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I grew up in a family obsessed with motorsport, but after seeing the movie Rush in 2013, I fell head over heels in love with Formula 1. After traveling around the world to see racing in far-flung countries, I forged a career writing about the intricacies of a high-speed sport packed with fascinating stories and scandals that date as far back as the very first vehicle. As a woman covering racing, I’ve been a bit of a rarity in the garages, which is why I’ve tried to emphasize the lesser-heard stories of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ racing community.
Janet Guthrie completely changed the name of the game for women in motorsport here in America.
She was the first woman to compete in iconic races like the Indianapolis 500, and circuits even had to change their rules to allow women into the garage area because of her.
With a physics degree and a pilot's license under her belt, Guthrie changed the name of the game for women in motorsport—but her career fell short thanks to the restrictive nature of the 1970s.
Her autobiography sheds light on the pain and heartache she felt alongside all of her successes.
In this beautifully written book, Guthrie tells her story from the beginning. Nearly two decades in the making, Lady and Gentlemen captures the poignant detail of the complexity of the racing business. On a deeper level, she conveys all that she encountered along the way as a woman in the most testosterone-charged of men's worlds.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I grew up in a family obsessed with motorsport, but after seeing the movie Rush in 2013, I fell head over heels in love with Formula 1. After traveling around the world to see racing in far-flung countries, I forged a career writing about the intricacies of a high-speed sport packed with fascinating stories and scandals that date as far back as the very first vehicle. As a woman covering racing, I’ve been a bit of a rarity in the garages, which is why I’ve tried to emphasize the lesser-heard stories of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ racing community.
Hellé Nice had lived a full life before she ever sat behind the wheel.
A career as a model and dancer in Paris enabled her to live a life of luxury in the 1920s, but when she injured her knee skiing in 1929, she turned to a new career: Motor racing.
She went on to compete in races around Europe, setting world records behind the wheel of her bright blue Bugatti.
A freak accident nearly killed her in 1936, and the onset of World War II brought racing to an end. Nice's lush lifestyle saw her accused of being a Nazi collaborator, and records of her accomplishments were scrubbed from the racing world.
Miranda Seymour tracks down Nice's complex legacy and reports it in vivid fashion.
THE BUGATTI QUEEN is the beautifully illustrated story of an indomitable and fascinating woman, a pioneer of motorsport who revelled in danger. Born in 1900 in a tiny French village, Helene Delangle, aka Helle Nice, became a dancer and a stripper before catching the eye of Ettore Bugatti. Seduced by the combination of machines and speed, Helle Nice went on to have an unprecedented career, competing in numerous Grands Prix and becoming the only woman to drive on the treacherous American speedbowls in the 1930s. She set new land-speed records before a notorious accident which almost ended her racing days.…
I grew up in a family obsessed with motorsport, but after seeing the movie Rush in 2013, I fell head over heels in love with Formula 1. After traveling around the world to see racing in far-flung countries, I forged a career writing about the intricacies of a high-speed sport packed with fascinating stories and scandals that date as far back as the very first vehicle. As a woman covering racing, I’ve been a bit of a rarity in the garages, which is why I’ve tried to emphasize the lesser-heard stories of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ racing community.
Back when AAA sanctioned auto racing events in the 1920s, Black men were barred from racing at the highest competitive levels and were subjected to scathing remarks and racism at smaller local venues.
The Brown Bullet tells the story of Rajo Jack, one of the first Black drivers in America who broke down barriers just for a chance to show up at the track.
Even today, Black racers face undue prejudice when attempting to enter a predominately white sport; this book sheds light on the origins of that entrenched discrimination.
The powers-that-be in 1920s auto racing, namely the American Automobile Association's Contest Board, barred everyone who wasn't a white male from the sport. But Dewey Gatson, a black man who went by the name Rajo Jack, drove into the center of "outlaw" auto racing in California, refusing to let the pervasive racism of his day stop him from competing against entire fields of white drivers. In The Brown Bullet, journalist Bill Poehler uncovers the life of a long-forgotten trailblazer and the great lengths he took to even get on the track, showing ultimately how Rajo Jack proved to a generation…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
I grew up in a family obsessed with motorsport, but after seeing the movie Rush in 2013, I fell head over heels in love with Formula 1. After traveling around the world to see racing in far-flung countries, I forged a career writing about the intricacies of a high-speed sport packed with fascinating stories and scandals that date as far back as the very first vehicle. As a woman covering racing, I’ve been a bit of a rarity in the garages, which is why I’ve tried to emphasize the lesser-heard stories of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ racing community.
Roberta Cowell made history as the first British transgender woman to undergo gender-affirming surgery, but that isn’t the extent of her story.
She was also a fighter pilot in World War II who survived five months in a prisoner-of-war camp and a race car driver.
Though she was able to find doctors willing to provide her with the surgery that would affirm her gender identity, she gave up so much in the process, including a race car engineering company and her motorsport career.
Her autobiography is a poignant reminder of how far we've come in the subsequent decades.
First published in 1993. The purpose of this book is to help those who help others. Research has consistently demonstrated that those in the professions, particularly helping professions, have significantly higher levels of stress and burnout. Studies have shown that the profession with the greatest vulnerability to these illnesses is teaching.
All my life, some of my best friends have been animals, especially dogs and horses. As a sensitive kid who wore her emotions on her sleeve and who was constantly worried about pleasing parents, teachers, and friends, my animal friends felt like a source of unconditional love where I could let my guard down, just be myself, and not worry about being judged. The books I recommended all include extraordinary animal friendships. Four of the five are narrated or partially narrated by the animals themselves and are what inspired me to try my hand at writing a book for kids told from a dog’s point of view.
I love this book because of Enzo, the canine narrator. In fact, he may be my favorite narrator of all time. He is one of those narrators I would love to be friends with or who I would love to have as a professor or a spiritual guide.
The first time I tried reading it I put it down because I ugly-cried in the first chapter when Enzo recounted the story of how he planned to simplify his beloved human’s life. Thankfully, a trusted friend convinced me to give it another try because it’s now one of my all-time favorite books. Coming from an English teacher of twenty plus years, who reads a lot of good books, I think that's pretty high praise.
Yes, I cried a lot in this one, too, but I also laughed and did not want to leave Enzo or the humans he loved so dearly…
Soon to be a major motion picture, this heart-warming and inspirational tale follows Enzo, a loyal family dog, tells the story of his human family, how they nearly fell apart, and what he did to bring them back together.
Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: he thinks and feels in nearly human ways. He has educated himself by watching extensive television, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo realizes that racing is a metaphor: that by applying the techniques a driver would apply on…
I grew up watching Formula 1 as a fan, and have been lucky enough to turn my passion into my career as a journalist. I’ve covered F1 races since the early 1990’s, travelling around the world and getting to know many of its biggest stars. One of my proudest moments was winning a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for my contribution to motorsport journalism. Even though F1 has changed over the years – especially becoming a lot more commercial – I think the fundamentals remain: it's of the very best drivers in the very best cars going at it wheel-to-wheel in that all out quest for victory. That’s why I love it.
The late Gilles Villeneuve may not have been Formula 1’s most successful driver, indeed he never won a world championship, but that did not stop him earning legendary status for his antics being the wheel.
Labelled ‘the craziest devil’ by some of his rivals, Villeneuve was a driver who fans loved because he was always pushing to the maximum and could only operate at the limit – which made him spectacular. I only got to hear about Villeneuve after he died, but I found there was no better book to shed light on what he was like as a driver and as man than Donaldson’s brilliant biography.
Gilles Villeneuve became a legend in his own time, a driver whose skill and daring personified the ideals of Grand Prix racing, the pinnacle of motor sport. With his flamboyantly aggressive, press-on-regardless style in his scarlet Ferrari, he captured the imagination of a vast international audience as no other driver has in recent times.
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
In my “day job” I write about architecture, which means I often write about things I see in photos. When I began writing fiction, I continued using photos as inspiration and research. My novels are inspired by my family’s circumstances at the end of World War II and my fascination with the work of the Monuments Men. Photos show me details like a little girl playing with her doll under a sign that declares her building to be at risk of collapse, or a woman using the ruins of a building to hang out the wash. I love finding ways to use these elements in my writing.
Technically about World War II, this work covers Chim’s work depicting culture, politics, and life before and after the war, so the circumstances leading to conflict and its aftermath. Chim was the co-founder of Magnum Photos, so his contribution to photojournalism is immense, and his photos are beautifully lit and composed even as they capture fleeting moments: Polish school children waiting for a bus in the rain, a baby reaching for bread at a displaced person’s camp or a boy playing in the ruins of a bombed building. The book also includes later photos of celebrities and movie stars, which, when seen alongside his earlier work creates an interesting narrative of a world putting itself back together and once again seeking out joy and beauty.
Born Dawid Szymin in Warsaw, Chim began his career in the early 1930s photographing for leftist magazines in Paris. In 1936, one of these magazines, Regards, sent him to the frontlines of the civil war in Spain, along with comrades Robert Capa and Gerda Taro. Although war formed the backdrop of much of his reportage, Chim was an astute observer of twentieth-century European politics, social life, and culture, from the beginnings of the antifascist struggle to the rebuilding of countries ravaged by World War II. Like millions of other Europeans, Chim had suffered the pain of dislocation and the loss…
In writingThe Lost Son, which is loosely based on family history, I immersed myself in the history of World War II and in the world between the wars. It was important to me to understand this period from both sides—from the perspective of Germans who were either forced to flee their homeland or witness its destruction from within by a madman, and from the perspective of Americans with German ties who also fought fascism. The stories of ordinary people during this time are far more nuanced than the epic battles that World War II depicted, as the stories of ordinary people often are.
Born in 1934 in Berchtesgaden, in the shadow of Hitler’s Eagles Nest, Irmgard Hunt witnessed the growth of fascist ideology among the people she loved during an otherwise idyllic childhood. As the shadow of World War II fell over the mountain, however, Hunt began to question and then disavow the Nazi doctrines she had accepted as a young child. As time went on and the regime crumbled literally before her eyes, she was vocal in confronting her country’s criminal past and in championing the democratic principles her elders had so easily dismissed.
Irmgard Hunt was born into Nazi Germany in 1934 and brought up in the Bavarian village of Berchtesgaden, just outside the fence that surrounded Hitler's alpine retreat and headquarters. On Hitler's Mountain is her account of a childhood under the Third Reich as the daughter of low-level Party members. As a model Aryan toddler, she was photographed sitting on Hitler's knee, and attended school with the children of Albert Speer and Fritz Sauckel. Like many ordinary Germans her parents considered themselves to be moral and honourable: her father was a porcelain artist (at the workshop that provided Hitler with his…
I'm a poet and creative mentor, and it’s the intensity of poetic language – its expansiveness and limitations – that shows up in my fiction and in the novels I love. Quinnis an exploration of male violence, incarceration, and radical forgiveness. I’ve spent a decade working with long-term prisoners in Scotland, trying to understand and come to terms with notions of justice and responsibility: does guilt begin and end with the perpetrator of a violent act or are we all in some way culpable? How can literary form dig into this question aslant? Can the unsettled mind be a space for innovative thinking?
Kristóf (1935-2011) was a Hungarian writer who fled to Switzerland during the war and wrote in French.
The Notebook (the first in the trilogy) is currently number one on my list of all-time favourites. It has all the elements of storytelling that I love: deep, psychological insight into the human heart; adroit use of archetypes, which give the book a timeless, folkloric feel; concision (no waffling) and a poetic, pared-back language that creates a sense of startling immediacy.
Kristóf writes about World War II through the eyes of two young brothers in a Nazi-occupied country (unnamed), and she shocks us awake not through sensationalised violence but through matter-of-fact narration.
It reads like a cross-between dramatic monologue and biblical parable – she stretches the novel form and opens up new possibilities for writing.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
When I was a child, my mother and I shared and discussed Zane Grey books. I loved his portrayal of the past and read every one. My obsession with historical fiction grew, and I wrote my first draft of Elephant in the Room at age sixteen. I’m stuck in the period between 1875 and 1940 because of the simplicity driving life as well as the complexity of larger events changing the world. Wilder, Steinbeck, Twain, all picked me off my feet and set me down in their shoes. I’m not able to remove them. I write about courageous women because we are, whether it’s expressed or is in waiting.
Set in Italy during WWII, Liliana Nicoletti becomes involved in the partisan cause to save her country from the Germans. When her family encounters an escaped POW, she learns what it means to fight the Fascists who are destroying her community and joins the resistance.
Her mother and sisters shot, mud and blood streaming over her face, she picks up the rifle she hadn’t used in years and vows to find her father. Realistic and horrific, the first half of the tale paints a picture of courage beyond what we imagine possible and of relationships formed from the tangled threads of love and need. After the war, angst mixes with hope as Liliana and James search for the men who slaughtered innocent people. Is justice or revenge driving her?
The author drew me into the story with vivid details and kept me on the edge of my seat with twists and turns. I cared…
Against the backdrop of WWII-ravaged Italy comes a powerful and emotional novel of love, survival, justice, and second chances by the bestselling author of White Rose, Black Forest.
Occupied Italy, 1944. In the mountain regions south of Bologna, Liliana Nicoletti's family finds escaped POW James Foley behind German lines. Committed to the anti-Fascist cause, they deliver him to a powerful band of local partisans. But when the SS launches a brutal attack against the Resistance, Liliana's peaceful community is destroyed. Alone and thrown together by tragedy, James and Liliana fight together as Monte Sole burns. Forging an unbreakable bond, they…
