Jean Batten

Author: Jean Batten
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781906393199
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
Jean Batten was born in Rotorua, New Zealand and developped a love for aviation from an early age. Her father did not approve of her love of flying and she and her mother moved to London in order to pursue her dream of becoming a pilot. Jean received her license at the London Aeroplane Club at Stag Lane and began planning for a flight from England to Australia to surpass the Amy Johnson's record. After two failed attempts, she succeeded in 1934, flying a Gipsy Moth and became a great hero in Australia, New Zealand and England. In 1935 she broke James Mollison's records for England to Brazil and Dakar to Natal and became the first woman to fly solo across the South Atlantic. She also shared a Harmon Trophy with Amelia Earhart in 1935. In 1937 she set another record for an Australia to England flight both ways. During World War II Jean Batten gave up flying and eventually became a recluse, living with her mother in Majorca, Spain and appearing in public only for a few events. She died in obscurity in Majorca in 1982. The international terminal at Auckland Airport is named in her honor.

The Infinite Air

Author: Fiona Kidman
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited
ISBN: 1869797930
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
A superbly written novel offering an intriguing interpretation of one of the world’s greatest aviators, the glamorous and mysterious Jean Batten. Jean Batten became an international icon in the 1930s. A brave, beautiful woman, she made a number of heroic solo flights across the world. The newspapers couldn’t get enough of her; and yet she suddenly slipped out of view, disappearing to the Caribbean with her mother and dying in obscurity in Majorca, buried in a pauper’s grave. Fiona Kidman’s enthralling novel delves into the life of this enigmatic woman, probing mysteries and crafting a fascinating exploration of early flying, of mothers and daughters, and of fame and secrecy.

Great Circle

Author: Maggie Shipstead
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0525656979
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 609

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • The unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator determined to chart her own course in life, at any cost: an “epic trip—through Prohibition and World War II, from Montana to London to present-day Hollywood—and you’ll relish every minute” (People). After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There--after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes--Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates--and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times--collide. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art, and a tremendous leap forward for the prodigiously gifted Maggie Shipstead.

My Life

Author: Jean Batten
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aeronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description

Astonish Me

Author: Maggie Shipstead
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307962911
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
From the bestselling author of Great Circle—for years Joan has been trying to forget her past, to find peace and satisfaction in her role as wife and mother. Few in her drowsy California suburb know her thrilling history: as a young American ballerina in Paris, she fell into a doomed, passionate romance with Soviet dance superstar Arslan Rusakov. After playing a leading role in his celebrated defection, Joan bowed out of the spotlight for good, heartbroken by Arslan and humbled by her own modest career. But when her son turns out to be a ballet prodigy, Joan is pulled back into a world she thought she'd left behind—a world of dangerous secrets, of Arslan, and of longing for what will always be just out of reach. “The inner lives of [Shipstead’s] characters feel as real and immediate as the shifting settings they inhabit: still-gritty mid-1970s Manhattan, shabbily elegant Paris, the sunbaked suburban sprawl of Southern California.” —Entertainment Weekly

Seating Arrangements

Author: Maggie Shipstead
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307958574
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • The irresistible story of a summer New England wedding weekend gone awry—a deliciously biting satirical glimpse into the lives of the well-bred and ill-behaved, from the New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle. The Van Meters have gathered at their family retreat on the island of Waskeke to celebrate the marriage of daughter Daphne—seven months pregnant—to the impeccably appropriate Greyson Duff. The weekend is full of champagne, salt air and practiced bonhomie, but long-buried discontent and simmering lust stir beneath the surface. Winn Van Meter, father of the bride, is not having a good time. Barred from the exclusive social club he’s been eyeing since birth, he’s also tormented by an inappropriate crush on Daphne’s beguiling bridesmaid, Agatha, and the fear that his daughter, Livia—recently heartbroken by the son of his greatest rival—is a too-ready target for the wiles of Greyson’s best man. When old resentments, a beached whale and an escaped lobster are added to the mix, the wedding that should have gone off with military precision threatens to become a spectacle of misbehavior.

Sky High

Author: David;Morris Hill
Publisher: Puffin Books
ISBN: 9780143770367
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Book Description
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Good Boy

Author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
Publisher: Celadon Books
ISBN: 1250261864
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
From bestselling author of She’s Not There, New York Times opinion columnist, and human rights activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs, a memoir of the transformative power of loving dogs. This is a book about dogs: the love we have for them, and the way that love helps us understand the people we have been. It’s in the love of dogs, and my love for them, that I can best now take the measure of the child I once was, and the bottomless, unfathomable desires that once haunted me. There are times when it is hard for me to fully remember that love, which was once so fragile, and so fierce. Sometimes it seems to fade before me, like breath on a mirror. But I remember the dogs. In her New York Times opinion column, Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote about her relationship with her beloved dog Indigo, and her wise, funny, heartbreaking piece went viral. In Good Boy, Boylan explores what should be the simplest topic in the world, but never is: finding and giving love. Good Boy is a universal account of a remarkable story: showing how a young boy became a middle-aged woman—accompanied at seven crucial moments of growth and transformation by seven memorable dogs. “Everything I know about love,” she writes, “I learned from dogs.” Their love enables us to pull off what seem like impossible feats: to find our way home when we are lost, to live our lives with humor and courage, and above all, to best become our true selves.

Sigh, Gone

Author: Phuc Tran
Publisher: Flatiron Books
ISBN: 1250194725
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature. In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age memoir told through the themes of great books such as The Metamorphosis, The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, and more, Tran navigates the push and pull of finding and accepting himself despite the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, and teenage rebellion, all while attempting to meet the rigid expectations set by his immigrant parents. Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man’s bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the ‘80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes—and ultimately saves—him.

Alone in the Sky

Author: Jean Batten
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aeronautics
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
The author's account of her early years, how she learned to fly. She also discusses the hardships and dangers faced by the early aviators.