Welcome to Litsy!

This book tells the story of the remarkable contribution made by the women of the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasedena, CA. The story begins in the late 30‘s and goes through the Mars rover missions of the early 2000‘s. Their perseverance was extraordinary and the calculations they performed at lightening speed by hand were invaluable to both our defense and future space exploration. Wonderful book!

#QuotsyJan20 #satellite
This book has been on my Kindle #TBR stack for ages. JPL is NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The satellite mentioned is Sputnik & I found the old photo online—you can see the “trail” of the satellite behind the words.🛰

I listened to the audio and my interest came and went. What I paid attention to was interesting. As we got closer to current times, with my (for a while) interest in astronomy, it was fun to read about some of those space missions that I remember

#AyupAugust
I am not familiar with this song but when I read #SleepingSatellite was about the Apollo missions of the 1960s & the moon & sung by a woman, these three titles came to mind. I shelved them all after watching The Astronaut Wives Club tv series & Hidden Figures movie but can‘t seem to get around to finishing all the books. 📚📚📚😬🛰🌚🚀🛸📚📚📚📚

#readingwomenchallenge
Featuring a woman in science
16 of 26 completed

I did go to crossfit this morning, but weeding this row of peppers totally kicked my butt more! Love me some audiobooks - hate me some bindweed! Now we have happy peppers! 😀🌶💪
#bookfitnesschallenge #BFCr2 #booknerdherd

You know you read too many books when ... you see a book that looks really interesting, so you check it out. You read a bit of it and it seems kind of familiar, but it‘s not on your library history, so maybe you haven‘t read it? You read more and yep, you‘ve already read it. That‘s when you realize you‘ve read so many books that this one has scrolled off your library history.

The tagged book is today‘s #AudibleDailyDeal and the other three are all on sale today! #BookHaul #Audible

A perfect book 2 for #24in48 bringing me to 5 hours. This was a wonderful story about women and math and space.
Now it‘s time for some Agatha Christie. 😊

Ran errands with my audiobook and moving into hour three with this book and some chicken and dumplings! I wanted to be further along by now, but oh well. #24in48

In a weird, allergy-ish fog, which is slowing down my reading, but someone decided to be nice and be my #24in48 buddy. 😻

I found this book interesting, even through the more scientific parts. But it really followed the careers of all the great minds at JPL, men and women. The author put added emphasis on the lives of the women, Barbara and Helen especially, but I think it missed the mark of its subtitle, "The WOMEN who propelled us..." I admire Caltech and JPL for hiring more women, especially Jinez, one of the first black women to be hired in aeronautical science.

5 | #SeptemberDanes

I take #RocketBrothers and raise it with Rocket Girls 🚀

Such a fascinating read about the super clever women who worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab and helped get the US into space💥

Wowzer! I am so thrilled with these wonderful #Sockswap accoutrements! The socks are definitely going to conference with me next week! I don't think the chocolate will last that long, despite my doctor's nagging voice in my head. The candle is divinely delicious. And the book fulfills my inner nerd, which always wants more! Thank you so much, @LadyChristy, for a perfect box of reading bliss.💗💗💗🤗

I am not sure if this book really counts as a #microhistory but I am counting it for the #popsugarreadingchallenge.
Really enjoyed this book about the women who paved the way as engineers early in America's space program. #womenshistorymonth #pop18 #nonfictionchallenge18 @Riveted_Reader_Melissa

Women's History Month reading. 🤓 🚀

This tea infuser 🍵🚀❤️

Biggest understatement of my day: “ it was important that the ship didn‘t crash into Mars.”

4.3 stars! I really enjoyed this! It was truly inspirating and amazing! The author manager to breathe life into the heroine. I loved it!

#riseoftherocketgirls #nathaliaholt #septread #nonfiction #science #biography #history #feminism #space

What an inspiring story! While the writing wasn't the greatest and often times felt disjointed and jumbled to me, I fell in love with the stories of these women. This quote by Macie is really quite fitting. Working crazy hours, raising families and sending rockets into space. Those are some incredible people. #litsyreadingchallenge #lrc2 #litsyatoz

My favorite thing about being the first one up on weekends is being able to sit and read for a couple of hours with the justification that I'm being quiet so others can sleep in. 😁😇 Happy Weekend, Littens!

Starting this with one of my trusty sidekicks. Happy Caturday, Littens! #lennox #catsoflitsy #litsyreadingchallenge #lrc2 #litsyatoz

Finally a Bingo curtesy of Shirley Jackson and Rory Gilmore!! Super excited to start Rise of the Rocket Girls! #litsyreadinchallenge

This was REALLY good. It was engaging. Holt is a great story teller. These women were amazing and so inspiring. #readwomen #womeninscience

Halfway through this and so much better than hidden figures which I found to be very dry out of the two books about the same subject matter I'm enjoying this one more

Coffee and a book, what more can you ask for? ☕️✨-
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I really want to purchase this book. What's better than women in science and some ass kicking intellegence?!

I love stories like this one. Its just what I need to keep me going sometimes. Women had been working and doing far more than they were given credit for in our history classes. I've been enamored with women's stories for a while now and this is a great addition to any list that includes women of science or technology or both.

Okay, I'm going to have to put this one down. The story itself is good, but the audiobook reader leaves much to be desired and there are some quirks with the writing that I find irritating. That's the downside of being a writer---finding annoying things in other people's writing to the point where it's hard to enjoy the story!

I had to work 11.5 hours today, but at least I got to listen to an hour of the audiobook on my lunch break today.

I'm loving all the books where women are finally written into history, as they should've been from the beginning. Our contributions matter: yesterday, today, tomorrow, and always. ❤️📚❤️

Captures the excitement of the Space Race and the huge contributions of women. It is slow in the middle.

Salmon, rice, veggies, and margarita. The Kindle was too bright, so I had to move it out of the shot! Also their internet was down, so I had to concentrate on eating instead of posting. 😉 I'm enjoying the book so far. #readandeat #marchintoreading @RealLifeReading

This book was so fascinating. This history of both the American space program and the social history surrounding the women who basically built it was just so interesting. I never really cared much about space but this made it much more interesting. Less narrative than I'd expected and more scientific, but I'm easy terms for us lay-folk. #readwomen #womenshistory #nonfiction

Hope to get to all of these this weekend. I've got so much going on lately that a weekend of reading feels decadent. My reading buddy has come to offer his support.

Back when America was great? #the50s #womenswork

Probably the most fascinating stuff so far is what society was like for these women in the 40s and 50s.

This book is so good and super interesting but I'm exhausted and reading is making me fall asleep. Wah!! Reading on my bed doesn't help. 😲😲😴😴📖🚀

Two #kobo book hauls today

Tonight's book signing 🤓

I nearly 1/6th of the blanket done, thanks to #audiostitching I've never shown an actual completed panel, so I figured I'd show a grouping.

I'm currently listening to the tagged book and enjoying it a great deal. It's like the code breakers at Bletchley, all the number stuff was done by large groups of women focused on projects for little pay (compared to their male counterpart) and faced with some misogyny.

🚀 Now available in paperback! 🚀

An extraordinary look at the women mathematicians and computers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from the beginning in the 1940s to present. So much interesting history-successes and failures. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #readersunite

Look at those ears! Mogwai is like - why are you surrounding me with books?! I can't choose between- The Silence of the Library, (upper left), Rise of the Rocket Girls, or The Weaver. All are on my #LitsyAtoZ challenge list. I'm leaning towards Rocket Girls. #catsoflitsy #petsoflitsy 😻❤📚???

My library didn't have Hidden Figures, but it did have this. Ladies and space! 🌠🌠🚀🚀

Computers are just like wearing shoes. You need them when you are walking on gravel, but they don't get you across the gravel.
- Harold Masursky

This is probably the best story ever! Grace Hopper is my hero!

Hope everyone had a marvelous Christmas and/or a great weekend! I'm continuing my list of #2016favorites with The Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt. A fascinating story about the women computers involved in the development of the space program. (Also don't miss Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shatterly if you're interested in this. It provides more of a big picture while Rocket Girls provides more details on the day to day.)

True badassery is women operating as "human computers" to calculate the effectiveness of rocket propellant!

"...and held in my hands raw data that shimmered with beauty."

Yaaasssssss

I presented part 2 of AudioFile's best 2016 #audiobooks in biography and history today. Did I mention that the magazine is doing a giveaway of 6 months of free audiobooks? Here's the link to my post if you care to take a look http://www.bethfishreads.com/2016/12/audiofiles-best-audiobooks-in-biography_13....

I love that I live in a city that takes science seriously! Although there are several science authors at the Festival of Books every year, I'm most looking forward to hearing Nat Holt!