Sooner than expected, here’s my report on the book I picked for Challenge #13 “Read a nonfiction book about technology.”
Since the text on the image is so small, let me spell out the full title of the book: Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. (And yes, that is a torpedo she’s sitting on on the cover.)
I admit that through the first few chapters, I was worried that it might not count as a book “about technology,” as those early chapters were pretty much standard biography of Hedy Lamarr (or rather of Hedwig Kiesler, who would later adopt the stage name of Hedy Lamarr), and her co-inventor George Antheil, a composer and author. Then it got to the part where they were actually working on their invention, and suddenly it was absolutely all about technology. In fact, it completely glossed over the rest of Hedy’s life in maybe five or six pages. (Of her six husbands, the book only named two. Or was it three? Yeah, it was three, but still! It did mention that she had had six, but didn’t see any need to go into details.)
