Review
I had a dream about
Code Name Verity last night. In it, I was not flying dangerous missions during World War II like Maddie - an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot. Nor was the Gestapo in occupied France interrogating me like Queenie - a Special Operations Executive spy. I was simply myself, with all of the details of Maddie and Queenie's story careening through my head. Details like how hard it is to land a Lysander aircraft when the tailplane controls are gone, how unfathomably painful it is to be burned with a cigarette while being held in prison, and how incredibly unique the friendship is between Maddie, a working-class English pilot and Queenie, an upper-class Scottish spy.
Code Name Verity begs to be read not once but twice. The first time because it is such a captivating story, and the second to catch all its brilliant clues.
I truly think I was...
Beyond the Book
It's called an Eterpen, a truly wonderful thing, no messy ink to refill and it dries instantly. He said they have ordered 30,000 of them for the RAF to use in the air (for navigation calculations) and a grateful RAF officer recently smuggled out of France had given one of the samples to Peter, who'd given it to the sergeant, who gave it to Maddie. ...Maddie was ridiculously pleased with her pen.
The gift that Maddie was so pleased to receive was, of course, the new and exciting ballpoint pen. László Bíró invented the first commercially viable ballpoint pen in 1938. Other attempts had...
