Here are 100 books that The Originals fans have personally recommended if you like
The Originals.
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By age four, I had circumnavigated the globe primarily in DC-3s and DC-4s. This early exposure to the excitement of flying ignited an interest in becoming a pilot. My bad eyesight and my sex made that a hopeless proposition, as there was no place for myopic women pilots in the 70s and 80s. But I travelled by air and I read about aviation, and my first published book was a comparative study of women pilots in WWII, Sisters in Arms. I have since published a second nonfiction and six novels with aviation themes.
Like Diana, Pip drew me right into her firsthand account of life as a WAAF and ultimately an air traffic controller. As good as any novel, Pip made me care about her and the people she encountered, many of whom did not survive to tell their own stories.
Yet far from being a gloomy story, Pip remembers the good times of being young and in an exciting job—the jokes, the camaraderie, the mishaps, and the adventures. There are far too few books like Pip’s that tell about the “ordinary” girls who “served with the men who flew.” I feel like every time I re-read this book, I find something new.
A sensitively written true story by an RAF Bomber Command wartime R/T operator who talked down the crews on their return from operations, met them off duty, and often mourned their loss within days.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
By age four, I had circumnavigated the globe primarily in DC-3s and DC-4s. This early exposure to the excitement of flying ignited an interest in becoming a pilot. My bad eyesight and my sex made that a hopeless proposition, as there was no place for myopic women pilots in the 70s and 80s. But I travelled by air and I read about aviation, and my first published book was a comparative study of women pilots in WWII, Sisters in Arms. I have since published a second nonfiction and six novels with aviation themes.
What I love about this book is how Diana’s playful, fun-loving personality shines through. Yes, she did some extraordinary things. She was one of the first women pilots in the British Air Transport Auxiliary during WWII, flew Spitfires to the Continent after D-Day, and later she became the first woman to break the sound barrier.
Yet what makes this book special is that it’s fun to read, and I came to care about Diana. I later met her personally, stayed at her home overnight, and found her as delightful as her book! If you can read only one book about women pilots in WWII, choose this one!
The daughter of millionaire racing driver, Woolf Barnato, and grand-daughter of Barney Barnato who co-founded the De Beers mining company, by 1936 Diana had had enough of her affluent, chaperoned existence and sought excitement in flying, soloing at Brooklands after only six hours' training. She has followed her own instincts ever since. Joining the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1941 to help ferry aircraft to squadrons and bases throughout the country, she flew scores of different aircraft fighters, bombers, and trainers in all kinds of conditions and without radio it has to be remembered. She lost many friends, a fiance and…
By age four, I had circumnavigated the globe primarily in DC-3s and DC-4s. This early exposure to the excitement of flying ignited an interest in becoming a pilot. My bad eyesight and my sex made that a hopeless proposition, as there was no place for myopic women pilots in the 70s and 80s. But I travelled by air and I read about aviation, and my first published book was a comparative study of women pilots in WWII, Sisters in Arms. I have since published a second nonfiction and six novels with aviation themes.
I’ve chosen this biography of Pauline Gower, the woman responsible for opening opportunities for British women pilots and ensuring equal treatment, not because it’s the most recent, but because it is the most poignant. It was written by one of the twin sons she gave birth to the day before she died.
Fahie says he spent forty years trying to get to know his mother, and it's that sense of sharing his journey of discovery that I found absorbing. Fahie also had access to photos that were not usually shared, which gives Pauline a face that is not usually shown in official biographies. This is a lovely book that makes the famous woman aviator more than that; it pierces her natural humility and reticence to bring to life her humor, her strength, and her wisdom.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
By age four, I had circumnavigated the globe primarily in DC-3s and DC-4s. This early exposure to the excitement of flying ignited an interest in becoming a pilot. My bad eyesight and my sex made that a hopeless proposition, as there was no place for myopic women pilots in the 70s and 80s. But I travelled by air and I read about aviation, and my first published book was a comparative study of women pilots in WWII, Sisters in Arms. I have since published a second nonfiction and six novels with aviation themes.
When I was researching my comparative study of women pilots in the US and UK, I discovered this gem of a book. In a sea of material praising the women in the WASP, eulogizing the head of the WASP, the glamorous Jackie Cochrane, and telling individual stories, this book stood out as the most objective historical account of the controversial US women’s pilot program.
It is neutral in tone, well-documented, and cogently written. An excellent resource for anyone interested in fact rather than legend.
Revives the overlooked stories of pioneering women aviators, who are also featured in the forthcoming documentary film Coming Home: Fight for a Legacy
During World War II, all branches of the military had women's auxiliaries. Only the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program, however, was made up entirely of women who undertook dangerous missions more commonly associated with and desired by men.
Within military hierarchies, the World War II pilot was perceived as the most dashing and desirable of servicemen. "Flyboys" were the daring elite of the United States military. More than the WACs (Army), WAVES (Navy), SPARS (Coast Guard),…
I am an ex-lawyer, ex-army officer, and ex-Hollywood film editor who loves stories about females in danger who dig deep to solve problems and survive. I can’t claim to be an expert, but I marvel at the breadth of female styles–from delicate, feminine, and sweet to brave, adventuresome, and tough. I have edited films about various women characters, from Charlize Theron’s killer in Monster to Cate Blanchett’s spiritual medium in The Gift and Diane Lane’s brave romantic survivor in Under the Tuscan Sun. I have three successful step granddaughters: an accountant, a lawyer, and one getting a PhD in computer studies. Smart, talented, and interesting women people in my life.
I held my breath as Cornelia Fort, in the middle of giving a flight lesson, spotted a plane heading straight at her. I grew more tense as I realized she was caught up in the Japanese bombing attack at Pearl Harbor. And I was inspired by the success of Jaquie Cochron and Nancy Love in putting together a corps of women pilots to help with the national shortage in WWII.
These women, known as WASP, learned about flying despite the resistance of some instructors and officers. Several dozen WASP died as they flew everything from P-51 fighters to B-17 bombers across the country to be shipped to Europe. I loved seeing the women form bonds of friendship that outlived their organization.
“With the fate of the free world hanging in the balance, women pilots went aloft to serve their nation. . . . A soaring tale in which, at long last, these daring World War II pilots gain the credit they deserve.”—Liza Mundy, New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls
“A powerful story of reinvention, community and ingenuity born out of global upheaval.”—Newsday
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Cornelia Fort was already in the air. At twenty-two, Fort had escaped Nashville’s debutante scene for a fresh start as a flight instructor in Hawaii. She and her…
Clare Mulley is the award-winning author of three books re-examining the history of the First and Second World War through the lives of remarkable women. The Woman Who Saved the Children, about child rights pioneer Eglantyne Jebb, won the Daily Mail Biographers' Club Prize and is now under option. Polish-born Second World War special agent Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, is the subject of the Spy Who Loved, a book that led to Clare being decorated with Poland’s national honour, the Bene Merito. Clare's third book, The Women Who Flew for Hitler, long-listed for the Historical Writers Association prize, tells the extraordinary story of Nazi Germany’s only two female test pilots, whose choices and actions put them on opposite sides of history. Clare reviews for the Telegraph, Spectator, and History Today. A popular public speaker, she has given a TEDx talk at Stormont, and recent TV includes news appearances for the BBC, Sky, and Channel 5 as well as various Second World War history series.
There are several fascinating memoirs by ATA pilots including those by Diana Barnato Walker and the fittingly named Nancy Bird, but I was lucky enough to know Mary Ellis so her words speak most directly to me. A life recounted in sensible tones, reading this book it is easy to imagine you are settled into an armchair across from Mary, while at the same time realising that she would be much more comfortable in the cockpit of a Spitfire. By the end of the war she had delivered 400 Spitfires and flown 72 different types of aircraft. ‘Who needs love’, Ellis wrote, ‘when there is the ultimate thrill of speed, the sky, and the orgasmic experience of piloting the best fighter aircraft in the world?’ Enough said.
We visualise dashing and daring young men as the epitome of the pilots of the Second World War, yet amongst that elite corps was one person who flew no less than 400 Spitfires and seventy-six different types of aircraft and that person was Mary Wilkins.
Her story is one of the most remarkable and endearing of the war, as this young woman, serving as a ferry pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary, transported aircraft for the RAF, including fast fighter planes and huge four-engine bombers. On one occasion Mary delivered a Wellington bomber to an airfield, and as she climbed…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Clare Mulley is the award-winning author of three books re-examining the history of the First and Second World War through the lives of remarkable women. The Woman Who Saved the Children, about child rights pioneer Eglantyne Jebb, won the Daily Mail Biographers' Club Prize and is now under option. Polish-born Second World War special agent Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, is the subject of the Spy Who Loved, a book that led to Clare being decorated with Poland’s national honour, the Bene Merito. Clare's third book, The Women Who Flew for Hitler, long-listed for the Historical Writers Association prize, tells the extraordinary story of Nazi Germany’s only two female test pilots, whose choices and actions put them on opposite sides of history. Clare reviews for the Telegraph, Spectator, and History Today. A popular public speaker, she has given a TEDx talk at Stormont, and recent TV includes news appearances for the BBC, Sky, and Channel 5 as well as various Second World War history series.
This is a gripping history of the Soviet female fighter, bomber and night bomber squadron pilots told through their interwoven biographies. These were the women who fought and died in the skies above Stalingrad and Kursk, and whose skills, as well as courage, astounded and terrified the Luftwaffe. Although invited to train and serve alongside their male comrades, the women were of course given uniforms and equipment designed for men, plenty of hostility, and a place, for those who survived, only at the back of the victory parades.
Plucked from every background and led by an NKVD Major, the new recruits who boarded a train in Moscow on October 16, 1941, to go to war had much in common with millions of others across the world. What made the members of the 586th Fighter Regiment, the 587th Heavy-Bomber Regiment, and the 588th Regiment of light night-bombers unique was their gender: the Soviet Union was creating the first all-female active combat units in modern history.
Drawing on original interviews with surviving airwomen, Lyuba Vinogradova weaves together the untold stories of the female Soviet fighter pilots of the Second World…
My wife is a beautiful, intelligent, and determined woman. She took up rock climbing in her forties. She rides a motorcycle on and off-road. She scuba dives with sharks, she’s jumped out of an airplane, and she strapped crampons on her feet when I said we’re climbing a snow-covered mountain. One of my best friends in the world is from Finland. Typical of Finns, and Scandinavians in general, he has a dry wit and keen observations and thoughts which he delivers matter-of-factly in few words. Combining these two with a sprinkling of my own imagination produced Nora Sommer.
I have an obsession with WWII, submarines of the era, and especially the Battle of Britain. As women in dangerous and often traditionally masculine roles also appeal, it makes sense that true stories of these gallant pilots are right in my wheelhouse. Or cockpit…
During the war, female pilots were recruited to ferry planes for the Air Transport Auxiliary to RAF bases, freeing up male combat pilots.
Unarmed, without instruments or radios, the women often flew over the hostile skies of southern England in new or repaired aircraft, flight testing them on the way. Navigation was done by compass headings and visual references on the ground.
This book does a wonderful job of shining a light on the relatively small group of brave souls who did their part during dark times.
The story of the unsung heroines who flew the newest, fastest, aeroplanes in World War II - mostly in southern England where the RAF was desperately short of pilots.
Why would the well-bred daughter of a New England factory-owner brave the U-boat blockades of the North Atlantic in the bitter winter of 1941? What made a South African diamond heiress give up her life of house parties and London balls to spend the war in a freezing barracks on the Solent? And why did young Margaret Frost start lying to her father during the Battle of Britain?
In May 1968, I arrived at my first duty station as a new B-52 navigator-bombardier. Later, at the bar, I was hailed by a booming voice from behind the beer taps. "Hi ya, lieutenant!" Moments later, he asked what I thought of the USAF so far. I said I was career-minded. ‘‘Hell, only the pilots get promoted; navigators get diddley-squat. Get out as soon as you can.” After he departed, the bartender came over. “Know who that was, lieutenant? He’s Tom Ferebee, the man who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima." The colonel had both underscored my dismal career prospects and instilled a lifelong passion for the subjects discussed in this book.
While researching my book, I was fortunate to become acquainted with the Tibbets family, including his second wife Andrea Quattrehomme and his grandson Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets IV (USAF Ret.). Their co-operation, coupled with the details in this autobiography, was instrumental in revealing what the man was really like.
In 1937, Tibbets graduated from the Kelly Field, Texas pilot school, the “West Point of the Air." Among the first to deploy to Europe in 1942, he flew the lead plane in the initial heavy bomber raid against Fortress Europa. Additionally, he often flew as personal pilot to flag officers, including Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. After 43 combat missions he was rotated home to help development of the troubled B-29 program, which directly led to his selection as commander of the world’s first atomic bomber force.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I became enchanted with the Flying Tigers as an eighth-grader in 1945, and when our daughter needed a topic for her high-school history paper forty years later, I suggested the AVG. The books (including Olga Greenlaw’s) flooded into our house. Kate was a Harvard freshman the following year, her Chinese roommate gave me a rough vocabulary, and I flew to China and Burma to walk the ground and quiz the locals. In all the years since, I’ve never stopped learning about these men and their great moment in military history.
Charlie Bond was a career aviator and retired as a two-star general, so his account is discreet and clearly edited for publication. But he was more serious than most of the buccaneers who joined the American Volunteer Group; he paid attention to what was going on at headquarters high and low, and he had a keen eye for his fellow pilots. History professor Terry Anderson provided the background, and R. T. Smith some of the photographs.
" Draws aside the curtain of mythology and shows the AVG members--pilots, mechanics, nurses, and Chennault himself--as recognizable humans with a full spectrum of virtues and faults. Yet, the glory remains undiminished . . . A Flying Tiger's Diary is highly readable and is wholeheartedly recommended."—Military Review
The Flying Tigers, under the leadership of Claire Chennault, fought legendary air battles in the skies over Burma and China. This journal of ace pilot Charles Bond, now in its fifth printing, vividly preserves his experiences in aerial combat against the Japanese, all recorded within twenty-four hours of the action. It also documents…
