Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
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.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Rachel Cooke. (2014). Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Rachel Cooke. 2014. Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Rachel Cooke, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties. HarperCollins, 2014.
MLA Citation (style guide)Rachel Cooke. Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties. HarperCollins, 2014.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 2 | 2 |
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/602/231/A6/{602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/602/231/A6/{602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062333889
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B00IZP4KA8
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062333889
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Rachel Cooke
- title
- Her Brilliant Career
- dateAdded
- 2014-12-19T16:34:22.183Z
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=1586435
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Her Brilliant Career Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties
- crossRefId
- 1586435
- subtitle
- Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties
- id
- 602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5
- starRating
- 3.9
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: HerBrilliantCareer_9780062333889_1586435
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 18674434
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062333889
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 1
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 12/2/2014
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/her-brilliant-career-602231?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: HerBrilliantCareer_1586435
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B00IZP4KA8
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 12/2/2014
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/her-brilliant-career-602231?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: HerBrilliantCareer_9780062333889_1586435
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062333889
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 12/2/2014
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/her-brilliant-career-602231?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Cooke, Rachel
- bioText:
Rachel Cooke is an award-winning journalist. She writes for The Observer and is the television critic for the New Statesman. This is her first book.
- name: Rachel Cooke
- imprint
- Harper Audio
- publishDate
- 2014-12-02T00:00:00-05:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Her Brilliant Career
- fullDescription
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.
- reviews
- premium: False
- source: Joanna Scutts, Washington Post
- content:
"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
"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
"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
"The lessons gleaned from these women of another era are timeless and relatable." — Natasha Awasthi, Fast Company
"The stories are insightful and crafted with care.... A satisfying read for anyone interested in narratives about women's lives in the early to mid-20th century." — Library Journal
"Rachel Cooke's Her Brilliant Career is that rare beast: a work of history as utterly enjoyable as it is important. Cooke writes with a novelist's authority, humor, and eye for detail and, in doing so, has crafted a history for the ages." — Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year
"Witty, intelligent, poignant, and exuberantly opinionated. Each life history is as rich and strange as a novel, and Cooke has a novelist's feeling for story. She never condescends to the past but enters into the conditions of these lives with sympathy and imagination. A superb book." — Tessa Hadley, author of Clever Girl
"Cooke's book provides a sparkling group of portraits that, taken together, cast the '50s in a new and modern light." — Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness
"Engrossing, entertaining and, yes, deliciously gossipy. Just as Eminent Victorians forever changed our view of the Victorian era, Her Brilliant Career demolishes the conventional wisdom of the fifties Woman. I, for one, will never think of this decade in the same way." — Elsa Walsh, author of Divided Lives: The Public and Private Struggles of Three American Women
"Mad men, move over! Her Brilliant Career is Rachel Cooke's intelligent, informative and gossipy proof that women in the 1950s were doing a lot more than taking dictation,...
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
September 1, 2014
Acclaimed journalist Cook’s first book is an extensively researched narrative of the lives of 10 remarkable women who managed successful careers in 1950s Britain. The author works in details of their careers in fields such as gardening, cooking, archaeology, architecture, filmmaking, and law, as well as all their setbacks and triumphs. She also tackles her subjects’ private lives head on—from romance and motherhood to love triangles, affairs, and heartbreak. While the book provides a full sense of their cultural milieux at the time, including the social circles they travelled in, current events, and contemporaries in their fields. The excessive amount of detail, however, often becomes distracting: is there really a need for commentary on the state of a lawyer’s mascara? Unnecessary descriptions of the lives of people with whom these women had only a passing acquaintance are also frequent. Overall this book provides a thorough picture of these women’s lives, but their characters are drowned by the flood of detail. B&w photos. Agent: Peter Straus, (U.K.).
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
July 1, 2014
A hit in Britain, where it reached Amazon UK's Top 100, this book profiles ten professional women from the 1950s who broke ground for the working women of the Sixties onward as feminism hit its stride. Among those featured: journalist/broadcaster Nancy Spain and Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter Muriel Box. The accent is English, but the stories should be fascinating, and there's special in-house love for this book.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
November 15, 2014
Writer and critic Cooke's (contributor The Observer; New Statesman) debut asks the question: What were the lives of professional women like in postwar Britain? Inspired by an antique Ercol sideboard, the author wonders at the ambitions of the women who strove to own such a piece. Turning to a collection of memoirs, diaries, letters, interviews, and first-hand accounts, Cooke recalls the lives of ten women whose work had an impact on the way we think of modern film, architecture and landscaping, cooking, and even law--despite their names being relatively unknown today. Journalism/broadcaster Nancy Spain and Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter Muriel Box are among those featured. The stories are insightful and crafted with care; foregoing the nostalgia and idealization that often colors how we imagine the roles of women in the Fifties. The experiences described are anything but ordinary, though these women are not necessarily the feminist trailblazers some readers may expect to find. Cooke makes no assumptions regarding her subjects' attitudes and presents a balanced account that considers their personal and public lives. VERDICT A satisfying read for anyone interested in narratives about women's lives in the early to mid-20th century. [See Prepub Alert, 6/8/14.]--Gricel Dominguez, Florida International Univ. Lib.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- popularity
- 89
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/602231a6-b968-4aae-8252-fe3f588db7b5/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 602231a6-b968-4aae-8252-fe3f588db7b5
- starRating
- 3.9
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/602/231/A6/{602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/602/231/A6/{602231A6-B968-4AAE-8252-FE3F588DB7B5}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Biography & Autobiography
- value: History
- value: Sociology
- value: Nonfiction
- publishDateText
- 12/02/2014
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062333872
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
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...
- sortTitle
- Her Brilliant Career Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties
- crossRefId
- 1586435
- subtitle
- Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties
- publisher
- HarperCollins
- bisacCodes
- code: BIO022000
- description: Biography & Autobiography / Women
- code: HIS054000
- description: History / Social History
- code: SOC010000
- description: Social Science / Feminism & Feminist Theory
