Book Club: V2 by Robert Harris

SYNOPSIS

ON A bitterly cold Saturday morning in November 1944, Dr Rudi Graf is supervising the launch of the German army’s devastating new rocket – the V2.

Since his childhood, Rudi has been passionate about rocket science and all that the subject entails; now he is forced to use his learning and passion in the service of the Nazis. The rocket is aimed at London’s Charing Cross.

Four minutes later, 24-year-old WAAF, Kay Connelly, an English intelligence officer, is emerging from bed after a tryst with her married lover, Air Commodore Mike Templeton, when the V2 strikes its target, throwing her to the ground and trapping Mike in the debris and rubble. Kay is posted to Belgium on secondment in a desperate bid to locate the launch sites and neutralise the threat.

Robert Harris’s compelling account of the desperate duel between the men who invented the V2 rockets, and the young women photographic analysts who worked tirelessly to locate and destroy their deadly invention, was inspired by the memoirs of former WAAF Eileen Younghusband.

Appendage:

Arts, Books, Education

Book Club: ‘Re-Educated’ by Lucy Kellaway

SYNOPSIS

IF YOU’VE come to a certain point in your life where you realise something is missing, then this dazzling, life-affirming book is for you.

Lucy was a celebrated columnist and frequent broadcaster, when at 57 – and to all appearances happy and successful – she decided she wanted something else.

With four grown-up children she gave up her job, her marriage, and a six-figure salary to retrain as a maths teacher in a tough inner-city comprehensive. And, on the way, she co-founded the educational charity Now Teach for those wishing to change career.

Many did. This wonderful, at times funny book, is a celebration of the power of education, as well as the ability of any of us to transform our lives and start out again.

It also proves that if you are well-off, well-educated, well-connected and middle class you can do more or less anything you set your mind to.