Book Review- Hidden Figures

Title- Hidden Figures
Author- Margot Lee Shetterly
Published-  December 2016
Genre- Non-fiction, History, Science
Length- 349 pages
Rating- 3/5
Synopsis (Goodreads)- Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets and astronauts into space.

Among these problem solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly these overlooked math whizzes had shots at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia, and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.

Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black West Computing group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and complete domination of the heavens.

Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the space race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades as they faced challenges, forged alliances, and used their intellects to change their own lives – and their country’s future.

Review- I think how much you enjoy this book will depend on how many sittings you read it in. I think most people would struggle to read it in one sitting, but three or four would be ideal.

The book covers parts of history that most people know nothing about, despite the entire world knowing about the moon landing. The story itself is interesting, and eye opening in terms of the extent of segregation, and particularly the behaviour of the Virginia school system. Personally I wouldn’t have dealt with things as well as these women! There is a lot of discrimination where I work and it makes me incredibly angry but these women just got on with it and managed to change things!

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Different editions…

So, when you see a book you like how do you decide which edition to buy? Obviously sometimes there isn’t a choice, at least in actual bookstores other than maybe hardcover or paperback, but when there is a choice what makes you pick one edition over another?

Take Harry Potter for example, there are so many editions! I actually don’t have a matching set of all seven books, I have a boxset of the first four and then bought the rest as they came out. I want a matching set of hardcovers and I have just picked the ones I find the prettiest, well the two sets actually and in each set I like all the covers. Two sets I suppose isn’t crazy but what if you like say five or six sets, what do you do? Buy them all? Just buy one set? How do you pick that one set? What if you love some of the covers in one edition, but don’t like others in the same edition? Do you buy some books in one edition and others in another?

Why am I thinking about this? Well, I have started getting a few classics. Classics, like Harry Potter come in a huge number of editions. Some are just boring and I would only buy them if I just wanted a really cheap one to see if I like the story, but there are a lot of really nice editions too.

I want to be an author. You?

So, I want to be an author. Why you ask? Because I have a ridiculously romanticised view of what it would be like, that’s why!

Of course if I wrote a book it would instantly be a New York Times bestseller and I would end up winning a Nobel Prize for literature right? “That’s ridiculous” you say? “You’re crazy” you say?…….Nah

I have read lots of articles about authors earning terrible money but still when I think of being an author that’s not what I think of. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I am competitive. There is nothing wrong with being competitive, competition leads to advancement, not just personally but societally as well, but it is something people often judge you for.

Reading Book Reviews

Lately  I have been reading a lot more book reviews and I have found a lot of them really frustrating! I wrote a post recently about writing reviews but that concentrated on what other people like rather than what I like, so that is the purpose of this post!

In my other post I said I wasn’t sure if people want all opinion in the actual review or some more recap of the story as well. However, it seems quite a lot of people don’t give an opinion at all in their reviews, they just go over the plot. Yes that can be helpful but is it really right to call that a review? Sometimes there is a bit more of a discussion of the themes of the book rather than just the story but often the reviewer still doesn’t really give an opinion. Saying a book “explores an important topic” isn’t the same as saying “it was well written, I particularly liked…” I don’t need the entire plot from reviewers, that’s what the book is for, I read book reviews because I want to know the opinion of the reviewer, so why aren’t reviewers actually giving opinions? I want to know what they think!