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Agent Sonya
Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy | Ben Macintyre
11 posts | 6 read | 2 reading | 9 to read
The master storyteller (San Francisco Chronicle) behind the New York Times bestseller The Spy and the Traitor uncovers the true story behind the Cold Wars most intrepid female spy. In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her. They didnt know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didnt know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb. This true-life spy story is a masterpiece about the woman code-named Sonya. Over the course of her career, she was hunted by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Nazis, MI5, MI6, and the FBIand she evaded them all. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the twentieth centurybetween Communism, Fascism, and Western democracyand casts new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times. With unparalleled access to Sonyas diaries and correspondence and never-before-seen information on her clandestine activities, Ben Macintyre has conjured a page-turning history of a legendary secret agent, a woman who influenced the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a decades-long standoff between nuclear superpowers.
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jenniferw88
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@TheDaysGoBy just had a quick look through my LibraryThing tags for you - no non-fiction civil war books that I've read that I can recommend, but can recommend this author for WW2!

TheDaysGoBy Thank you so much for the recs! I really appreciate it! I don‘t think I realized how much spy stuff there is in relation to WWII lol 1y
36 likes1 comment
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EmilieGR
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Pickpick

Macintyre has a way of breathing life into every historical person he writes about. Though “Sonya‘s” wartime adventures are not as thrilling as some others he‘s written about, you can still feel her personality shine through. Macintyre‘s sympathetic and wonderful storytelling ability make his books hard to put down.

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TheEllieMo
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I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new. Don‘t judge me - I have a lot of books. Join the fun if you want.
This is day 165
#BooksToRead #TBRPile #TBRMountain

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KatieB
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“In spite of this discovery...” 😂😂

Suet624 That‘s hysterical. 3y
11 likes1 comment
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Erynecki
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Pickpick

The housewife who was a spy. Not a femme fatale, but a Soviet spy who balanced her espionage activities in China, Poland, Switzerland, and the UK with the demands of being a mother to her three young children by three different fathers. A committed communist who thrilled at passing along state secrets. Devoted to the cause and the excitement of being a spy she willingly overlooked a great deal at the expense of her family, friends, and loved ones.

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Jeg
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Pickpick

My reading has slowed down some what and my aim this year is to read less books and remember more!!! This was my first read for this year. Fascinating and informative. Almost unbelievable. What a woman. Very well researched . I heard Ben interviewed that is what prompted me to get the book. Glad I did.
#joysbooks2021
@MrsMalaprop

14 likes2 stack adds1 comment
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Darthdad
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Just started Agent Sonya. Really fascinating premise to this book. This is a nonfiction spy thriller about a Russian spy, a woman code named Agent Sonya, helped to steal atomic secrets from the west. Opening paragraph to the third chapter was especially good.

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Floresj
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Pickpick

This was a great book!! Two thoughts: 1. I want to go to spy school. I don‘t want to maybe be arrested, tortured or murdered, but living in many different countries, knowing multiple languages, meeting all these people and assembling a radio in my home sounds pretty bad ass. 2. After reading about how Ursula changed history, lived all over the world, etc, I‘m just now sure I‘m living my life to the fullest.

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rabbitprincess
Pickpick

Another great book by Ben Macintyre. Glad that he brought Agent Sonya‘s story to light—it‘s refreshing to read about female spies for a change 😉

Darthdad I walked through Barnes and noble last week while my wife was at her hair appointment and came across this book. Very high on my TBR list 3y
rabbitprincess @Darthdad It was great! I hope you like it when you get to it. 3y
15 likes2 comments
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rabbitprincess

“[Roger Hollis] was a plodding, slightly droopy bureaucrat with the imaginative flair of an omelette.”
🤣🤣🤣

Smrloomis 🤣🤣🤣 3y
rwmg I have known some imaginative omelettes - and some that just imagined they were omelettes. 3y
CaffeineAndCandy 😂😂❤❤ 3y
21 likes1 stack add3 comments
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rabbitprincess
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“Patra was trying to read Hegel‘s Science of Logic. This is something no one should ever feel obliged to do.” 😂😂