Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir That Inspired " Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Downton Abbey", by Margaret Powell

Fascinating social history. This wonderful memoir was so well written, and gave an incredible look into what being a kitchenmaid and then a cook in grand houses in between-the-wars England was really like. The humiliations and depravations were many, but Powell's clear writing gives a bigger picture of what it was like to see the end of an era of upstairs/downstairs, and her unusual clarity of thought and original ideas made her as interesting as the greater picture she painted.  

Made in Detroit, by Paul Clemens

Interesting memoir, but not as good as I hoped it would be.

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, by Melanie Rehak

Fantastic book about Harriet Stratmeyer, the heiress to the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the writing company behind so many of the popular 20th c. children's series, including the Bobbsy Twins, The Dana Girls, The Hardy Boys, and more, and about Mildred Wirt Benson, the woman who wrote most of the "original 56" Nancy Drew books.
This was wonderfully done, and as much as it was biography, it was also social history, looking at how women's changing role through the 20th century was mirrored by the lives of these extraordinary women.

Double Stars, by Padma Venkatraman

I very much wanted to enjoy this.

Venkatraman is an astonishingly accomplished woman, and I can see why she would be drawn to the story of Caroline Herschel, one of the first female astronomers.

I felt like maybe there wasn't enough original material to truly flesh out the story, as so many of the primary source quotes were so very dry, and the photos included in the book seemed arbitrary and were kind of startlingly offputting.

I can see how this story could have made for fantastic historical fiction, but as nonfiction, it read very dry to me. I must say that I can hardly wait to read her novel, Climbing the Stairs, when it comes out.

Double Stars

Quality: 6 Popularity: 3 Overall: 9 YA

Time Out For Happiness, by Frank Gilbereth Jr.

Another fascinating book about the Gilbreth family, but this one a little more serious than Cheaper by the Dozen or Belles on Their Toes.

In this book, Frank Jr. writes more seriously about the theories of scientific management that his parents developed, and even more seriously about how hard Lillian Gilbreth had to work in order to be taken seriously as an expert in the field in her own right.

In one painful story, she had been asked to address the Association of Mechanical Engineers, as a keynote speaker- a great honor- but was not allowed to enter the building - the society had failed to check if the club where the meeting was held allowed women inside. It did not, and despite her being the keynote speaker, she was denied entrance.

Many anecdotes were recycled from the previous books, but this one had a more reflective tone, and allows that for all the fun, that the 11 surviving Gilbreths might have been a little busy and crowded!

And once again, I ended this book with tears streaming down my face. Sometimes genuine warmth can just knock you off your feet.

Time Out For Happiness (Out of print, used copies available)

Quality: 9 Popularity: 6 Overall: 15

Belles on Their Toes, by Ernestine and Frank Gilbreth

Oh, what a treat. This was a re-read, and I loved it. When I was 12 or so I think I read Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes over and over and over. About a year ago I found a yard sald copy of Cheaper By The Dozen (with awful movie-tie-in cover- Hillary Duff- spare me) and it went into serious bath-reading rotation, so I was really pleased to get ahold of Belles On Their Toes, the sequel.

After Frank Gilbreth dies, his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth steps into his shoes running their motion-study business, and their 11 children (Anne, at 18, is the eldest) have to run the household while she tours Europe giving speeches trying to convince the world that a woman can run an engineering consulting firm in the 1920s.

I love these books, the detail and the sense of time and place- the slang, the wet smacks and ukeleles, the flappers, and Martha's big scene at the beach where she refuses to wear a 2 piece bathing dress anymore- I love the way the boys coach Jane into being a bobby-soxer rather than a vamp, I love the warmth of these stories. I cried like a baby at the end- literally sitting there howling. It is so lovely to read something that was clearly written to tell people a good story- a real, loving story- rather than all these freaking message-y youth in crisis stuff I've been reading.

Belles on Their Toes

Quality: 10 Popularity: 8 Overall: 18