Wednesday Review: Nothing Daunted

Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West. I'm not big on biographies, I don't really care about the intimate details of other people's lives. But this is more of a history I guess. About real people. From the perspective of Dorothy's descendants.

Which probably makes it a biography.

In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, close friends from childhood and graduates of Smith College, left home in Auburn, New York, for the wilds of northwestern Colorado. Bored by their society luncheons, charity work, and the effete young men who courted them, they learned that two teaching jobs were available in a remote mountaintop schoolhouse and applied—shocking their families and friends. “No young lady in our town,” Dorothy later commented, “had ever been hired by anybody.”

I wanted to read this book because of the romantic heroine nature of the story. Just goes to show we writers don't make this stuff up! There really were women like this, and only through stories such as this one can we know not everyone followed the rules.

Granted I admit to skimming some of it, but over all it was engaging enough to finish and recommend for historical (and western) lovers who enjoy a well-written narrative non-fiction read.

Wednesday Review: In the Shadow of Freedom

I'm not big on biographies. I don't care about other people's lives, who slept with whom, why X became a chef and Y became an actor, or how Z didn't let alcoholism affect the rest of his/her life. I am not fascinated with the minutia of everyday celebrity living, nor do I care beyond the head-shaking headlines of the latest politician to disgrace him/herself.

In the Shadow of Freedom first came to my attention through Twitter; I follow Tchicaya Missamou's agent and when it was first released, she (naturally and as a good agent) announced it.

My internal debate raged. But I was in a non-fiction mood, first with The Tiger: a True story of Vengeance and Survival then the thinly veiled fictionalized version of Every Man Dies Alone.

Read the blurb, a couple reviews on Amazon and B&N, and decided why not? Not normally my kind of read, but Tchicaya's story (no idea how to properly pronounce his name) not only tells of his country, the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and its tragic story of war, but his own involvement in it from a VERY young age.

A child soldier who knew what he was doing but did it anyway to a young man who changed his ways and eventually made it to America. Here he lived in poverty and joined the Marine Corp where he rose in the ranks.

Tchicaya's story is a true American Dream story. I loved it.

And this Friday, my guest will be Wendi Zwaduk who's talking about how to act naturally and her new release, Careless Whisper.