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Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
The riveting, untold story of the scholars, librarians, and university professors who were recruited as spies during WWII and helped turn the tide of the war
At the start of WWII, the US found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work—and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts.
In Book and Dagger, Elyse Graham draws on personal histories, diaries, and declassified OSS files to tell the story of a small but connected group of humanities scholars turned unlikely spies. Among them are Joseph Curtiss, a literature professor who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents; Sherman Kent, a smart-mouthed history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa; and Adele Kibre, an archivist who was sent to Stockholm to secretly acquire documents for the OSS. These unforgettable characters would ultimately help lay the foundations of modern intelligence and transform American higher education when they returned after the war.
Thrillingly paced and rigorously researched, Book and Dagger is an inspiring and gripping true story about a group of academics who helped beat the Nazis—a tale that reveals the indelible power of humanities to change the world.
At the start of WWII, the US found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work—and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts.
In Book and Dagger, Elyse Graham draws on personal histories, diaries, and declassified OSS files to tell the story of a small but connected group of humanities scholars turned unlikely spies. Among them are Joseph Curtiss, a literature professor who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents; Sherman Kent, a smart-mouthed history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa; and Adele Kibre, an archivist who was sent to Stockholm to secretly acquire documents for the OSS. These unforgettable characters would ultimately help lay the foundations of modern intelligence and transform American higher education when they returned after the war.
Thrillingly paced and rigorously researched, Book and Dagger is an inspiring and gripping true story about a group of academics who helped beat the Nazis—a tale that reveals the indelible power of humanities to change the world.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 497 reviews
October 25, 2024
"The war may have been fought on battlefields, but it was won in libraries."
It's hard to imagine, but during World War II, the U.S. did not yet have an intelligence department. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was formed (and later became the CIA), and the most unlikely of people were recruited to be trained as spies: librarians, historians, and literature professors.
Book and Dagger is undeniably well researched. It gives an in-depth account of the training required to work as OSS spies, and it provides detailed histories of individual spies and the varied work they performed in the field.
The book mostly centers on male spies, as records of female spies were scant or poorly written. "In memoirs that men wrote about the war years," writes Graham, "the names of women are, likewise, often absent—they're 'a shapely analyst,' say, or 'a woman from Harvard.'" Even so, Graham manages to includes information on some cunning, highly intelligent female spies, including Adele Kibre.
I picked up Book and Dagger hoping it would overflow with fascinating spy tactics and little-known historical facts about the invention of modern spycraft, and it did not disappoint.
It's hard to imagine, but during World War II, the U.S. did not yet have an intelligence department. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was formed (and later became the CIA), and the most unlikely of people were recruited to be trained as spies: librarians, historians, and literature professors.
Book and Dagger is undeniably well researched. It gives an in-depth account of the training required to work as OSS spies, and it provides detailed histories of individual spies and the varied work they performed in the field.
The book mostly centers on male spies, as records of female spies were scant or poorly written. "In memoirs that men wrote about the war years," writes Graham, "the names of women are, likewise, often absent—they're 'a shapely analyst,' say, or 'a woman from Harvard.'" Even so, Graham manages to includes information on some cunning, highly intelligent female spies, including Adele Kibre.
I picked up Book and Dagger hoping it would overflow with fascinating spy tactics and little-known historical facts about the invention of modern spycraft, and it did not disappoint.
October 25, 2024
This is a topic I have long been interested in, since a number of my undergraduate professors at Cincinnati were in the OSS or worked on breaking German and Japanese codes in Naval Intelligence. And one of the younger faculty liked to boast that he learned how to run doctoral oral exams doing counter-intelligence interrogations in the Korean War. Classicists and archaeologists get almost no attention from Graham; for that see Susan Heuck Allen, Classical Spies. Allen was a doctoral student of the late Jack Caskey at Cincinnati. Caskey ran spy boats from the Turkish coast to occupied Greece.
The book is an entertaining account of academics in the OSS. It is very Ivy focused; Graham concentrates heavily on Yale and Harvard professors, as does Robin Winks in Cloak and Gown, a work she uses extensively. Mostly history and literature professors: Joseph Toy Curtis (Yale) and Sherman Kent (Yale, called "the father of modern intelligence analysis") each get extensive attention. Graham is very interested in the use and analysis of information. Each chapter looks at some aspect of spying and the OSS, often focusing on one or two individuals: recruiting academics, training spies, information analysis for strategic intelligence, various operations. One of her final chapters covers the art and monuments units.
Graham's writing varies between academic lite and colloquial (occasionally gratingly so; perhaps a generational difference). She explains most technical matters. The book is well documented and draws heavily on archival sources. It works well as a serious popular history.
The book is an entertaining account of academics in the OSS. It is very Ivy focused; Graham concentrates heavily on Yale and Harvard professors, as does Robin Winks in Cloak and Gown, a work she uses extensively. Mostly history and literature professors: Joseph Toy Curtis (Yale) and Sherman Kent (Yale, called "the father of modern intelligence analysis") each get extensive attention. Graham is very interested in the use and analysis of information. Each chapter looks at some aspect of spying and the OSS, often focusing on one or two individuals: recruiting academics, training spies, information analysis for strategic intelligence, various operations. One of her final chapters covers the art and monuments units.
Graham's writing varies between academic lite and colloquial (occasionally gratingly so; perhaps a generational difference). She explains most technical matters. The book is well documented and draws heavily on archival sources. It works well as a serious popular history.
November 8, 2024
The book is not without its weaknesses. Some have commented about the writer making up possible scenarios to illustrate the history, but she was upfront about that at the beginning. Still, I found some of those off-putting and not quite helpful. There were times that things were repeated. But the book finishes very strongly, particularly in light of this week's 2024 US election. Others may find this more to their liking than I did.
Read
November 28, 2024DNF. I don't like it in non-fiction when the author makes up what people are thinking. (This is for all the characters, not just the women.)
Alternative:
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Alternative:
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
November 12, 2024
The second half was just a brief retread of topics I'd read about in depth in other books: operation mincemeat, monuments men, etc.
The author ran out of things to say about what I THOUGHT this book would be quite quite early on. Interesting of you aren't familiar, but not that interesting if you've read on the subjects already.
The author ran out of things to say about what I THOUGHT this book would be quite quite early on. Interesting of you aren't familiar, but not that interesting if you've read on the subjects already.
March 14, 2025
4.4 stars
January 17, 2025
The NY Times review is the best one I saw: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/24/bo...
Excerpt: The author "has set out to rescue some of the worker bees of intelligence from obscurity by exploring their contribution to victory in World War II. .... “This was also the historian’s war, the book collector’s war, the artist’s war,” she writes. “It was the professor’s war.”
The NYT review accurately describes the book's strengths and weaknesses. Read this one first. If it's paywalled, I'd be happy to email you a copy.
The book is scattershot and overlong. The speculative stuff didn't add value. This would have been a better book were it 100 pages or so shorter. But it's well worth reading (and occasionally skimming), if you are interested in he European part of WW2 and in military intelligence. For me this was a 3.5 star book. I skimmed the stuff I already knew. Recommended reading, with those caveats.
Excerpt: The author "has set out to rescue some of the worker bees of intelligence from obscurity by exploring their contribution to victory in World War II. .... “This was also the historian’s war, the book collector’s war, the artist’s war,” she writes. “It was the professor’s war.”
The NYT review accurately describes the book's strengths and weaknesses. Read this one first. If it's paywalled, I'd be happy to email you a copy.
The book is scattershot and overlong. The speculative stuff didn't add value. This would have been a better book were it 100 pages or so shorter. But it's well worth reading (and occasionally skimming), if you are interested in he European part of WW2 and in military intelligence. For me this was a 3.5 star book. I skimmed the stuff I already knew. Recommended reading, with those caveats.
March 11, 2025
Little known story of how OSS (before becoming CIA) recruited academics, professors, librarians during WW2 to become spies and gather intelligence against Nazis, by collecting information from newspapers, archives, propaganda, etc. Although author does repeat several already known stories about undercover operations from other books. Negative side effect of this was CIA would secretly fund many originally non-political universities for military research that would become controversial later.
November 6, 2024
I did not realize that we recruited librarians during World War 2 to be spies. Very interesting read!
November 10, 2025
It's really hard to rate this book. Parts of it were fascinating, other sections dry and obvious. The main problem is that not much is known about the actions of these spies, so long sections of the book are explaining how spying works in general, or totally made up. Credit where it's due, the author was always careful to explain where she was imagining what the person might have done, but it weakened the book a lot in my opinion. So, though I really enjoyed some of this and did learn something, it wasn't really successful for me. 3 stars, meaning I'm glad I read it but can't recommend it to everyone.
February 16, 2025
The author chose a relatively unexplored facet of World War II history - the role of scholars in the war effort, specifically as early recruits for the OSS (precursor to the CIA) who essentially created the discipline of intelligence analysis. It makes sense that scholars and researchers would be the perfect candidates to do the (somewhat tedious) work of reviewing and analyzing research gleaned from public sources - intelligence "hiding in plain sight". The author gives the brilliant example of the analysis team at OSS who wrote up a report (many hundreds of pages long) providing minute details of the railroads and other key strategic assets in North Africa ahead of the American invasion - sourced from publicly accessible documents like the Casablanca phone book (!).
The book starts by telling the stories of some of the individual professors, archivists, and book collectors who were recruited, some of whom were posted to neutral countries like Sweden and Turkey. The descriptions of society in neutral capitals like Istanbul and Stockholm was fascinating, with the various Axis and Allied powers all represented, and all spying on each other. The advantage for our scholar-spies posted there was that they had access to public sources, such as scientific journals, published in Germany and occupied Europe that were not available in the U.S. or Britain, including seemingly innocent, uninteresting newspaper stories that actually revealed critical details about German factories, shipping, etc. It was the job of the newly formed Research & Analysis division of the OSS to read all these publications, searching for that kind of information. Scholars were perfectly suited to the task.
I'm giving this book only a 3-star review, however, because the author strays from her initial focus on several scholars to tell a more overarching story of intelligence and counterintelligence in WWII. She goes into detail about Operation Mincemeat, sabotage in Norway, and the Ghost Wars of deception leading up to D-Day. Those stories have all been told many times, in great detail, and the author does herself a disservice by broadening her scope and trying to do too much. She has a whole chapter about D-Day and operations in Normandy, then, almost as an afterthought, pick up the thread of one of her original scholar subjects. I think this would have been a more focused story if she had stayed with the 3 or 4 key characters she had introduced at the beginning.
The book starts by telling the stories of some of the individual professors, archivists, and book collectors who were recruited, some of whom were posted to neutral countries like Sweden and Turkey. The descriptions of society in neutral capitals like Istanbul and Stockholm was fascinating, with the various Axis and Allied powers all represented, and all spying on each other. The advantage for our scholar-spies posted there was that they had access to public sources, such as scientific journals, published in Germany and occupied Europe that were not available in the U.S. or Britain, including seemingly innocent, uninteresting newspaper stories that actually revealed critical details about German factories, shipping, etc. It was the job of the newly formed Research & Analysis division of the OSS to read all these publications, searching for that kind of information. Scholars were perfectly suited to the task.
I'm giving this book only a 3-star review, however, because the author strays from her initial focus on several scholars to tell a more overarching story of intelligence and counterintelligence in WWII. She goes into detail about Operation Mincemeat, sabotage in Norway, and the Ghost Wars of deception leading up to D-Day. Those stories have all been told many times, in great detail, and the author does herself a disservice by broadening her scope and trying to do too much. She has a whole chapter about D-Day and operations in Normandy, then, almost as an afterthought, pick up the thread of one of her original scholar subjects. I think this would have been a more focused story if she had stayed with the 3 or 4 key characters she had introduced at the beginning.
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May 30, 2025This is the kind of WWII book that relies heavily on combing through secondary sources to pull out themes and information on one thing, and that can work or not work, depending on how interesting the thing the author's focusing on is (and how good they are at writing). I'm not the right audience for a book like this, to be honest; I've read too many of the secondary sources and I spend a lot of time hissing, "But you should also be citing [other source]!" And that's far from the point of books like these; they're about synthesis.
And the synthesis is interesting. Graham focuses on the scholars and librarians who were (by some accounts) the backbone of US intelligence during WWII. (The "by some accounts" is doing some heavy lifting there; I do really, really wish Graham had spent a bit more time acknowledging that for a lot of her chosen details, there are alternate versions.) I find this fascinating, and I did enjoy a lot of what Graham covered.
Reading this was a thoroughly grim experience, given *gestures at the US and the world*. And that's part of Graham's point, yes, and it's an important point, yes, and yet. I didn't love reading this. (And it's totally not the book's fault that it began a period of book drought so severe that I spent some time fearing I'd lost my love of reading entirely.)
And the synthesis is interesting. Graham focuses on the scholars and librarians who were (by some accounts) the backbone of US intelligence during WWII. (The "by some accounts" is doing some heavy lifting there; I do really, really wish Graham had spent a bit more time acknowledging that for a lot of her chosen details, there are alternate versions.) I find this fascinating, and I did enjoy a lot of what Graham covered.
Reading this was a thoroughly grim experience, given *gestures at the US and the world*. And that's part of Graham's point, yes, and it's an important point, yes, and yet. I didn't love reading this. (And it's totally not the book's fault that it began a period of book drought so severe that I spent some time fearing I'd lost my love of reading entirely.)
January 17, 2025
Wow, that's a LOT of information. This is a collection of facts behind the greatest spy stories of all time. It's really overwhelming and hard to get through, but very interesting.
September 29, 2024
This goodreads giveaway was very exciting to read and full of intrigue. Many Scholars and Librarians were recruited from American universities To work as undercover spies for the war effort by the OSS during WWII. This book reveals the more cryptic ways that were included in winning this war. From scholars to actors, historians to art connoisseurs and artists, mathematicians to physicists; these men and women had a lot to do with victory against Hitler without shedding any blood. I learned much about the contributions from civilians engaged in their stance against Hitler's tyranny, using the things they love to do, to outwit the Nazi regime and protect the military during their landing in Normandy.
November 4, 2024
There were multiple occasions where the author “imagined” scenarios and conversations. With all the primary source material available, I don’t understand why all the conjecture. It ended up reading more like a spy novel than a work of non-fiction. Some interesting points, but overall disappointing.
September 5, 2024
Not all spies wear tuxedos and drink martinis. This interesting and well written history explores the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, a precursor to the CIA) during the start of WWII. These intelligent officers came from the ranks of university professors, librarians and researchers who were skilled at finding information, largely in books. This scholarly group was also trained in more traditional spy skills: disguises, false identities/lying, and use of weapons for self preservation or assassination. Yes, nerds can rule in spy craft, too.
Read
January 18, 2025Mini Audiobook Review: *I do not rate NF books*
"What made a great spy wasn't gadgets; what made a great saboteur wasn't bombs. It was cleverness, cunning, an ability to believe in the power of small acts of rebellion.
I first came across this book while I was working at the library and thought "oh this sounds like it would be interesting". And I have to say this book was not for me. I probably should have DNF it but I was too stubborn for that.
It's not that I think the writing was terrible or anything like that. I could tell that the author did a lot of research and it was written brilliantly. But just the material and how much history was in this (yes I did know this going into it) and it was just something I was not interested in. I thought I would be but it ended up boring me.
So I think if you are a history buff and especially history during the WWII this would be great for you!!!
"What made a great spy wasn't gadgets; what made a great saboteur wasn't bombs. It was cleverness, cunning, an ability to believe in the power of small acts of rebellion.
I first came across this book while I was working at the library and thought "oh this sounds like it would be interesting". And I have to say this book was not for me. I probably should have DNF it but I was too stubborn for that.
It's not that I think the writing was terrible or anything like that. I could tell that the author did a lot of research and it was written brilliantly. But just the material and how much history was in this (yes I did know this going into it) and it was just something I was not interested in. I thought I would be but it ended up boring me.
So I think if you are a history buff and especially history during the WWII this would be great for you!!!
July 11, 2025
Full review here: https://dearstrangethings.substack.co...
October 16, 2024
Triumph of the nerds. Absolutely fascinating account of how intelligence gathering and analysis was revolutionized by academia during World War II by the UK and USA. Lots of characters and sea stories covering a lot of ground. Focused on European Theater. D- Day. Norway. The Ritchie Boys, Deception operations- absolutely masterful. Sweden. Art Unit and the Monuments Men. The CIA invested and sustained the Iowa Writers Workshop. Unknown to me the Monuments Men and Art Unit strenuously protested the removal of German art to America at the end of war and the government backed down.
October 23, 2025
Book and Dagger is as exciting as you'd expect a book about World War II spycraft to be, so that's a point in its favor. But this is no Ben MacIntyre book. The organization is shoddy, the focus is loose, and the stuff that's genuinely thrilling is basically a recap of a different, better book (and unrelated to the subtitle's focus).
If you're looking for those scholars and librarians, Elyse Graham essentially has three for you. The early portions of the book introduce the trio, then send them off to their wartime locales. These parts are interesting, though Graham leans heavily on made-up scenarios and dialogue to juice the excitement, which feel totally unnecessary.
Then, somewhat abruptly, we shift to the Norway infiltration of the Nazi heavy water factory. Thrilling! But, um, not really related to scholars and librarians. A later chapter covers Operation Mincemeat - also great spycraft, but no scholars or librarians in sight.
So, Book and Dagger ranges a bit more widely than the subtitle suggests, and these outside adventures aren't cleanly slotted into the actually scholar/librarian spywork. The book jumps around too much - you lose track of the overall war effort. It's all intermittently interesting, but maybe should have been a podcast, with individual episodes for individual capers.
If you're looking for those scholars and librarians, Elyse Graham essentially has three for you. The early portions of the book introduce the trio, then send them off to their wartime locales. These parts are interesting, though Graham leans heavily on made-up scenarios and dialogue to juice the excitement, which feel totally unnecessary.
Then, somewhat abruptly, we shift to the Norway infiltration of the Nazi heavy water factory. Thrilling! But, um, not really related to scholars and librarians. A later chapter covers Operation Mincemeat - also great spycraft, but no scholars or librarians in sight.
So, Book and Dagger ranges a bit more widely than the subtitle suggests, and these outside adventures aren't cleanly slotted into the actually scholar/librarian spywork. The book jumps around too much - you lose track of the overall war effort. It's all intermittently interesting, but maybe should have been a podcast, with individual episodes for individual capers.
July 31, 2024
A fascinating account of the secret OSS agents who have gone largely unnoticed behind the book stacks, cubicles and university offices. So many men and women assisted their country for the war effort putting themselves at great risk without any formal training. It would be an unheard of event today and it just goes to prove that sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword. Very readable story that will appeal to history buffs, spy novel readers and readers who are enjoying all the stories of brave women who served behind the lines and behind the scenes during WWII. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.
December 14, 2024
This was an extremely fascinating book and I enjoyed it very much. I also highly recommend it for a number of reasons.
I had never before come across the fact that during the early days of World War II, the US had no spy infrastructure whatsoever. I mean given the world we live in now it seems unfathomable that this could ever be allowed to be possible, especially in the US. But it was true, shocking as it was.
What will seem, to some, even more shocking, are the people the government recruited to become that spy infrastructure - librarians and other scholars. Yes, those tweed-jacket-wearing, nerdy, glasses-wearing and book-reading academics that anyone outside the academic world pays almost no attention to. And that, dear reader, was precisely the point!
The selfsame people who could walk through the world and do their business without anyone noticing or caring became the ones who could be in the countries, places and situations that the Allies desperately needed people in. These low-key, but incredibly intelligent and resourceful academics could go places, do things, and talk to people without arousing any suspicion, even in places where the Nazis in all their paranoia, were in control, because honestly, who pays any attention to what a librarian is doing?! Why would anyone care, right??
The stories of these people - both men and women - and how they creatively gathered information was a mesmerizing story and I learned so much. I do need to note for anyone who may be triggered that this is a story about World War II and the absolutely horrific things they did is touched on in this book. It isn't a major part of the book, but there are some disturbing situations described. Overall however, this book is a love letter to libraries, librarians and people who value and share learning, reading and being educated and inventive in how to use that learning.
I highly recommend this book. It is interesting and educational about a key point in history.
I had never before come across the fact that during the early days of World War II, the US had no spy infrastructure whatsoever. I mean given the world we live in now it seems unfathomable that this could ever be allowed to be possible, especially in the US. But it was true, shocking as it was.
What will seem, to some, even more shocking, are the people the government recruited to become that spy infrastructure - librarians and other scholars. Yes, those tweed-jacket-wearing, nerdy, glasses-wearing and book-reading academics that anyone outside the academic world pays almost no attention to. And that, dear reader, was precisely the point!
The selfsame people who could walk through the world and do their business without anyone noticing or caring became the ones who could be in the countries, places and situations that the Allies desperately needed people in. These low-key, but incredibly intelligent and resourceful academics could go places, do things, and talk to people without arousing any suspicion, even in places where the Nazis in all their paranoia, were in control, because honestly, who pays any attention to what a librarian is doing?! Why would anyone care, right??
The stories of these people - both men and women - and how they creatively gathered information was a mesmerizing story and I learned so much. I do need to note for anyone who may be triggered that this is a story about World War II and the absolutely horrific things they did is touched on in this book. It isn't a major part of the book, but there are some disturbing situations described. Overall however, this book is a love letter to libraries, librarians and people who value and share learning, reading and being educated and inventive in how to use that learning.
I highly recommend this book. It is interesting and educational about a key point in history.
July 14, 2025
A story of the hidden fighters of World War II who helped the Allies win the war: the nerds. The United States built an intelligence agency from scratch during WWII and used quintessential American ingenuity to do it, recruiting academics, librarians, and other scholars as spies and analysts to find the information that would give them an edge, and afterwards, to protect stolen art and treasures from falling into the wrong hands (including those of their own governments). Among these unexpected spies are immigrants and refugees, who offered their talents to their new homeland.
November 5, 2025
Found this to be a very enlightening book that revealed some of the many unsung/unknown “heroes” of WWII that aided in the defeat of the Third Reich and the Japanese during that period of history.
While the sacrifices, bravery and exploits of the various Allied countries’ armies, navies and air forces are well documented, heralded and remembered…there were a number of other groups of people that helped to increase their odds of success that may not receive the credit they deserve. This book does a wonderful job of shedding some light on these unlikely “warriors”, who used their unique skills, expertise and training to help the war effort in surprising ways. To think that scholarly experts (librarians, researchers, historians, linguists, economists, etc.) could be so vital to aiding in bringing a successful end to a such a terrible time must be a shock to many people.
This book is an eye-opener for those diminish/dismiss the value that “nerds” can bring to the table when people’s backs are up against a wall. In a world today that is focusing more and more on STEM based courses, while eliminating “Arts” based learning…people may want to step back and re-think the path we are heading down. Reading this book and understanding what these “fringe groups” actually provided to the war efforts, should serve as a reminder that people from ALL types of backgrounds are needed to be truly successful.
While the sacrifices, bravery and exploits of the various Allied countries’ armies, navies and air forces are well documented, heralded and remembered…there were a number of other groups of people that helped to increase their odds of success that may not receive the credit they deserve. This book does a wonderful job of shedding some light on these unlikely “warriors”, who used their unique skills, expertise and training to help the war effort in surprising ways. To think that scholarly experts (librarians, researchers, historians, linguists, economists, etc.) could be so vital to aiding in bringing a successful end to a such a terrible time must be a shock to many people.
This book is an eye-opener for those diminish/dismiss the value that “nerds” can bring to the table when people’s backs are up against a wall. In a world today that is focusing more and more on STEM based courses, while eliminating “Arts” based learning…people may want to step back and re-think the path we are heading down. Reading this book and understanding what these “fringe groups” actually provided to the war efforts, should serve as a reminder that people from ALL types of backgrounds are needed to be truly successful.
April 26, 2025
Although this writer is extremely talented and the topic is quite fascinating, she boldly attempts to meld non-fiction and historical fiction in a speculatively fun way but falls short. The endnotes are mixed with citations and text that could arguably be footnotes, being that there are also footnotes. The flipping back and forth to the endnotes and separating the added information from the citations was extremely annoying, took away focus from the book, and slowed me down. Even a dual bookmark system was vexing. The writer shows a lot of passion and has researched the topic in depth but ultimately has little to show for it.
August 27, 2025
Some fascinating anecdotes here, especially the bits about artists forging nontraditional things. I think she could have cut some of the speculative bits, or at least not led with those--what she does know is interesting enough.
Read
January 23, 2025Fascinating.
February 24, 2025
3.5
Interesting history, however the audio version is a a bit dry.
Interesting history, however the audio version is a a bit dry.
April 12, 2025
'm glad I borrowed this one from my library. It feels like an important time to read this.
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