Women World War

Historian and broadcaster Tessa Dunlop tells the story of the women of Bletchley Park through exclusive and unprecedented access to the women themselves. The Bletchley Girls weaves together the lives of 15 women who were all selected to work in Britain's most secret organisation - Bletchley Park. It is their story, told in their voices; Tessa met and talked to 15 veterans, often visiting them several times. Firm friendships were made as their epic journey unfolded on paper.

The attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything for Lana Hitchcock. Arriving home on the Big Island too late to reconcile with her estranged father, she is left alone to untangle the clues of his legacy, which lead to a secret property tucked away in the remote rain forest of Kilauea volcano. When the government starts taking away her neighbors as suspected sympathizers, Lana shelters two young German girls, a Japanese fisherman, and his son. As tensions escalate, they are forced into hiding - only to discover the hideaway house is not what they expected.

Did you know that women also played a major role in the World War II? This book will help create a picture of how women in the armed forces helped win the war. There are facts in the minutes of this book that may be new to you, and might take time to fully comprehend. Don’t worry, because there’s no pressure in listening. Start today!

It’s 1943. The war rages. The newly launched WASP program is recruiting. And barnstormer fan Georgeanne “George” Ector’s dream is to take to the skies. Grit is what she inherited from her mother, an Oklahoma farm girl at the turn of the century who preferred taking apart an engine to stitching linens for a hope chest. She taught her daughter well. George isn’t the only woman about to follow her calling.

In the quiet town of Houghton, Michigan, sixteen-year-old Nancy Harkness discovers a passion that ignites her heart in ways she never expected. The arrival of barnstormer pilots brings more than just the thrill of their daring stunts; it brings the promise of adventure. Nancy vows she will be a pilot someday. Years later, as the dark clouds of World War II gather on the horizon, Nancy’s dreams take a new and daring turn. With unwavering determination, she envisions a squadron of female pilots. Yet, her path is far from clear.

Farhana Qazi draws on her background as a pioneering counterterrorism professional and a devout Muslim to offer an insider’s view of what drives girls and women to join radical Islamic movements and how we can keep them from making this terrible choice.

The Japanese army's brutal occupation of the city of Nanking during the 1937 Sino-Japanese War is known, for good reason, as the rape of Nanking. As they slaughtered an estimated 300,000 people, the invading soldiers raped more than 20,000 women - some estimates run as high as 80,000. Hua-ling Hu presents here the amazing untold story of the American missionary Minnie Vautrin, whose unswerving defiance of the Japanese protected 10,000 Chinese women and children.

The Isle of Jersey was once a warm and neighborly community, but in 1943, German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule. Nazis have ordered Grace La Mottée, the island's only librarian, to destroy books that threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, she wants to fight back. So she forms the Wartime Book Club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading.

After her mother becomes too ill to work, the responsibility to provide for the family falls to Violet as the oldest of nine. When the world enters the Great War, she serves as a nurse, helping men who could very well be her brothers. Working as a stewardess and wartime nurse, Violet not only survives a shipwreck but also two sinkings, one on the infamous Titanic. No one can understand why she would return to sea, but something keeps drawing Violet back to the tumultuous waters, where she struggles to put the tragedies of her past behind her and pursue a life and love all her own.

Edda Mussolini was Benito's favorite child: spoiled and venal, uneducated but clever, faithless but flamboyant, a brilliant diplomat, wild but brave, and ultimately strong and loyal. For much of the twenty-year period of Fascist rule, she was her father's closest confidante. Moorehead draws a portrait of a complicated, bold, and determined woman—one who emerges not just as a witness but as a key player in some of the twentieth century's defining moments. And we see Fascist Italy with all its glamour, decadence and political intrigue, and the turbulence before its violent end.

Born between the wars on a working-class London street, Harry Miles wins a scholarship and a chance to escape his station, but discovers instead that poetry is what offers him real direction. While searching for more of it he meets Evelyn Hill on the steps of Battersea Library. The two fall in love as the world prepares once again for war, but their capacity to care for each other over the ensuing decades becomes increasingly tested.

As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for 12 of her most cherished women spies who had gone missing in action. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Sarah Helm chronicles Atkins’s extraordinary life and her singular journey through the chaos of post-war Europe.

Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up. Required to have a college education, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire.

England, 1917. Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick - but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion. Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella - sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs - and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house.

Bletchley Park looked like any other sprawling country estate. In reality, however, it was the top-secret headquarters of Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School - and the site where Germany’s legendary Enigma code was finally cracked. There, the nation’s most brilliant mathematical minds - including Alan Turing, whose discoveries at Bletchley would fuel the birth of modern computing - toiled alongside debutantes, factory workers, and students on projects of international importance. Until now, little has been revealed about ordinary life at this extraordinary facility.

Cleo Davenport has heard the whispers: the murmured conversations that end abruptly the second she walks into a room. Told she was an orphan, she knows the rumor—that her father is none other than the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne. And at her childhood home at Cairo’s Shepheard’s Hotel, where royals, rulers, and the wealthy live, they even called her “The Princess.” But her life is turned upside down when she turns seventeen. Sent to London under the chaperonage of her very proper aunt, she’s told it’s time to learn manners and make her debut.

Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler’s deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith hidden so Ally sets in motion a dangerous and desperate plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety.

American Amelia Montague defied her family five years ago to marry the man she loved, but that decision cost her everything. Disowned by her family, and left a penniless widow after her husband’s death, Amelia becomes her cousin Wallis Simpson’s private secretary in France. With no other prospects available, Amelia has no choice but to succeed, and under their Aunt Bessie’s direction, hopes to have a positive influence on Wallis and the Duke of Windsor. During the next two years, Amelia realizes that not everything with the Windsors is glittering happiness.

This is the incredible true story of the greatest spy you’ve never heard of - as told to the author by the woman herself. At the outbreak of World War Two, Nancy Wake’s glamorous life in the South of France seemed far removed from the fighting. But when her husband was called up for military service, Nancy felt she had just as much of a duty to fight for freedom. By 1943, her fearless undercover work even in the face of personal tragedy had earned her a place on the Gestapo’s "most wanted" list.

Present day. When respected American jewelry historian Kate Kirby receives a call about the Cheapside jewels, she knows she’s on the brink of the experience of a lifetime. But the trip to London forces Kate to explore secrets that have long been buried by her own family.