from description: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb.
Some of the information was already familiar to me because I've read a lot of WWII nonfiction, but not in the same detail.
I knew about the attempts to sabotage the Venmorck Heavy Water facility in Norway to prevent the Germans from gaining access to heavy water for nuclear experiments, but not how many on died on the original British attempt or any details about Operation Grouse and the unbelievable hardships of the Norwegian team.
I knew about Marie Curie, but not that she was asked not to attend the ceremony for her second Nobel Prize for moral reasons--because after the death of her husband, she was having an affair with a married scientist. She attended anyway.
And I had no idea about her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie and her husband Frederick Joliot-Curie's experiments, their connection to heavy water, and Frederick's work with the Resistance.
I knew about Moe Berg, the baseball catcher turned spy, but not about the details of his career and that during baseball's off seasons, he attended the Sorbonne and graduated from Princeton and Columbia Law School. Casey Stengel called him "the strangest man ever to play baseball."
I knew almost nothing about the scientists involved other than the most famous names, but all of these men and women came alive as real people, not just historical footnotes.
Although I had some quibbles about the author insertions in parentheticals or italics, the book was easy to read, fascinating, and informative. Many missions failed or missed, and the book doesn't present any of these individuals as comic book heroes or paragons, many of them had no background in clandestine activities and were eccentric in one way or another, but each one played a vital role in helping prevent Germany achieving nuclear power.
Read in May. Blog review scheduled for June 23.
NetGalley/Little, Brown, & Co
Nonfiction/WWII. July 9, 2019. Print length: 464 pages.
Sounds like a fascinating read. I never knew Irene Joliet-Curie was also a nobel-winning scientist until I read a book about her mother earlier this year. What an interesting family they were!
ReplyDeleteThey were an interesting family and so sad that their contributions led to both Marie and Irene's deaths. The part Irene and her husband played in WWII as scientists and for Frederick's work with the Resistance was a complete surprise to me.
DeleteI've read a good bit of WWII nonfiction in the last couple of years but this one is going places I know almost nothing about. Sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt has flaws, but the information was fascinating. What a strange group of people were played their parts.
DeleteI tried reading Keane's Disappearing Spoon but his writing jumped all over the place & as you commented, his parenthetical comments were distracting, as well as his gossipy style. Maybe it was the topic - chemistry - that I couldn't follow very well!
ReplyDeleteThis one sounds more readable & I generally love anything WW2. Found your blog via Ruthiella @ Booked for Life.
Although I had plenty of quibbles about the style, I loved learning more about the people involved and more about some of the operations I'd read about elsewhere. Thanks for visiting, Carol!
DeleteAuthor insertion in non-fiction is tricky, for sure. I remember having a bit of trouble with the otherwise excellent Devil in the White City by Eric Larson when he would surmise what a figure "might have been thinking".
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds fascinating and proves the adage that the truth is stranger than fiction!
I found the parenthetical author comments distracting and annoying, but the
Deletepersonal information about the people involved and the more in depth detail about certain incidents was worth it. :)