The mystery hinges on some letters that Austen wrote while living in Bath that surface and then disappear. Solving the mystery means finding those letters! Great fun. Not great literature, but fun nonetheless.