First Quarter Book Club Recap

We're back with a bonus episode! It's time for our quarterly Book Club roundup for January through March, and it wouldn't be a visit to the Book Club-Mobile without our official Book Club Correspondent, Sage! We read some incredible books to start off the year, and we're wasting no time in diving into them! We visit with the American ATA Pilots in Becky Aikman's Spitfires, and stop off for coffee and a sinker with The Beantown Girls by Jane Healey! We also visit the 306th Bomb Group and the 100th respectively, with Steve Snyders Shot Down and John Clark's Eighth Airforce Combat Diary. All vastly different, but all poignant and important in any wartime library! The Clubmobile is open, the coffee is hot and the sinkers are fresh, so join us for Book Club! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey guys, here comes the dollars. They got fresh stinkers, hot coffee, and the sweetest smile.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome back to the Club Mobile, everybody. Hello, everyone. It's special edition book club. So our book club correspondent Sage is here with us. I'm so excited to be back.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

You get more Sage content.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Yes, more Sage content and more books. Oh no. How do you think? Oh no. Did we just say, all right, we have to get to work? Oh no, talking about books, how tragic.

SPEAKER_04 0:44

Oh no, what works.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Um for those that have uh that have kept kept track for this past quarter. We had Beantown Girls by Jane Healy, we had Shot Down by Steven Snyder, Spitfires by Becky Aikman, and an 8th Air Force Combat Diary by John Clark of the 100th bomb group. So we had a pretty a pretty good quarter, I think. It was a bit robust, a bit robust.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah. We had Red Cross, we had pilots, we had B17s. Yeah, we had all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Escape and evasion.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

I mean, we had everything this quarter. What a way to start the year, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

It was, yeah. I think it was really yeah, it was excellent choices all around. Um, did anyone have a favorite of the four? I think we all have the same favorite. Did we have the same favorite? My favorite was Spitfires. This was like my fourth one doing this.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I loved Spitfires. I loved them all for different reasons, but I really just loved Spitfires so so much. But I loved Beantown Girls too. Because obviously, we have such a special place for the Red Cross girls, and even though this one was historical fiction, it was still really great.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Let's start there with our review. So Beantown Girls by Jane Healy, it is about uh three young girls that enlist in the Red Cross from their hometown together. They're all friends, right? They've all been friends since high school, of course.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

All childhood friends from Boston, which is why it's Beantown Girls.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Beantown.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Um and it's got a bit of a this is this is where the historical fiction comes in. It's got a bit of a twist where one of the girls joins because her fiance is serving in the European in the European theater, and he's declared missing in action. And she wants to know what happened to him. So she joins the Red Cross and convinces her two friends to join with her so that she can go over there and find her fiance. This is the bit of historical fiction where when I was reading it, I went, Oh, I don't know that that would really happen.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

Yeah, and I don't know if it's obviously obviously she was not obviously she was not honest about her intentions to I'm not entirely sure. Like, yes, it may have happened in some circumstances, but she may not have been honest about it until we see her be honest about it way later. Um I enjoyed it. The pacing at the beginning for me was a bit like a train that's sort of stopping and going, like stop, go, stop, go. I think I was expecting another Good Night Irene, and I'm not this isn't a bad review of the book at all. I thought it was really great. Um, but I think I went in expecting something as hard-hitting as Goodnight Irene, because that it you're instantly in. It captured all three of us so quickly, and I think I was expecting a similar feeling. And when I didn't get it, I almost felt disappointed.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

I think I was the first one to read Bean Town Girls, and I kept saying, I kept saying to you both, stick with it, stick with it, like stick with it. It was it got to a point after a certain chapter where it was almost like somebody turned the octane up and it just took off. Yeah. I was like, whoa. And it was right after they see Major Glenn Miller, yes. Loved that part, by the way. I loved that part. And we should probably backtrack by saying the names of the three girls that joined together, right? Yes, we're just like so into it. Um it's Fiona, Viviana, and Dottie are the three friends, and it's Fiona's fiance, Danny, who is declared missing in action. So she convinces Viv and Dottie to join with her. And Viv is really outgoing, and Dottie is a very shy musician, very shy and introverted. Introverted, not with her friends, but with the other with the other soldiers. Everyone else. It's very fun to kind of see them like their dynamic of meeting the other girls in the other trucks, learning how to drive the trucks, um, weighing their water, right? Make their donuts, weigh their water. Viv is complaining that her red nail polish is gonna chip and now it's in the donut dough. In the donuts. But it's I definitely think that after the Glenn Miller bit, the whole story just really shot off because you get to see them with the men. And that's the whole point of it, right? That's the whole point of what these women are doing. You can absolutely tell that Jane Healy did all of her research on the Red Cross.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

She dug in deep and she did all of her research, and not just on the Red Cross, but on the army units that these women would have been visiting on the different locations they would have they would have been to. And I loved that. Me too. I really did. I really did. Um what did you think of the timeline of it, Sage? Like what was your take on it? Like after the because I know we could we kept saying and then Glenn Miller, and then you were like, You were right.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, I did feel like um at the start, like what Winnie said, it was a bit of stop and go. Um, but yeah, and then um it started picking up, and then Glenn Miller happened. I was like, oh, this is amazing, actually.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

And then we get to like, oh, they're meeting all the fellas, and like they're getting I guess trying to think of the right word, like more involved with like everything that's going on. And that's where it felt like it really picked up, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

It's it's starting to feel more it started to feel less historical fiction and more historical after right after the Glenn Miller thing happens.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

Like I feel like when they're on the boat to England, I still feel it's very obviously it's obviously it's all fiction all the way through, but it's still very um. I think a lot of the things that I said to you both was that I don't feel like she would say that. I don't feel like this would be said, I don't feel like the speech patterns were not.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Some of the dialogue didn't lend itself to the 40s, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Yes, yes. Whereas because in in Goodnight Irene, it's very accurate, and the nicknames they give each other in Goodnight Irene are very of the time and the way that they speak in their cake, like you can hear their cadences. Whereas in this, the cadence I was getting was the way we would talk to each other. Um again, that isn't that isn't a slight, if anything, that made it easier to get through, like you're not looking up a definition of something every two minutes, right? Um I did really enjoy it, but I think my gripe at the beginning was that I thought, oh, I'm getting another good night Irene, and I'm gonna feel my heart being ripped out of my chest again, and I'm gonna, oh my god, I'm gonna be despondent for two days. And I wasn't, and I think that's when I was like, Oh, not that it was disappointing, I think it's great. I was just my expectations were very high coming in.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I think I did like her evolution, Fiona. Oh, she does start off as a bit of a, and once again, not a slight, she starts off as a bit of a wet blanket, right? Yes, she's very depressed, she's very sad, which is fair, which is fair exactly for her whole situation. It's so fair, but I kept going, would the Red Cross have taken her? Would the Red Cross have taken any of them? Maybe Viv. Viv would have been possibly not, but possibly not. But would the Red Cross have taken them? And then I kept saying, Would the Red Cross have taken the three of them together as a unit? Probably not.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Would they have kept them together? Would they have kept them together?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

But then to see them all kind of become individual, like they start out as a unit, the three of them. They all it's like it's Fiona, Viv, and Dottie, the three of them together, and then to kind of see them become Fiona, Viv, Dottie, all three individuals who now function as a unit, but are three individual girls. Yeah, that I loved. I really loved that. They all kind of find their own way, they find their own place, and they all kind of get the yes, they separate, but they remain together.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, they kind of just like they come into their own.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

They do, they become individuals. They do, they become individuals, and that was really great to see. Yeah, that was really great to see.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

I really enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the little twists and turns that we were given within it. Um, I just think my expectations were really high. Yeah, and I had to sort of like reel myself in a little bit. I did tear up at the end.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

No, I did too. I had a bit of a oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

It was I had a bit of a moment at the end, especially because she finds out that her fiance Danny had been alive as a POW the entire time, and then he died on the he died on the march to Mooseburg.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

He was he was ex not even died, he was executed.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Yeah, and I think always alive the whole time she was looking for him.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, the whole time she was looking for him, he was alive. And and then when it comes to it, when she gets there, when she gets there at the end, there the girls are sent to be relief at one of these prison camps, and it's the prison camp where his men are his unit, or some of his the men from his unit are there, and it's like she gets so close, and then it's sort of snatched away. But she does get but she does get her answer at the end.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

It's it uh it seems like the final stage of grief for her because the whole way through, she's going through every single stage of grief and what grief gives you, and then at that moment it's acceptance, and she can move on, and she does move on, and she's very happy at the end of the book, but I think it's the going through the grief cycle within the book.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Um you had even said to me at one point, you were like, He's either dead or he's a POW. Yeah, I was like, He's there's no way, like this if the twist is is that when they introduced Peter, when they introduced Major Moretti from the 82nd Airborne in her in her you know timeline, I was like, Oh, this has to be the guy. I was like, please let this be the guy. Please let him be the one at the end for her. Like, I'm yeah, begging you because I didn't want to see her go back to being pre-Red Cross Fiona, she would have gone back to the person she was, and all of her evolution would have been for nothing. So I was like, please let him be the one.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

And he was even though I feel like even though Fiona was the main character, I feel like we also see so much evolution in the other two. Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. She goes from being so introverted into herself. She she was great.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

I love I loved her evolution the most out of all three of them because she went from very, very shy to finally having outgoing and traveling with you know with the Glenn Miller orchestra at the end. And you know, fine-oh, she also found they all fell in love at the end, they all met somebody and fell in love, which was great. Which was so great.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

They're all going off and doing their individual individual things, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

They're all now taking a different direction, but they're still you know, three best friends, which is really sweet.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

I think for me it was the like I said, the beginning was very stop and going. I'm like, when are we gonna get to the to the juice of this? Yeah, and then we do, and it's like I couldn't put it down after that.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

I feel like I don't I don't know if this is just me, but I feel like the beginning was closer to like a historical romance, emphasis on the romance, yes, yeah, and then as it progressed, it was like, oh yeah, there's a war.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah, like oh wait, but you remember like the reason why they are yeah, like I was always agreed, like I always want to see them overseas, like yeah, and I know all of these women trained in the states, they were all in DC at some point, and they were at staging bases in the states, and you know, who was at Grand Central and whatever. But for me, the meat and potatoes of any kind of Red Cross story is when they go. Let me see them on base, let me see them interact with the men, let me read about them interacting with the with the fellas. Like that's what I want to see.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Let me see the anxiousness of going to the front, let me see the how scared they are, yes, knowing they're going into the wall, like the war itself. So I I liked that aspect of it. I really enjoyed you know feeling that anxiousness the same way we do with the rest of the rest of the Red Cross books that we have read, you know, real, like real from letters or fictionalized. Um, so I'm really glad that it was historically accurate. Just like I said, the beginning, I was like, where is this going?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

What's happening? But there was not, yeah, not a minute where I doubted that she did her research. She had it all down to the she had it all down to the finest details.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

And I think we mentioned this right before we began that she wrote it in what it was released in 2019. So 2019.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

So there was no Masters of the Air yet. We hadn't really seen Red Cross Girls on screen.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

We knew that. So this was before the big boom of you know of us, really.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

Hey. Exactly. So, yes, for it to have been written and published then in 2019 and it it'd be that good and that accurate, it that's what makes it for me.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

That's what makes it so good for me. So I think you know, this is only because the beginning I struggled with. I'm gonna give it a four out of five.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Four and a half. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

I thought that would be the general consensus. I think for all of us, the beginning was just like, oh my god, where are we going?

SPEAKER_01 15:41

I wanted them to get there already. I was like, Yeah, get there, get to Europe already, just get to Europe.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Yeah, I know where they're going and I want them to get there now.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Exactly. We know where they're going, so it's like, please just get there. Yes, that I think that was it.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

That was it. But yeah, I'm I I knew that we would all agree. Yeah. We usually do all agree, and we usually all pick these books together anyway. So exactly. The next one I unfortunately did not read because every time I ordered it, my order got cancelled. So that was fun. Um so if both of you have the Spark Notes version, uh, our next book to discuss is Shut Down by Steven Snyder.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

I enjoyed it. Yes, it was I did enjoy it, and one of the reasons, one of the main reasons for me is that we have read so many bomber like books about bomber pilots and bomber boys, and they all kind of tie back to or relate back to the hundredth. Yes, whereas this one did not. This one this one did not. I really liked it, and I think one of the reasons I did really like it is because every kind of B-17 bomber book we read kind of ties back to the 100th in some capacity, yeah, and obviously the Eighth Air Force, and this, you know, Steve Snyder's father Howard was part of the Eighth Air Force, but he was in the 306th. So it was interesting to see life at Thurleg versus life at Thorpe Abbotts, which we have obviously dug really deeply into. I think all three of us have dug really deeply into the history and the life of the 100th and Thorpe Abbotts. So to see it written and see everything kind of about Thurleg was really interesting. That I really enjoyed. He had a lot of great pictures of his dad's in the book. He had descriptions of officers' quarters versus, you know, enlisted men's quarters, and his dad's journey was really interesting. Yeah, you know, his dad's journey was really interesting. He was a replacement crew. Yeah, he gets there in 43.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

Yes. So okay, so he's like one of the first sets of replacements for the A.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

One of the first sets of replacements, I believe he gets there after, if I'm not mistaken, I believe he gets there after Black Week.

unknown 18:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

That would make okay. So yes, so it gets there, I believe, after Bremen and Munster. Yeah, he does talk about briefly the losses that the hundredth incurred in Black Week. He talks about how the hundredth became the like really quickly, like it's in there very briefly how the hundredth became the bloody hundredth because of the vast number of planes they lost during Black Week and Monster. Yeah, geez, but he is there in 43 because I remember he talks about um, and again, I read this back in like January, February, so it's been a minute. Yeah, you read it pretty quickly. I read it pretty quickly, I read it pretty early. Um, but he talks about um his dad kind of getting acclimated to life on base and a lot of training missions, and then he was going up with crews that weren't his. Right. So he was a pilot, but he was going up as co-pilot with other crews. He was also on the basketball team for the 306. They had like a basketball team, a couple of teams, and they would play. Sometimes they'd play against other bases, sometimes they'd play against each other. And then his father incurs an ankle injury and is out of commission from playing basketball and is out of commission for quite a while.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

So he doesn't he's grounded.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

So he's grounded after, I think he's grounded after like three or four missions. How long is he grounded until pretty much mid to late January of 44? Then he starts to go up on training missions. He's got like a walking cast, he starts to go up on training missions just to get the field back for flying again. Okay, yeah. So now he's about to go up in February, February 44, he goes up, and it's the first mission where he's flying with his whole crew since they came over from the States. Okay, so he gets to be with he gets to be, it's his whole crew. When they got to Thurling, the crew was kind of broken up. So he went and flew co-pilot with another with you know, somebody else. His co-pilot went and flew with somebody else, his bombardier, his navigator. They were all kind of split up in a way, I guess, to get a feel for flying and missions. They hadn't flown, they hadn't flown together. They finally all go up together in February of 44, and they get shot down over Belgium.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

And that's their first mission.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

That's their first mission. All ten of these men, all ten of these men together. That is their first mission. And he really talks about the struggle of his dad being away from home, being away from his mother, being away from his oldest sister, Susan Ruth, who the plane is named after. Oh wow. The his mother's name was Ruth. Snyder's oldest sister, Susan Ruth, is the name of their B-17. It's the Susan Ruth.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Oh, that's cute. That's so sweet.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Um, I really like that. It was very sweet. There was a lot of life on base letters and excerpts home. And then you really like the second half of the book, you really get to the escape and evasion. And because he writes it, not his dad, he's going based off of his dad's letters, his dad's memories. So you really also get a lot of what did the other members of his crew go through in the escape and evasion? Some of them were executed, some of them were found out by the Germans because there was a um there was a rat in their inner circle in Belgium, in the in the ring of people that were hiding down airmen. And the Germans came and found them and arrested them and terrorized them. Them, marched them back into the woods where they were hiding, and then executed them. And one of the men that was executed was Howard Snyder's co-pilot. Oh, geez. Oh my goodness. Who had a wife and child at home?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Oh gosh, Christ.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

That's horrible. There is a lot of detail on you know what some of the other men, where they were hiding, who they were hiding with. There's pictures of these. And it was very interesting to me because you're there hiding.

unknown 22:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

But there were so many pictures of his dad, Howard, with the people that were hiding him.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Like, no, don't do that. So like they had taken pictures.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

They had taken pictures. And now the pictures are obviously now they're in they're published in this book, but at the time, I'm like, is this really safe? But then you have to think like they wouldn't have to be able to do it. Film didn't, nothing was instant, right? So film wasn't. But then again, if somebody came in and inspected your house, because the Germans would come through and like you know, ransack people's houses, if they found a camera, if they found anything that had film in it, they would probably take it and develop it, use it to find like use it as evidence.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah. It was very interesting. I uh got into it big time in the second half with the escape innovation. Escape innovation, yeah. Um which I liked a lot to read about the escape innovation. Yeah. I would give it a four, I would give it a four out of five. Like four out of five.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

From the very brief conversation we've had with with Steve Snyder and and like the little I know without reading the book and just you know googling his dad's name. Um, I feel like I would also have found the second half of the book. Again, you're kind of slowly going through like at the beginning, I feel like it's stuff that we have read before in previous books about these men. It's sort of things that like we were already familiar with. Um I feel like maybe I have like a slight advantage over that because I know where Thurley is, I can feature it in my mind. I know where things were in terms of the village. Oh yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So for me, it would feel really familiar. Um, but the Escape and Evasion, I feel like, would like really kickstart.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

The first half of the book lends itself to the times, right? Daily life, the grind, the monotony of wake up, ground school, training, you know. So the beginning of the book, the it lends itself to what actually was going on. So it's not like I'm like, right, oh my god, it was so boring, it's stunk. No, it wasn't boring, it just was an actual telling of what these men were doing.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

Yeah, and I feel that it it adds like a sense of humanity to the whole thing. It adds a sense of these were real people doing real things, and they were fighting a very real war. But besides that, they got to play basketball and they got to hang out with each other.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

And they would go into they would go into town, they would go on RR, they'd go to London, like you know, this is what they did. Yeah, this is what it was like. I I do like the aspect of it, which I do I do enjoy those those types of books as well, because it's like, you know, what what did they do?

SPEAKER_03 25:16

It adds it adds humanity and it it makes him a lot more, it's not just some guy.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

I love saying about like a daily life.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yes, yeah, he really does write the bit about his father going down very well. He writes it very well, yeah. He writes it very well and he uses excerpts from his dad's letters too and his dad's diaries to kind of flesh it out from a first person perspective as well. Yeah, which is very interesting because you get the like sort of written from a third person biography of it, and then you get these letters from his dad to his mom or his dad's journal entries, and it's like all of a sudden you're sucked into the first person, and it's like, oh shit, you're right there.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

I think I remember asking him when we had a brief conversation with with Steve Snyder, I asked if it was the same as Tim Pitts writing his mother Feitcher's book. Was it a case of his dad wrote some and then passed it on to Steve to publish, or was it Steve went out of his way to write this book about his dad and his crew? Right. Um, and I do like that it was very similar to Feitcher's book, where it was like a little of both. A little of both. It was Howard's memories, but Stephen has taken on the task of writing it and publishing it and making sure that the story is told to a lot of people. So I I also really like that aspect of it. Um, I will read it, I absolutely will read it. But every single time I would click order, it would say, actually, no, but that's something I was getting it. I was getting it from um thrift books. I'm surprised thrift books is usually very reliable. But with that, it was like, oh, one remaining. And then I'd click it and get the one, and then it would say, Oh, sorry, someone else did it at the same time. And I'm assuming it was one of our people that did it, which so I'm not gonna be upset. I'm very much assuming the reason we're making this episode is because someone has been reading them. So I'm assuming I'm assuming that's the reason. But yes, I'm very excited to to get into it. You will enjoy it, yeah. You will. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Did you read it?

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Um, I started it, but I something about it, I just couldn't get into it when I started reading it. So yeah, it's this conversation has made me want to try again.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Try again, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely one of those where you you pick it up, put it down, and then you can try again at another time. It's not like one of those where, you know. Um yeah, I'm excited to to get into it.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

You'll enjoy it. You you really will.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Yeah, I think I will. I think I will. Um, the next up is our favorite that we have already discussed. Discussed is our favorite. Uh, Spitfire's by Becky Aikman is next. Sage, I know that you loved this one.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

I loved this one.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Go on. How many times have we read it now?

SPEAKER_00 28:13

I want to say this is the third or fourth time I've read it.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

Yeah, this was my fourth time reading it too.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Wow, I only read it twice.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

It's like Sage, go, yeah. I just so much to say.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

So much. Um, gosh. Well, I I know that so many of the books we've read have been about like the wasp girlies and everyone stationed over here. Spitfires we get to see what was going on across the pond. Um and it was just it was really interesting getting to see like um, first of all, all these American girls trying to adapt to British culture at the time.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Yeah. Yeah. It's very difficult. Something. Absolutely was something.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Very entertaining to read, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

Um, honestly, for me too, because even though in in a lot of like history stuff during school, you're told about rationing, you're told about the blitz, you're told about uh blackout precautions and stuff like that, you're never really told the cultural aspect, especially for Americans. You're never told how much of a culture shock it was for these people to go over to Europe to fight a war for their country when they're not even in their country, yeah, and adapt. So that was also really entertaining for me to read as well. The way that these women adapted to it.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

I love the the part that comes to mind is like the first American girls like land, their ship gets there, and they're met with um, I want to say she was sort of like the leader of like the women in the ATA at the Pauline Dow. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 30:10

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

And she was like, Oh if you're up to it, we'd love to like meet you all for dinner.

unknown 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

And she sits and waits in this restaurant and they don't turn up. But they were like, You said if we were up to it and we weren't.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

So it was not a suggestion. It was not a suggestion. Correct.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

It's already the it's already the cultural block of the way that brains speak. We so we we say things that we don't mean in that sense. Like if you're up to it, which means you will be there. Correct. But it was so polite that it's let me know. No. Whereas um, yeah, it was sort of it was a demand, and that demand was met. Um I I I guess this is also it it is pre-WASP, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

It's before this is definitely pre-WASP because this is when Jackie's there and then she like leaves.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah, Cap Arnold basically tells her, if you want to fly, you should go to England.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Yeah, so the I I think the program for the American Women was led by Jackie Cochrane, but the women's branch of the ATA was led by Paul Ngower, who I've just mentioned. Um but ironically, even though that Jackie is technically the lead of these women, she is also grounded. Didn't she have like an Jackie Cochrane doesn't fly because she's got sinus issues?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

That's the I want to say it says in the book that she washed out at some point.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

She did, yeah, because I think her balance was off or something. Yeah, she couldn't meet the requirements, so she ends up. I think she had vertigo or something. Basically, it sounds like she had vertigo.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Something, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

But she stays in England for a while and she kind of schmoozes for a little bit, yeah until she catches word that catches word that Nancy loves is performing the wasp in charge of the wasp, and she's she hotfoots it back, and then she leaves someone in her place essentially, and I've forgotten her name, and this is really bad. The woman that was like Jackie's right hand.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

I know he'd yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Anne was like the other Anne Wood was like her unofficial, her unofficial right hand woman, and this was very interesting because you find out through Anne's kind of telling of Jackie things that you didn't know about Jackie, like you know, Jackie was illiterate, Jackie couldn't read. Anne did a lot of transcribing and a lot of helping, and Anne kind of and she kept it quiet.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

Yeah, I believe, I believe she says, like, when we interviewed her for our episode. Yeah, when we interviewed her. I believe she said that Becky Aikman said that this was the first book to ever reveal that Jackie Cochran was illiterate. Yes, because she had like what a first or second grade education and she worked in factories as a kid.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

She started working in factories when she was like eight or nine, something like that, yeah. So like a cotton factory, I believe, but it does make sense.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

I no one else ever revealed that.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

No, I found it very interesting in how the women were trained, right? Oh, yeah, and the difference in what they were given benefit-wise versus what the women in America were getting when they joined the WASP. These women in the ATA they had insurance, equal pay, equal pay, they were given officer ranks, right? So they had insurance, they had equal pay, officer ranks, and they were technically militarized right off the bat because the ATA was. And which explains why when some of the women were asked, Do you want to go? and they they were like contracted for like 18 months, right? Like a year, a year and a half, something like that. So that was one of the differences. When you joined the ATA, you were contracted for X amount of time. Whereas if you were in the WASP, you were in the WASP, you were in the WASP until you were discharged, basically. Yeah, pretty much. Which is why when a lot of women's contract came up at the end of 18 months and Jackie had started forming the WASP, she was reaching out to some of her former ATA pilots. They were like, Yeah, and they were like, No, I think I'm gonna stay. Very few of them went and joined the WASP.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

I think a couple did a couple that washed out of the ATA, they went back during the war.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Maybe some of the women washed out of the ATA, but also I feel like the train maybe the training wasn't as rigorous in the ATA. I don't was I mean it was military training, but it wasn't US Air Force military training, which I you know it seemed like they trusted these women more in the ATA than they did in the War.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

They did. I get that impression. There was still a very American attitude surrounding women in the WASP, where she should be in the kitchen, she should be taking care of the family, she's dainty, she's soft. They had to train them to be hard, they had to train them to be men. Whereas in the ATA, because they treated them equally and they paid them equally, they therefore saw them as equal to any man that was flying for the ATA too. Yeah. So the training for the ATA was not as rigorous. And these women had more freedom constantly. They had more freedom, far more freedom.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah, they could they could space things. Yeah, yeah, no, it is absolutely true.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

It's true. They had far more freedom, they could they could bill it wherever they wanted to, they got to chose where they stayed in the ATA, where it was obviously in the WASP. If you're in training, you were in those barracks and sweetwater. That's it, yeah. Yeah, there seemed to be a lot more a lot more trust within the ATA, and I know that these women did miss home and were homesick. And the chapters where a few of them return home for RR for like two weeks and they eat and eat and eat because they can, nothing's boiled cabbage, and they can't let them eat a week.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Yeah, but it also seems like that was the highlight of their RR. Like, yeah, I ate really great food, but I can't wait to go back and fly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

And I think a few of them, while they're there, they're approached again by Jackie, aren't they? Yeah, come and join the wasp, and they're like, No, luck they laughter out of there.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

And the thing is, the ATA, I loved that the ATA it was like, yes, there was American women, but there were so many other cultures. So many other cultures, it was very diverse, it was very robust, and there was segregation did not exist in England around the war.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

No, and that's why there were that's why the Six AAA got on so well in Birmingham, because there was the segregation. Yeah, um, the the women were um were accepted, they were looked at as like marvels to begin with, because uh a lot of white Brits at that time had never seen an African-American person. They had read about them and seen them in movies, but they had never actually seen one up close. Um, so very, very different because there's no segregation. They all just kind of got on with it. And yeah, I think it it proves a point that these white American women just got on with it, which proves that that this issue was not a countrywide popular issue. It was just an American issue. If you select people, if you select people just happened to rule America, it was terrible. And they were like, I don't care, I get to fly. Doesn't didn't bother them in the slightest. So yeah, I again I I will probably read it again. Oh, absolutely, I'll read it again. I will definitely read it again. I love reading about their lives after they left England and left the ATA, and that was so nice to read. Yeah, the post-war life stuff, and I like that they stayed in touch, these women.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Yes, they were all friends, they were all friends, these American women, they stayed friends till they died.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

They they'd get together. Um oh gosh, I don't I can't remember her name, but it was her and her partner. They had a ranch at what? Virginia, yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Virginia Farr, yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Yes, and they like all the Ada girls would get together at the ranch. I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

Yeah, isn't that long time?

SPEAKER_01 38:39

I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 38:40

I I think this is the one I'm giving a a five out of five. A five. Oh, giving this a five out of five. Yeah, ten stars all the time.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Actually, always and forever.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Um all the stars for Becky Aikman and the girls.

SPEAKER_03 38:56

It's so well written, too. Like it's not one of those, it's not one of those slogs where you're like, oh Jesus, history. Let me just get through it for the sake of it.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

You're um I was silly. The narrative is really well written.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

It is. She did her research.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

Becky did her research. And we heard how much she did in the episode that she did with us. We heard, you know, all the efforts she went through to find relatives of these women. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

She definitely didn't leave any stones unturned. And no. That episode is out now, guys. So if you missed it, oh yes, go back. If you missed it, go back because it's really, really good.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

She's delightful. Enjoyable. Yeah, she's so delightful. Yeah, yeah. So I think we we all agree. And again, we're on the same sort of wavelength of it, it was excellent, and we we all adored it. Um, our last book is an eighth Air Force Combat Diary by John Clark of the Hundredth Bomb Group. Now, in a previous book club quarter, we read his wife Marie's book, She Was a Wasp, and that was uh Dear Mother and Daddy. Um, so this was nice to have a sequel, prequel, and who who wrote it first?

SPEAKER_01 40:14

I think they wrote them both around the same time. So when we interviewed Eloise, she was like, Oh my, you know, mommy and daddy's book. Yeah. Or mommy and daddy's books, they were both self-published. And yeah, they're both hefty books. Hefty. Yes, I had to read these at home because I couldn't travel. Usually I travel to work with a book in my purse, yeah. And I can fit a book in my purse. Can't fit these. Um, these were coffee table books that I read at home after work um because they were just big. They were a little hefty to be traveling with. And you know, also if somebody's sitting next to me on the bus, I feel really bad whipping out a text textbook size, just like the book opens and it's half in their lap, and I'm like, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 41:00

I'm really sorry, but this book is so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

But um back to the hundredth bomb group, right, guys?

SPEAKER_03 41:09

Do we always kind of circle back? We always kind of circle back to Thorpe Abbott's.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Um I I loved it because it was just interesting to read his perspective on his missions. That's genuinely what it is. It's John Clark's diary entries from every mission he flew. And he came in as a replacement in 44. So he is a replacement crew. So, on top of, you know, all of his diary entries, he's also writing kind of interludes in between, like, you know, we went on RR, or this is what it was like to come in as a replacement. And you get a sense of what did they, you know, they would taxi, and he's so he's so cute. He struggled with finding the right amount of clothes to wear because of the combat gear. Because it was, they're like, it's really cold up there. So he would like bundle up, but then he doesn't really, you know, he didn't realize that he's putting so much effort into flying the plane. He's now he's sweating through his heated shoes and his heated trousers. And I'm like, oh, this poor man. Oh, John. But he goes on for a bit about how I've perfected, I've perfected the flight gear. That's the phrase he was I've perfected the flight gear situation where he figures out exactly how much of the heated clothing to wear and what to leave behind. And then on top of all that, right, he's got his his B2 bomber jacket, he's got his flak vest, he's got his May West, and it's like that is and he wasn't, and if you see pictures of Jean Clark, Marie talks about this in her book where he was, as Winnie likes to use the phrase only little, Caleb's only little little topic. He was a very small fella, he wasn't very tall, so he's got all this combat gear on, and he says it was very hard to move. He's gonna fall over top.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

I'm picturing, I don't know if you guys have seen uh the Christmas story. Yes, I'm picturing the little kid all bundled up in the snowsuit, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

That is exactly it. But it was very interesting because he really puts the time of we taxied at 855, and or engines were on at 845, we taxied out at 855, we took off at 9.0, you know, 910. And then they would circle over the the over the the homing beacon, which was buncher buncher 28. And I actually went to Matt Maebe and I asked him, I was like, what's the difference between Buncher 28 and Splasher 6?

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Yeah, we had to go to the back.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

They just they had to, I had to go to the expert here. They had two, they had two different where they would bring the group together, homing beacons where they would use it to get into formation, and he Talks about how sometimes getting into formation would take two hours. So they would just circle the airfield for two hours. So now I understand Harry Crosby's airsickness. Like I genuinely understand it now that they were going in circles like that for two hours before Bob actually started to fly straight out. Jesus, yeah. Right. Straight out to the to the channel.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Yeah. Poor Cross was being taken around in circles for an hour and a half on each mission.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

No wonder the poor guy was airsick constantly. Yeah. It makes sense now. But it was very, very detailed. He really is a detailed, his diary entries are very detailed, and he does.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Seems very methodical.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

He talks about leaving Las Vegas and how he had gotten to Las Vegas and how he met Marie, and it was so little records. How she was playing uh WC on the record player in the officers club in Las Vegas.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

And he talks about and he goes, Oh yes, I like this.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

He says, I had no idea who it was.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

We've got a clue. I found that so sweet though. And the fact that you know reading it from that point of view, and then also reading it from Marie's point of view as well is so cute because she's very, oh, I met this man, but I'm already going steady with another guy, and then she has to choose between him and someone else. Whereas from John's perspective, it's Marie, only Marie. I met Marie and that was it. Yes. Let me just chase this woman forever until she until she makes her mind up. Um, and I think she felt a bit funny being older than him. Yeah. In the grand scheme of things, it isn't that big of a gap, but I think to her, because she was older than him, she was like, Oh, I feel a bit funny about it. I don't remember how big the gap was between them, but in the not big in the grand scheme of things, from what I understand.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

No, from what I remember, maybe five years. Yeah, I think so. That's nothing, especially these days. That's nothing. Um, yeah, nothing. Yeah, I like his he doesn't ever shy away from his faith, right? So, and I don't just mean his I don't just mean his faith in his religion and his faith in because he does say a lot, you know, you know, I put my faith in God and God protected us on. But he puts his faith in his crew, too. He has full faith in his crew that they're all gonna, you know, all gonna make it. They're gonna make it all trust each other, and he is very aware of, oh, this was a tough one, or oh, this the engine's on this plane, this plane's been through a lot, and it's kind of slow, but we're gonna we're gonna tough it out, we're gonna do our best with it. And he's got faith all around faith. I really like that.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

I love that, especially because he was so young at the time as well.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

He was, right? He was young, he was a replacement, he was, you know, he's coming into a he's coming into a group that has been named the Bloody Hundredth for a reason. Yeah, and he's going into that with that knowledge. He's going in with that knowledge, knowing what just happened, right? He's coming in in early 44. Black week has come and gone. Black week, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:15

He knows what has happened, and he knows what has happened, and he's doing this anyway. Yeah, I love him. I think he's so sweet. I love seeing his face because he's got such a sweet face. Um, and him and Marie together were just lovely. Just so sweet. So so cute.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

I love seeing pictures of them together. Yeah, and I love that she wore her wasp uniform till the very end, really. Yes, I love that. There's that interview we found from Baylor University, the same group of people that we used the Josie Egan interview from. They apparently have an entire collection of wasp interviews. Amazing. So sitting tight, sit tight because they have promised them to us, they've promised us access to the wasp interviews. They're working on getting them loaded to their site for a project in late April, so they will become more available. But we have access now to Josie Egan and Marie Mountain Clark. She wears her uniform in her interview, and she's just the most adorable and so cute. Hearing her voice now, now it's like if you go back and read her letters, you can hear her voice in her letters. Because we had previously heard like John Clark. There's a lot of interviews with men of the hundredth. If you go back and if you find documentaries, there's a lot on them, especially the one that is technically episode 10 of Masters of the Air, right? The Bloody Hundredth documentary at the end of Masters. They interview John. Yeah, he's he's in there. I love how and you have his voice, right? So when you're reading his book, you've got his voice.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

You've already got it.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

Yeah, it's like reading Harry Crosby's book. You can read it in Cross's voice.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Um, yeah. So to then hear Marie's voice in this oral interview, again. I want to go back to her book and read some of her letters again because now you can put it into that kind of box of this is what she sounded like. These letters now read a different way, kind of. Yeah. So it's very interesting. I like when you have heard a person's voice and then you read their text or their prose and it reads the way you would expect them to sound.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

Yeah. I do think that's going way back to Croz's book. I think that that's what made that read so easy as well, is that you had heard an iteration of his voice if you watched the show and hadn't watched any interviews with the with the real man. If if you'd have watched Masters of the Air and then you hear Anthony Boyle portraying and narrating him as Croz, you you get a sense. And uh and Anthony Boyle did such a great job because that is truly very similar to what Harry Crosby did sound like.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Yeah, very, very similar. Rebecca even said Anthony, you know, he wasn't dad, but he was dad.

SPEAKER_03 50:11

But he was dad. Not tall enough to be dad.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

He took the words right out of my mouth. I was gonna say, I think the only difference would be that she said, you know, dad was six feet tall and Anthony is not.

SPEAKER_03 50:22

It was here's the thing it was the pause that she did that tickled me that day because I spat coffee everywhere that day.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

Dad was really tall, and Anthony If the universe ever sees fit, right, for us to ever meet Anthony Boyle, I'm gonna just look at him and go, Rebecca Crosby was right, you're not tall.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

Oh, he's you know what I'm gonna say. Yes, he's only little, he's only little.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

Winnie's favorite phrase, he's only little, he's only little.

SPEAKER_03 50:52

John's book is of course, it's great. And I feel like you know, because because we have such a personal connection to the hundredth, him and the hundredth, and and to him and Marie through Eloise. Yes, um, it makes it again all the more personal, and we know the story anyway, but to have it from his perspective as well, yeah, is it is is great. Um, so I I honestly we recommend anyone read that as well. Add to your add to your hundredth bomb group memoir collection. Yeah, it's it's ever growing for us.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

You can actually can purchase both John and Marie's book through the 100th bomb group PX. So if you're gonna get them, yeah. If you're gonna pick them up anywhere, we implore you please support the 100th bomb group and order it through the PX. And get the boat get both books together. Yeah, uh I think they should, I really just think they should start selling them as a set. Absolutely. I agree.

SPEAKER_03 51:49

In fact, let's let's start that. Hey, friends, put them together as a thank you so much. Um but no, we had we had an excellent first quarter. We did have an excellent first quarter.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

And shall shall we shall we announce the Q2 books? Shall I shall I share with everybody?

SPEAKER_03 52:12

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

All right, so so these are the books for second quarter. So this is April through June, April, May, and June. And um apologies to any men in our book club, but these are all books for the girls. Um I just it just hit me. I was like, oh, they're all for the girls. Um so the four books we've selected for April through June are Slinging Donuts for the Boys by James H. Madison, and If I perish by Evelyn Monahan, Propaganda Girls by Lisa Rogak, and Wasp of the Ferry Command, Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds by Sarah Brian Rickman. So we are kind of touching on everything. A little bit of everything again, a little bit of everything. We've got donut dollies, we've got wasp, we've got women in army nurses, army nurses in and if I perish, and then the propaganda girls, and we are gonna cover lots of fun stuff in the next three months.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

Yeah, Mary is. I'm excited to reread propaganda girls.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

I'm excited to read it. I am excited to read it. I am in the middle of another book at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 53:31

Oh, we didn't mention our our new our new feature to oh yes. We we go on Winnie. Where this was a really silly silly idea of mine. You know, we read four books for the for the few months of the quarter, so I thought, why not add some more? We are gonna be adding recommendations from our own personal collections of things we are reading in between the books of the quarter, just so you know you guys get more recommendations from us. Um I have I have just finished reading um Five Came Back by Mark Harris about the five Hollywood directors that enlisted in World War II. Um, William Wyler, who made Memphis Bell, John Ford. Um, it's a really great book. Um, I found it very enjoyable. And I'm also working through Masters of the Air. I'm also doing Goodnight Irene again because apparently I just don't like myself. You're just a glutton for punishment. I'm just a glutton for punishment, truly.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

Um Gabby, what else are you reading in between? So I am currently halfway through The Navigator's Letter by Jan Cres Dandi, which is about B-24 Liberators in the um currently in the uh North Africa uh theater of war and the massive raid on Ploesti. It's about two two boys. It is about two boys from the same hometown and their connection to each other through the sister of one of the boys. Wow. Okay. Um, and it's very interesting because they both end up becoming navigators. One becomes a navigator first, okay, and then the other one because he's a little bit older.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

And the other one becomes a navigator, and then kind of I'm at the point now where he's finding himself in the same shoes as the boy from his town that started before him. And I don't want to give too much away because A, I haven't finished it yet, so I can't really give too much away. Um B, I want people to read this because there is an upcoming interview with author Jan Crestandi on the podcast. We will be speaking with her very soon. Um excited. So before I don't want to give too much away either because I want her to be able to, you know, something that I want us to all discuss together with her. But it's very interesting to me because A, I haven't really dug into, and I don't think any of us have really dug into liberator bomber groups, right? No, even though the Eighth Air Force had divisions of B-17s and divisions of liberators, for some reason, the Flying Fortress, and I wouldn't say rightfully so, but the Flying Fortress, the B-17 Flying Fortress has always kind of come out as the shining contender of bombers during war. But the liber surprisingly, I did not know this until recently. The Liberator was slightly bigger, but the B-24, the B-17 came first. B-17 came first, the B25 came first, the Liberator came after, and it's bigger, it's way bigger, bigger. I mean, and after having seen both they just continually get bigger as they make more, like because then if you get to the super fortress, forget it. The B17 is a dwarf.

SPEAKER_03 57:01

No, it is like at the at the museum here, the B-17 and the B29 very close to each other.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

If you look from like a certain distance ratio, the B29 is gargantuan, and then the B17's like hello, and it's funny because right, and it's funny because when I went to the museum in New Orleans, they have a B-24 uh nose, just the nose, and they have it plexiglassed off at the back where you can look into the the cockpit, and you can look into the nose, and it is wide, and they have a B-17 suspended from the ceiling, and we walked in and they have all other planes suspended from the ceiling, and the B-17 dwarfs everything. And I remember my mom looking up and going, Oh my god, it goes from one end to the other. And I said, Yeah, yeah, big dog. And I said, Let's go. They have different viewing platforms. And I said, I want to go all the way up to the top and see it. And we stood at the top and kind of looked over the railing a little bit, and there's the B-17 stretched out completely. She's a big girl, it's our gal Sal. Yes, that was rescued and restored, and then they have it hanging in the Boeing wing of the museum, and she is tremendous. So to think that there are planes, you know, when you and I said to my mother, I said, This is not the biggest plane. I said, She's beautiful, she's the biggest, but she's not the biggest.

SPEAKER_03 58:28

She's not the biggest, she's not the biggest.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

Um, so that's currently where what I'm reading in the navigator's letter. And I am also slogging my way back through Masters of the Air because I had a hard time with it. I had a hard time with it when we first started it because we didn't know so much about the eighth. We didn't know so much about we had just kind of started our research into everything. And now that we know more, it's a lot easier. It's a lot easier because you know what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 58:55

Yeah, you have kind of a better sense of it.

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:57

Um Sage, what are you reading in between?

SPEAKER_00 59:01

Um, I recently finished um this fantastic book called Uh Fly Girls by Sherry L. Smith. And it's a it's fiction, stro historical fiction, but so well written, so well researched. Um, it's about this um black girl in Louisiana who has such a passion for flying. And then um, when the US enters the war, her brother enlists um in the army and gets shipped off, and she is stuck in Louisiana, like um not being able to find yeah, she's like collecting stockings for parachutes and oh goodness. Yeah. Um, and then she reads in the newspaper about um this organization called the Wasp. She's like, oh, I want to do this. I this is like gonna be the only way I get to fly and get to like actually contribute.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

The problem is the wasp will not accept color girls.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

So she um decides to try to pass as white. Oh wow, she decides her skin is light enough, and like and there's another girl in town who's like trying to do that. So she's like, Well, why can't I do that? So it's sort of her doing that and joining the wasp while at the same time trying to like make sure no one finds out.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:36

That's amazing. That's a great premise. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

It's it's amazing. It's that's incredible. It's historical fiction, but it's so well researched. I had to like keep reminding myself that this is not a memoir.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm really excited to read to read that as well. I think we have it coming up in one of the quarters of the year, so we will all read it either in between or for we either we have it coming up or we're gonna fit too.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

We do. It's it's it's it's somewhere. Don't worry. Somewhere, it's in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

I'm very excited to be able to read it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

Yeah, me too. I'm very excited. Um, well, with that, we hope that you enjoyed our review of the four books of the quarter. We're super excited to get into the ones for Q2. Um, and yeah, we will see you guys next time. Thank you for listening. Yes, we will see you guys next time.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

And if you have any if you have any book recommendations for us, drop them in our way. Drop them in our messages, send them over in an email because we're always reading.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:36

We're always looking.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:37

And we're always reading.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Yeah. So and thank you. Thank you again, Sage, for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

Yes, thank you, Sage. We always love it when you're here. It's always such a blast.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

Of course. Yay!

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

All right, guys, everyone. Thank you so much, and we will catch you real soon.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:53

Bye.