Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties - Hardcover

Cooke, Rachel

3.36

294 ratings by Goodreads

9780062333865: Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062333860 ISBN 13: 9780062333865

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2014

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An exuberant group biography--"a splendidly various collection of 'brief lives' written with both gusto and sensitivity" (The Guardian)--that follows ten women in 1950s Britain whose pioneering lives paved the way for feminism and laid the foundation of modern women's success.

In Her Brilliant Career, Rachel Cooke goes back in time to offer an entertaining and iconoclastic look at ten women in the 1950s--pioneers whose professional careers and complicated private lives helped to create the opportunities available to today's women. These plucky and ambitious individuals--among them a film director, a cook, an architect, an editor, an archaeologist, a race car driver--left the house, discovered the bliss of work, and ushered in the era of the working woman.

Daring and independent, these remarkable unsung heroines--whose obscurity makes their accomplishments all the more astonishing and relevant --loved passionately, challenged men's control, made their own mistakes, and took life on their own terms, breaking new ground and offering inspiration. Their individual portraits gradually form a landscape of 1950s culture, and women's unique--and rapidly evolving--role.

Before there could be a Danica Patrick, there had to be a Sheila van Damm; before there was Barbara Walters, there was Nancy Spain; before there was Kathryn Bigelow, came Muriel Box. The pioneers of Her Brilliant Career forever changed the fabric of culture, society, and the work force.

This is the Fifties, retold: vivid, surprising and, most of all, modern.

Her Brilliant Career is illustrated with more than 80 black-and-white photographs.

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Review:

"Cooke is one of the outstanding British journalists of her generation."--Sebastian Faulks

"Cooke's droll, pressing style is what binds the stories together; no sooner do we embark than we know we will not be disappointed, though every portrait is different, every life depicted complex and, at times, startling."--Barbara Bamberger Scott, Bookreporter.com

"Reveals the challenges, failures, triumphs and sex lives of those who came of age during World War II by defying society's expectations...The men and women, loves and losses that shaped them are a fascinating reminder of how the choices we make both imprison and free us."--Patty Rhule, USA Today

"A gallery of vividly drawn portraits--witty, poignant, inspiriting--that opens up a new front in our understanding of the 'lost' Fifties."--David Kynaston, author of Modernity Britain

"Eloquent, concise, fair-minded, witty and elegant."--The Independent

"Lively.... Cooke offers up a "sly kind of feminism" with this collection of rule-breakers and role models...What shines through in these intimate stories is Cooke's respect for her subjects' shared attitude of 'derring-do'."--Joanna Scutts, Washington Post

"In a series of engaging, gossipy essays, filled with sharp observations, she examines the lives of 10 very different women.... It's clever and amusing, a series of sketches that provide a revealing glimpse into the culture of 1950s Britain."--Moira Hodgson, Wall Street Journal

"Both entertaining and touching.... It's Cooke's intention to "make people reconsider the 'lost' decade between the war and feminism" and to "pull the reader along" with these tales of "derring-do." She succeeds on every count."--Buzzy Jackson, Boston Globe

"Shines a new light in an elegantly original way into the 1950s.... A very enjoyable and distinctive book."--Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life

"I always thought of British women of the sixties as cultural pioneers, but I had no idea how fascinating and accomplished--how daring and tough--were the women of the decade before. Thank you, Rachel Cooke, for stylishly adding a chapter to this provincial American's personal women's studies curriculum."--Sheila Weller, author of Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon-and the Journey of a Generation

Book Description:

A witty and touching account of ten inspirational figures that makes us reconsider conventional ideas of the fifties woman.

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