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Lynne Olson

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Lynne Olson

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Born
Honolulu, Hawaii, The United States
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Member Since
September 2009


Lynne Olson is a New York Times bestselling author of ten books of history, most of which focus on World War II. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has called her "our era's foremost chronicler of World War II politics and diplomacy."
Lynne’s latest book, The Sisterhood of Ravensbruck: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis In Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp, will be published by Random House on June 3,2025. Three of her previous books — Madame Fourcade's Secret War, Those Angry Days, and Citizens of London were New York Times bestsellers.
Born in Hawaii, Lynne graduated magna cum laude from the University of Arizona. Before becoming a full-time author, she worked as a journalist for ten years, first
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Lynne Olson Great question, Gail! On occasion, I've used freelance researchers to do some limited work for me, particularly in the UK. But overall I do my own res…moreGreat question, Gail! On occasion, I've used freelance researchers to do some limited work for me, particularly in the UK. But overall I do my own research. Historical research is like a treasure hunt -- you never know exactly what you're going to find. Often, it's something totally wonderful and unexpected, and I'm not sure outside researchers would know the value of it as I would. I also should point out that since most of my books have focused on Britain and World War II, I've built up a personal storehouse of knowledge that makes doing research on a new subject much easier than it would be if I were a stranger to the period and the place. (less)
Lynne Olson I've just finished my latest book, which will be published on March 5, 2019. It called MADAME FOURCADE'S SECRET WAR, and it's about Marie-Madeleine Fo…moreI've just finished my latest book, which will be published on March 5, 2019. It called MADAME FOURCADE'S SECRET WAR, and it's about Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, a beautiful young Frenchwoman who headed the largest and most influential Allied spy network in occupied France during World War II. She was the only woman to head a major resistance organization in wartime France. It's an astonishing story that reads like a novel, but one that very few people know about. (less)
Average rating: 4.27 · 31,405 ratings · 4,360 reviews · 16 distinct worksSimilar authors
Citizens of London: The Ame...

4.28 avg rating — 8,579 ratings — published 2010 — 27 editions
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Madame Fourcade's Secret Wa...

4.22 avg rating — 8,633 ratings — published 2019 — 15 editions
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Last Hope Island: Britain, ...

4.32 avg rating — 3,553 ratings — published 2017 — 15 editions
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Empress of the Nile: The Da...

4.25 avg rating — 3,568 ratings — published 2023 — 2 editions
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Those Angry Days: Roosevelt...

4.18 avg rating — 2,202 ratings — published 2013 — 17 editions
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A Question of Honor: The Ko...

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4.48 avg rating — 1,261 ratings — published 2003 — 26 editions
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Troublesome Young Men: The ...

4.27 avg rating — 1,317 ratings — published 2007 — 29 editions
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The Sisterhood of Ravensbrü...

4.40 avg rating — 937 ratings — published 2025 — 5 editions
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Freedom's Daughters: The Un...

4.35 avg rating — 401 ratings — published 2001 — 11 editions
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Unsung Heroes of World War ...

3.99 avg rating — 74 ratings3 editions
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More books by Lynne Olson…

Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction

Empress of the Nile The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction by Lynne Olson

I’m so excited to share the fabulous cover for my new book, Empress of the Nile, which will be published next year on Feb. 28. Empress tells the story of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, a willful real-life version of Indiana Jones, who faced off against the Gestapo in World War II, then led an international campaign in the 1960s to save several of Egypt’s most priceless temples from being des Read more of this blog post »
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Published on July 12, 2022 20:22 Tags: history, nonfiction, unsung-heroes
The Case of the M...
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The Magician
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The Order by Daniel Silva
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One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
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Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
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Quotes by Lynne Olson  (?)
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“we’re inclined to say what we think, even when we have not thought very much.”
Lynne Olson, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

“There was no bombing of the U.S. mainland, no civilian casualties, no destruction of millions of homes. Indeed, while the standard of living plummeted for the vast majority of Britons during the war, many if not most Americans lived better than ever before.”
Lynne Olson, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

“The German embassy in Washington had spent thousands of dollars to send fifty isolationist Republican congressmen to the convention to work for the adoption of an isolationist platform.”
Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941

Polls

What nonfiction book should we read in 3Q23?

The Storyteller Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
Dave Grohl

So, I've written a book.

Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities ("It's a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!") I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.

This certainly doesn't mean that I'm quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it's like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.
 
  12 votes 30.8%

Patient Zero A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases by Lydia Kang
Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases
Lydia Kang

A very timely history of disease outbreaks, from the authors of Quackery: stories of outbreaks (and their patient zeros), plus chapters on the science, culture, and cures for different types of epidemics and pandemics. Popular reading on a timely topic.
 
  7 votes 17.9%

Freedom's Daughters The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970 by Lynne Olson
Freedom's Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970
Lynne Olson

A collection of profiles of some of the fearless, resourceful female leaders of the Civil Rights Movement documents the accomplishments of Ida Wells, who led the protest against lynching; Pauli Murray, who organized the first lunch counter sit-in; Jo Ann Robinson, who helped launch the Montgomery bus boycott; and others.
 
  6 votes 15.4%

Burn It Down Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan
Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood
Maureen Ryan

An exposé of patterns of harassment and bias in Hollywood, the grassroots reforms under way, and the labor and activist revolutions that recent scandals have ignited.

It is never just One Bad Man.

Abuse and exploitation of workers is baked into the very foundations of the entertainment industry. To break the cycle and make change that sticks, it's important to stop looking at headline-making stories as individual events. Instead, one must look closely at the bigger picture, to see how abusers are created, fed, rewarded, allowed to persist, and, with the right tools, how they can be excised.

In Burn It Down, veteran reporter Maureen Ryan does just that. She draws on decades of experience to connect the dots and illuminate the deeper forces sustaining Hollywood's corrosive culture. Fresh reporting sheds light on problematic situations at companies like Lucasfilm and shows like Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Lost, Sleepy Hollow, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more. Interviews with actors and famous creatives like Evan Rachel Wood, Harold Perrineau, Damon Lindelof, and Orlando Jones abound. Ryan dismantles, one by one, the myths that the entertainment industry promotes about itself, which have allowed abusers to thrive and the industry to avoid accountability--myths about Hollywood as a meritocracy, what it takes to be creative, the value of human dignity, and more.

Weaving together insights from industry insiders, historical context, and pop-culture analysis, Burn It Down paints a groundbreaking and urgently necessary portrait of what's gone wrong in the entertainment world--and how we can fix it.
 
  5 votes 12.8%

Eight Bears Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie
Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future
Gloria Dickie

A global exploration of the eight remaining species of bears―and the dangers they face. Bears have always held a central place in our collective memory, from Indigenous folklore and Greek mythology to nineteenth-century fairytales and the modern toy shop. But as humans and bears come into ever-closer contact, our relationship nears a tipping point. Today, most of the eight remaining bear species are threatened with extinction. Some, such as the panda bear and the polar bear, are icons of the natural world; others, such as the spectacled bear and the sloth bear, are far less known. In Eight Bears , journalist Gloria Dickie embarks on a globe-trotting journey to explore each bear’s story, whisking readers from the cloud forests of the Andes to the ice floes of the Arctic; from the jungles of India to the backwoods of the Rocky Mountain West. She meets with key figures on the frontlines of modern conservation efforts―the head of a rescue center for sun and moon bears freed from bile farms, a biologist known as Papa Panda, who has led China’s panda-breeding efforts for almost four decades, a conservationist retraining a military radar system to detect and track polar bears near towns―to reveal the unparalleled challenges bears face as they contend with a rapidly changing climate and encroaching human populations. Weaving together ecology, history, mythology, and a captivating account of her travels and observations, Dickie offers a closer look at our volatile relationship with these magnificent mammals. Engrossing and deeply reported, Eight Bears delivers a clear warning for what we risk losing if we don’t learn to live alongside the animals that have shaped our cultures, geographies, and stories.
 
  3 votes 7.7%

We Are All Paralyzed The Remarkable True Story of Choosing to Live After Four Life-Threatening Accidents by Brandon Sulser
We Are All Paralyzed: The Remarkable True Story of Choosing to Live After Four Life-Threatening Accidents
Brandon Sulser

Since he was twelve, Brandon Sulser has survived four brushes with death. One of those life-threatening injuries left him paralyzed from the chest down. Although his life story appears to be unfair, Brandon knows that life is only negative and hard if you allow it to be. And in his experience, we are all paralyzed in our own way, by bad choices, by circumstance, by illness, etc. His paralysis happens to be more obvious than most, but make no mistake; we are all paralyzed. But we don't have to stay that way.
 
  2 votes 5.1%

The White House Plumbers by Egil “Bud” Krogh
The White House Plumbers
Egil “Bud” Krogh

The true story of The White House Plumbers, a secret unit inside Nixon's White House, and their ill-conceived plans stop the leaking of the Pentagon Papers, and how they led to Watergate and the President's demise.

On July 17, 1971, Egil “Bud” Krogh was summoned to a closed-door meeting by his mentor―and a key confidant of the president―John Ehrlichman. Expecting to discuss the most recent drug control program launched in Vietnam, Krogh was shocked when Ehrlichman handed him a file and the responsibility for the Special Investigations Unit, or SIU, later to be notoriously known as “The Plumbers.”

The Plumbers’ work, according to Nixon, was critical to national they were to investigate the leaks of top secret government documents, including the Pentagon Papers, to the press. Driven by blind loyalty, diligence, and dedication, Krogh, along with his co-director, David Young, set out to handle the job, eventually hiring G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, who would lead the break-in to the office of Dr. Fielding, a psychiatrist treating Daniel Ellsberg, the man they suspected was doing the leaking. Krogh had no idea that his decisions would soon lead to one of the most famous conspiracies in presidential history and the demise of the Nixon administration.

The White House Plumbers is Krogh’s account of what really happened behind the closed doors of the Nixon White House, and how a good man can make bad decisions, and the redemptive power of integrity. Including the story of how Krogh served time and later rebuilt his life, The White House Plumbers is gripping, thoughtful, and a cautionary tale of placing loyalty over principle.
 
  2 votes 5.1%

Saved A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home by Benjamin Hall
Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home
Benjamin Hall

An affecting, singular story...a bracing tale of life on the edge of death." — Kirkus Reviews When veteran war reporter Benjamin Hall woke up in Kyiv on the morning of March 14, 2022, he had no idea that, within hours, Russian bombs would nearly end his life. As a journalist for Fox News, Hall had worked in dangerous war zones like Syria and Afghanistan, but with three young daughters at home, life on the edge was supposed to be a thing of the past. Yet when Russia viciously attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Hall quickly volunteered to go. A few weeks later, while on assignment, Hall and his crew were blown up in a Russian strike. With Hall himself gravely injured and stuck in Kyiv, it was unclear if he would make it out alive. This is the story of how he survived—a story that continues to this day. For the first time, Hall shares his experience in full—from his ground-level view of the war to his dramatic rescue to his arduous, and ongoing, recovery. Going inside the events that have permanently transformed him, Hall recalls his time at the front lines of our world’s conflicts, exploring how his struggle to step away from war reporting led him back one perilous last time. Featuring nail-biting accounts from the many people across multiple countries who banded together to get him to safety, Hall offers a stunning look at complex teamwork and heartfelt perseverance that turned his life into a mission. Through it all, Hall’s spirit has remained undaunted, buoyed by that remarkable corps of people from around the world whose collective determination ensured his survival. Evocative, harrowing, and deeply moving, Saved is a powerful memoir of family and friends, of life and healing, and of how to respond when you are tested in ways you never thought possible.
 
  2 votes 5.1%

39 total votes
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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Explore World War...: Britain 4 17 Apr 01, 2010 09:36AM  
The History Book ...: This topic has been closed to new comments. AUSSIE RICK'S 50 BOOKS READ IN 2010 40 228 Nov 30, 2010 03:22PM  
The Life of a Boo...: Non-Fiction! 54 144 Mar 19, 2011 09:29AM  
The Seasonal Read...: This topic has been closed to new comments. Spring Challenge 2012: Completed Tasks -DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC 2297 778 May 31, 2012 09:02PM  
The Life of a Boo...: Angela's 2012 reading goals 26 83 Sep 14, 2012 06:46AM  
The History Book ...: This topic has been closed to new comments. ARCHIVE ONE: PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF ~ 6553 4404 May 08, 2013 03:33PM  
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