Customer Reviews:
Great Lady -Below Average Writing Style of Author.......2007-08-28
All the reviewers are correct about Virginia Hall being an extraordinary person. No debate here. My only rather large disappointment with the book has to do with the author's writing style. It resembles the style of pulp romance novels on sale at your local supermarket. For me, at least, this gets in the way of completely enjoying the book. I also got the impression that the author projected what she thought Hall's feelings were about incidents so incidental it didn't seem possible anyone would know. Credibility.
Here's an example of the author's style from page 27:
"The tail end of spring greeted Virginia on her arrival in Paris. As May slid into June, and the Parisian summer began, solace washed over her. The quintessental French conversations, bouquinistes selling books and postcards at stands along the seine, throaty French tunes pouring out of cabaret doors...etc, etc."
It's painful for me, at least, to read prose like this on such an incredibly interesting life.
A Very Impressive Woman.......2007-07-27
Virginia Hall was the daughter of a well-to-do Marylander with no need to get directly involved in WWII. Instead, she played a major role in the French Resistance, leading up to 1,500 men in attacks on isolated German troops, locate and assist in parachute drops, send wireless messages (particularly dangerous, given the Germans' emphasis on quickly locating the source of any signals), helping downed Allied fliers escape to Spain, sabotaging rail lines. Prior to D-Day the Germans put out a "Wanted" poster on Virginia, along with a description. This forced her temporarily out of France, via climbing the Pyrennees with a guide and two Allied fliers, only to be imprisoned for 20 days until the American Consulate got word and was able to help. All this with a wooden lower leg - cut off as a result of a hunting accident.
Virginia's original goal was to be an American Foreign Service Officer - however, this was precluded by her hunting accident, leading her to resign her clerical position to help the French through driving an ambulance during WWII's early days. She then was recruited as a British agent (spoke French fluently), trained (only two of the twelve women passed) and returned to France. Collaborators on both sides were typically motivated by money (France was in a depression also); even a Jesuit priest became involved as a double agent - for the Germans.
After WWII, Virginia was awarded the DSC (turned down presentation by President Truman to remain anonymous), married one of her French fellow agents, and "settled down" in the CIA until retirement.
A very heroic and impressive woman whom I never would have known about without "The Wolves at the Door."
Wolves at the Door.......2007-05-12
Excellent, excellent, excellent. I plan to donate this book to a college library. Written well, engaging and informative about war, governments and resistance. Also, should be required reading for all young women!
Suspenseful, never dull, wonderfully researched.......2007-04-21
Kudos to the author, Judith Pearson. I almost always prefer first person accounts of those who lived through WWII. However, this book gripped me throughout the narrative. This would make a wonderful movie with Virginia Hall played by an actress of Cate Blanchett's caliber. Exhaustively researched and well written. Thank you Ms. Pearson, I'll be looking for your next book!
Learning history the fun way!.......2007-04-06
I loved this book! I have always wanted to know about the role the French Resistance played in World War II and now I know about it in captivating detail! Virginia Hall was an incredibly brave, compassionate and intuitive woman and I found myself having to take a break from the book occasionally because Ms. Hall often became entangled in some very tense situations. This book was engaging from the first, well written, easy to read and hard to put down!
Book Description
From the bestselling author of A Man Called Intrepid comes the first and only biography of Vera Atkins, of whom James Bond creator Ian Fleming said, "In the real world of spies, Vera Atkins was the boss." Vera Atkins was an attractive young woman with smoky eyes and lustrous black hair. She belonged to a wealthy family and dined with ambassadors and kings. She could have been a socialite, but in the cataclysmic days of World War II, Vera Atkins became Great Britain's spymistress.
Customer Reviews:
Publishing farce.......2007-09-19
The author of Spymistress states that Vera Atkins had "lustrous black hair" whereas in fact she was a blue-eyed blonde, as anyone who ever met her could have told him.
If the author cannot get the colour of his subject's hair right it is hardly surprising that much of the rest of the book turns out to be nonsense too. The fantasies woven here have no interest. The author trivialises a great woman's life story. He does so in the knowledge that the dead cannot answer back.
The true story of Vera Atkins's life is far more compelling than anything in this book. I know this because I spent five years researching her extraordinary story across the world. I interviewed her at length before she died and I had sole access to her archive.
I am writing this review not to promote my own book but to defend Vera's integrity. This false "biography" desecrates the memory of a remarkable woman, misses the real story entirely, and brings the American publishing industry into disrepute. In short, it is a publishing farce.
Average customer rating:
- Makes me ashamed to be a woman
- Loved It !!!
- Didn't love it
- Alot better than I thought from reading the reviews
- Predictible and boring
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Female Intelligence
Jane Heller
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
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ASIN: 0312261594 |
Book Description
As all of the early reviews indicate, Jane Heller is a writer at the top of her game.Her sixth novel Sis Boom Bah, was the first book to be optioned for a feature film by Julia Roberts's production company, Shoelace Productions.It also made the USA Today bestseller list in its St. Martin's Press paperback edition.Her seventh novel, Name Dropping, published in paperback by St. Martin's in March, earned her the best reviews of her career, including a rave from People magazine (she's the only author with four "Book of the Week" nods from People).Now comes her eighth and most ingenious romantic comedy, Female Intelligence.An alternate selection of the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club, with audio rights already sold to Audio Renaissance, FemaleIntelligence is a modern twist on "My Fair Lady" - the perfect combination of witty, sparkling dialogue and fast-paced, page-turning plotting. In the classic film, Rex Harrison was a linguist who taught street urchin Audrey Hepburn how to speak like a lady and then fell in love with her.In FemaleIntelligence, Lynn Wyman is a linguist who teaches macho CEO Brandon Brock how to speak with ladies and falls in love with him.Lynn has a successful practice in sensitivity training, instructing alpha males in the language of Womenspeak so they can relate better to the women in their lives.When her personal life becomes the stuff of tabloids and her professional reputation is sullied, she must do something - anything - to resurrect her career.After spotting Brock on the cover of Fortune magazine's "America's Toughest Bosses" issue, she bets her friends that, by tinkering with his words, by adjusting his speech patterns, by putting him through her Wyman Method, she can turn him into "America's Most Sensitive Boss" and climb back on top.Little does she know that by winning her bet she will lose her heart.FemaleIntelligence is a hilarious look at our inability to bridge the communication gap between men and women, despite all the Mars/Venus books on the market.Brimming with Jane's inimitable humor, it also features her trademark mix of romance and suspense, including a surprise ending in which one of the heroin's friends turns out to be anything but.A sure-fire bestseller to be backed by a major marketing campaign, FemaleIntelligenceconfirms Jane's status as a wry, knowing writer with a keen eye for popular culture.
Customer Reviews:
Makes me ashamed to be a woman.......2006-07-21
Aside from the odd Harlequin romance, this is quite possible the most sexist and poorly written book ever. The character is a "linguist" who is working to make men think like women. She employs such nauseating tactics as sharing Michael Bolton music and making the men recite dialog. The point when I decided that the book was beyond terrible was the line of dialog that her male lead was forced to read (a situtation before a business meeting when there was a female employee in the room) "Good morning Susan. I don't know how you metabolize your desserts, but the chocolate mousse cake I had last night went straight to my thighs." Ewww. And the "dead on and hilarious" quote on the front of the book was misleading. There were some lame attempts at wittiness, but they fell as flat as the story line.
I've never written a review on this website, and I read voraciously. This book made me feel an obligation to share my opinion in hopes that someone else reads it and saves the four hours that I will never get back. In fact, I apologize to Harlequin writers, they are Pullitzer nominees compared to Miss Heller.
Loved It !!!.......2006-05-11
I really enjoyed this book. It is a light read and very entertaining. I loved how it showed up the self-improvement field through Lynn Wyman trying to teach men how to speak to, and maybe even understand, women through her training program. I found it really funny it was highlighted that the men mainly became interested to participate in the program to better their ambitious careers - not to actually understand women (typical !).
I loved the character types she chose to illustrate her points. Particularly as you start to realise Lynn communicates and basically thinks like a man !
Her friends characters also portray very different types of personalities with definite idosyncracies and when you put it all together it makes a good story. I also loved the ending in that Lynn also changed her own views & program, plus it gave a window into Lynn & Brandon's relationship some years down the track showing a successful relationship post the 'honeymoon period' through the importance of good communication.
If you're looking for a laugh and an easy read I would really recommend this book.
Didn't love it.......2005-08-01
I didn't care for this Jane Heller book. I found the dialogue stilted and the plot a parody - just not based enough in reality for my taste. And I would never want a guy who went through the Wyman Method - yuck!
Alot better than I thought from reading the reviews.......2004-10-12
When I first started reading "Female Intelligence", I had a tremendous urge to review this book immediately and explain all the pitfalls of the "Wyman Method". Luckily for me, Jane Heller did it all herself.
This book for me was an all-nighter. I simply couldn't put it down. Look, humor is relative. People have different life experiences, therefore people find different things funny. Now, I know many people who have read "Mars and Venus" books and feel that they were really, really helpful to them in their relationships. I have read alot of these books, and while there are many good points, I feel that alot of it is formula - and, so, if my husband says "How was YOUR day" instead of "How was your day! Goodbye" I'm suddenly going to be happy? He didn't mean it then, and he still doesn't mean it now. So what does it help if he learned to be a parrot? So you can see why I found "Female Intelligence" so hilarious.
I really enjoyed the h/h as well. They were a really funny couple - you know, the kind where they're so opposite that everything about them is funny?
And, no, I didn't "know" who gave away Lynn's secrets to the media. I am thankful that I have good friends, it never occured to me that a good friend could really do that.
For those who took this book seriously - it was a spoof! A spoof with a message, if you will. I think it did have a message somewhere in all that laughter. I especially loved the part where he analyzes what went wrong with her parent's marriage - and he's right! That part was really funny.
And I don't think she could have possibly have meant it seriously (the author), when she had Lynn (the character) saying "Oh, I don't know how you metabolize mousse, but that mousse last night went straight to my thighs!" Can you imagine a man actually saying that? I don't think Jane Heller was really that stupid that she thought a therapist would actually say that, she just thought of some outrageous things a therapist MIGHT say, and then doubled and quadrupled it, till we have a very funny method, and a funny book. This was NOT a how-to book on the Wymann method, it was a comedy! The Wymann method was NOT meant to be taken seriously! I don't think everyone got that.
I really enjoyed this book, and it was a pleasure to read the dialogue where you have two very intelligent people having a conversation, rather than what is the case in some other books where the characters either talk AT each other, or both crack a bunch of one-liners. To be quite honest, I found all that intelligent conversation a little intimidating - I don't have those kind of conversations, it's easy to see that Jane Heller's IQ is quite a few points above mine. But while mine is not quite there alas, it's fun to watch a real first class brain at work.
Predictible and boring.......2003-05-16
This book is neither funny nor good reading. An intelligent female can see right through this predictible plot and not-so mysterious mystery. The premise is that someone has done Dr. Lynn Wyman, an intelligent female, wrong. I found it totally unbelievable that this character would not immediately suspect one of her close friends as her saboteur. And by the time in the book she figured out it was one of them, I was so disgusted with the weak plot, that I just didn't care to find out which friend it was. I took this book on a trip, and found myself reading the catalogs on the plane instead. If you are an intelligent person, don't bother with this one.
Book Description
Rosemary Dew, who earned the title of Special Agent of the FBI, was recipient of eight commendations from FBI directors, and was the seventh woman to be named supervisor at FBI headquarters, has opened up the files on the agency and reveals a broken organization rife with discriminatory practices. Dew worked undercover against criminals, spies, and terrorists. She supervised the bureau’s international response to the Achille Lauro hijacking and signed the arrest warrant for Abu Abbas. Yet for all her accomplishments, Rosemary Dew remained a “female” agent first and “special” agent second, treated with disdain, sexually harassed, and denied the opportunities and privileges of male agents. In her memoir, Dew relives her FBI life from the training academy to the most sensitive missions of national security. As her tale unfolds, so do the FBI’s many problems, one of them being the bureau’s persistent lack of cooperation with other investigative agencies — an attitude instilled from its inception by J. Edgar Hoover. Special Agent Dew views the FBI as a dysfunctional family where those who don’t fit the Hoover mold are not welcome. In No Backup, Dew makes a powerful call for change and lays out a blueprint for FBI reform.
Customer Reviews:
Disturbing and sad..........2004-07-17
A well-written insider's expose of the immature, "locker-room" mentality that has existed far too long without accountability in what is supposed to be the nation's premier law enforcement and domestic intelligence organization. Dew's first-hand account of her 13 years of enduring illegal, unconscionable treatment from subordinates, peers and superiors saddens me.
The country and those women and minorities who suffered this treatment deserved - and deserve - better from the FBI. We can only hope that this book is read and taken to heart by a new generation of leaders at the FBI.
Enlightening and insightful.......2004-07-01
Readers' reactions to this book will be influenced by their expectations. It's not a book about shoot-em-ups and cloak-and-dagger. For me, it's a book about how the FBI institution and individual FBI agents influence each other, and the results. The author argues that the negative behavior and negative attitudes that she experienced in her small part of the FBI world are the same behavior and attitudes that led to major consequences for the entire FBI and the country. I give the book five stars for this insight alone.
Throughout the book, the author reminds the reader of the many outstanding agents she worked with and the outstanding work that the FBI accomplishes. This is not emphasized, because this is not what the book is about. Rather, it's an attempt to analyze what's wrong with the FBI, and how to fix it.
Tiresome but somewhat interesting.......2004-06-17
Dew does share some interesting insights about the FBI bureaucracy but when you get about halfway through the book, you start to get tired of listening to her endless whining and complaining about the organization. It it was that bad, why did she continue to stay there? It would have been more interesting if she gave more details about some of the arrests and what ultimately happened to those high profile people, i.e. the Maryland congressman Robert Bauman who was arrested for child prostitution, and some of the other lowlifes she encountered through the years.
No Backup: A female Agent's Life in the FBI.......2004-01-02
No Backup: A Female Agent's Life
in the FBI©
by
Rosemary N. Dew and Pat Pape
A fascinating read which combines the personal experiences of Special Agent Rosemary Dew who spent thirteen years with the FBI. She was in a unique position to gain insight and has produced a detailed analysis of the culture of the FBI and has delved into the reasons behind some of it's more infamous failures. The overall thrust of the book suggests that the FBI's problems reside within the culture of the organization. Rosemary Dew contends that the FBI will continue to be plagued by embarassing episodes,e.g., the mole in its counter intelligence section who was able to escape detection for decades. Approximately half of the book covers one embarassing episode after another which calls into question the ability of the FBI to learn from its own mistakes. In the world described by the author...the agents who warned of suspicious events before 9-11 might have been taken more seriously if they had been working out of a higher status office like New York City. The book is not just a critical analysis of the Bureau but cites specific episodes from the author's life as an agent. She uses these illustrations as a backdrop to suggest why many of the recent problems within the Bureau are the result of long standing practices and norms where the preservation of one's own job within the organization takes priority and common sense seems to be in rather short supply. She describes in painful detail... blatant examples of racism, sexism and harassment which would not be tolerated in modern law enforcement agencies. The FBI is portrayed as a bureacracy which has lost its moral compass while at the same time trying to occupy a higher moral position through a masterful public relations campaign. Rosemary Dew has gone to great lengths to open up her own life and will probably take some heat from those who are sure that the Bureau can do `No' wrong. Definitely, worth the read but disturbing. There have been other books which have exposed the FBI but this one is unique.
Dr. Peter Kassebaum
Book Description
View the
Table of Contents. Read the
Preface.
"Retells forgotten stories and unearths new evidence of intrepid female field agents. . . . Proctor's archival discoveries hint at countless small acts of audacity and defiance. . . . Thanks to books like this one, the history of female espionage—from Aphra Behn to Elizabeth Van Lew to Lotus Blossum to Stella Rimington—is slowly being filled out."
—London Review of Books
"In
Female Intelligence, Tammy Proctor attempts to rescue female spies from cliches that classed them as either sexual predators or martyred virgins, manipulators or dupes, heartless vamps or emotional basket cases."
—New Yorker
"A useful and engaging history of women in the British intelligence service during World War I. The book is an important contribution to the history of British intelligence and sheds light on the unglamorous reality of a highly romanticized aspect of women's work."
—American Historical Review
"Female Intelligence is enjoyable and interesting because of its broad scope in bringing together previously separate historical subjects, its making visible women's part in espionage, and its feminist rereading of World War I images of women spies. It shows how far the history of women and war has come."
—Journal of British Studies
"Proctor's argument is strong, as is her evidence and her prose. Her work is excellent for people in both military and social history—it incorporates issues of interest to both groups and is a pleasure to read."
—Military History
"Proctor has identified an excellent field for research, one where there is real detective work to be done."—International History Review
"Proctor's work is carefully thought out and elegantly argued. Her deployment of her material is done with a deft hand, and a strong sense for the telling quote, anecdote, or statistic. Proctor thus points the way forward for further scholarship on women in intelligence work."
—Alvernia
"A rare study of how women were used and, more importantly . . . remembered or forgotten by British intelligence during the war at home and in Belgium. Recommended."
—Choice
"This engaging and intelligent study of women in espionage adds to our understanding of the experience of women during the First World War and of the legacy of their work, both mythic and real. Proctor carefully explores why the image of the female 'spy seductress'—notably the iconic Mata Hari—has endured and uncovers the largely unknown history of this pivotal generation of women intelligence workers."
—Susan R. Grayzel, author of Women's Identities At War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War
"How did women's work contribute to the propagation of war, and impact their own changing relation to the nation-state? How did women themselves, their contemporaries and popular culture represent their war work in gendered terms? Tammy Proctor addresses these significant questions in her intriguing study of women spies. As Proctor shows, women's substantial work for the developing British intelligence service belied the figure of the treacherous and seductive woman spy."
—Angela Woollacott, author of On Her Their Lives Depend: Munitions Workers in the Great War
When the Germans invaded her small Belgian village in 1914, Marthe Cnockaert's home was burned and her family separated. After getting a job at a German hospital, and winning the Iron Cross for her service to the Reich, she was approached by a neighbor and invited to become an intelligence agent for the British. Not without trepidation, Cnockaert embarked on a career as a spy, providing information and engaging in sabotage before her capture and imprisonment in 1916. After the war, she was paid and decorated by a grateful British government for her service.
Cnockaert's is only one of the surprising and gripping stories that comprise
Female Intelligence. This is the first history of the female spies who served Britain during World War I, focusing on both the powerful cultural images of these women and the realities, challenges, and contradictions of intelligence service. Between the founding of modern British intelligence organizations in 1909 and the demobilization of 1919, more than 6,000 women served the British government in either civil or military occupations as members of the intelligence community. These women performed a variety of services, and they represented an astonishing diversity of nationality, age, and class. From Aphra Behn, who spied for the British government in the seventeenth century, to the most well known example, Mata Hari, female spies have a long history, existing in juxtaposition to the folkloric notion of women as chatty, gossipy, and indiscreet.
Using personal accounts, letters, official documents and newspaper reports,
Female Intelligence interrogates different, and apparently contradictory, constructions of gender in the competing spheres of espionage activity.
Book Description
In her thirteen years as special agent for the FBI, Rosemary Dew worked undercover against criminals, spies, and terrorists, earning eight commendations for her service. Despite her achievements, for her entire tenure she remained the subject of severe discrimination and even sexual harassment that the bureau seemed to condone rather than condemn. In elegant and deeply felt prose, Dew argues that this climate of corruption and duplicity not only taints the experience of the FBI’s few female agents but also leads directly to some of the bureau’s most harmful failures, such as the remarkable intelligence breakdown that allowed spy Robert Hanssen to operate undetected for more than two decades. Narrated by one of the most successful— and one of the only—women in the bureau’s history, No Backup is a startling look at the destructive and discriminatory culture that dominates one of America’s most powerful agencies, as well as an impassioned plea to an organization that must reform itself.
Product Description
This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A186504. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: This thesis examines the reengineering of the travel management system and implementation of the Defense Travel System at the Naval Postgraduate School. A review of the reengineering process with different goals and principles is provided as background for understanding the reengineering process. Also, the reengineering process and private sector travel systems are reviewed. Eight steps for reengineering the travel system and a model for the travel system are then proposed. This is followed by a historical overview of the travel reengineering process at the Naval Postgraduate School, a Defense Travel System test site, for designing a new travel system. Data were collected from the current travel system, historical records, and personal interviews. The data analysis is completed with a discussion of the Naval Postgraduate School reengineering process and travelers' views on the reengineered travel system from a random questionnaire survey. The research provides conclusions and recommendations regarding the reengineering process, with directions for future research.
Average customer rating:
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In Obedience to Instructions
Margaret Pawley
Manufacturer: Pen and Sword
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ASIN: 0850526337 |
Book Description
The eyewitness story of nurses attached to the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain's premier spy organization in World War II.
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