Podcast appearances and mentions of Sonia Purnell

Send us a textIn this interview with author Susan Tate Ankeny, we talk about her biography of Chinese American WWII Women Air Force Service Pilot, Hazel Ying Lee, American Flygirl, the Aviatrix Book Club discussion book for May 2025. Buy the book: https://literaryaviatrix.com/book/american-flygirl/Children's Books about Hazel: https://literaryaviatrix.com/book/the-fearless-flights-of-hazel-ying-lee/https://literaryaviatrix.com/book/skyward-the-story-of-female-pilots-in-wwii/The Blurb: One of WWII's most uniquely hidden figures, Hazel Ying Lee was the first Asian American woman to earn a pilot's license, join the WASPs, and fly for the United States military amid widespread anti-Asian sentiment and policies.Her singular story of patriotism, barrier breaking, and fearless sacrifice is told for the first time in full for readers of The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck, A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, The Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia, Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown and all Asian American, women's and WWII history books.In 1932, Hazel Ying Lee, a nineteen-year-old American daughter of Chinese immigrants, sat in on a friend's flight lesson. It changed her life. In less than a year, a girl with a wicked sense of humor, a newfound love of flying, and a tough can-do attitude earned her pilot's license and headed for China to help against invading Japanese forces. In time, Hazel would become the first Asian American to fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots. As thrilling as it may have been, it wasn't easy.In America, Hazel felt the oppression and discrimination of the Chinese Exclusion Act. In China's field of male-dominated aviation she was dismissed for being a woman, and for being an American. But in service to her country, Hazel refused to be limited by gender, race, and impossible dreams. Frustrated but undeterred she forged ahead, married Clifford Louie, a devoted and unconventional husband who cheered his wife on, and gave her all for the cause achieving more in her short remarkable life than even she imagined possible.American Flygirl is the untold account of a spirited fighter and an indomitable hidden figure in American history. She broke every common belief about women. She challenged every social restriction to endure and to succDid you know you can support your local independent bookshop and me by shopping through my Bookshop.org affiliate links on my website? If a book is available on Bookshop.org, you'll find a link to it on the book page. By shopping through the Literary Aviatrix website a small portion of the sale goes to support the content you love, at no additional cost to you. https://literaryaviatrix.com/shop-all-books/Thanks so much for listening! Stay up to date on book releases, author events, and Aviatrix Book Club discussion dates with the Literary Aviatrix Newsletter. Visit the Literary Aviatrix website to find over 600 books featuring women in aviation in all genres for all ages. Become a Literary Aviatrix Patron and help amplify the voices of women in aviation. Follow me on social media, join the book club, and find all of the things on the Literary Aviatrix linkt.ree. Blue skies, happy reading, and happy listening!-Liz Booker

As moms or teachers or mentors, how do we help the young people in our lives grow deep roots of faith before they launch into the world? Today's guest has some practical answers. As Educators Specialist here at the Colson Center, Billy Hutchinson is all about helping Christian educators form their students in the Christian worldview. But this episode isn't just for educators! If you play any influential role in the life of a young person, you'll find encouragement and help in this conversation.  Show Notes:  A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today's World by John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle  Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell  The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President by Edward O'Keefe   The Colson Educators Program  The Colson Fellows Program   The Identity Project    Want to know what it takes to be a Colson Fellow? Well, you can find out from someone who's already been through it by checking out the Pursuit series on the Colson Fellows blog. There, you can read testimonies of men and women like you from different backgrounds who took on the challenge of the Colson Fellows Program and came out on the other side transformed. Start with Catherine Wheeler's story. She was in my Colson Fellows cohort when I was a leader. She's an OBGYN and former abortionist whose transformation story really is amazing. You can read Catherine's testimony and many others by visiting colsonfellows.org/stories.   You don't have to look far to notice cancel culture is everywhere. Maybe your teen is nervous to speak up at school about being pro-life because she's afraid her opinion will be dismissed. Maybe you're hesitant to voice concerns at work because you're worried about backlash from your co-workers. These situations are common, but speaking the truth with love is our calling as Christians. The Colson Educators course, "Navigating Cancel Culture," can help. In partnership with "No Safe Spaces," the Colson Center and Brett Kunkle teach you how to understand cancel culture, recognize where it shows up, and respond with a Christian perspective. Ready to learn more? Sign up at colsoneducators.org.    The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what's happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/   Visit our website and sign up for our email list so that you can stay up to date on what we are doing here and also receive our monthly journal: https://www.colsoncenter.org/strong-women    Join Strong Women on Social Media:   https://www.facebook.com/StrongWomenCC  https://www.facebook.com/groups/strongwomencommunitycc/  https://www.instagram.com/strongwomencc/  https://linktr.ee/strongwomencc 

On this episode of #TheGlobalExchange, Colin Robertson interviews Perrin Beatty, PC, OC and Fen Osler Hampson to dive into their latest paper, Broken Trust: Managing an Unreliable Ally. They discuss concrete measures highlighted in the report to mitigate Canada's risk of depending on the U.S. from a defence, trade and economic perspective. // Participants' bios - Perrin Beatty, PC, OC is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada and former President and CEO to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He is currently a director and business advisor. - Fen Osler Hampson is the is currently Chancellor's Professor and Professor of International Affairs in the School. He former Director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, served as Director of the Global Commission on Internet Governance (GCIG) and is the President of the World Refugee & Migration Council. // Host bio: Colin Robertson is a former diplomat and Senior Advisor to the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, www.cgai.ca/colin_robertson // Reading Recommendations: - "A Woman of No Importance" by Sonia Purnell. // Music Credit: Drew Phillips | Producer: Jordyn Carroll // Recording Date: April 4, 2025 Release date: April 7, 2025

On this week's Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Sonia Purnell about her book, “A Woman of No Importance,” and the story of Virginia Hall, an American spy who operated in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, even with her wooden leg. Then, Dr. Lincoln Nadauld, President & CEO of Culmination Bio, discusses how medical records and biological data are being combined with technology to answer unprecedented questions in medicine.

5/8  Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue Paperback – Large Print, October 8, 2024 by  Sonia Purnell  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Kingmaker-Harrimans-Astonishing-Seduction-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B0CQJHTHGY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=mGORW&content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_r=131-1534402-8294242&pd_rd_wg=oGjro&pd_rd_r=28fc36b7-6eda-4621-b633-8a670774f5f4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. 1963 Harriman and Acheson

6/8  Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue Paperback – Large Print, October 8, 2024 by  Sonia Purnell  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Kingmaker-Harrimans-Astonishing-Seduction-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B0CQJHTHGY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=mGORW&content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_r=131-1534402-8294242&pd_rd_wg=oGjro&pd_rd_r=28fc36b7-6eda-4621-b633-8a670774f5f4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. 1965 Harriman and Golda Meir, Israel

7/8  Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue Paperback – Large Print, October 8, 2024 by  Sonia Purnell  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Kingmaker-Harrimans-Astonishing-Seduction-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B0CQJHTHGY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=mGORW&content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_r=131-1534402-8294242&pd_rd_wg=oGjro&pd_rd_r=28fc36b7-6eda-4621-b633-8a670774f5f4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. 1942 Churchill, Harriman, Stalin, Molotov

8/8  Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue Paperback – Large Print, October 8, 2024 by  Sonia Purnell  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Kingmaker-Harrimans-Astonishing-Seduction-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B0CQJHTHGY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=mGORW&content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_r=131-1534402-8294242&pd_rd_wg=oGjro&pd_rd_r=28fc36b7-6eda-4621-b633-8a670774f5f4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. 1947 Harriman in the Cabinet

3/8  Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue Paperback – Large Print, October 8, 2024 by  Sonia Purnell  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Kingmaker-Harrimans-Astonishing-Seduction-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B0CQJHTHGY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=mGORW&content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_r=131-1534402-8294242&pd_rd_wg=oGjro&pd_rd_r=28fc36b7-6eda-4621-b633-8a670774f5f4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. 1944 Edward R. Murrow

4/8  Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue Paperback – Large Print, October 8, 2024 by  Sonia Purnell  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Kingmaker-Harrimans-Astonishing-Seduction-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B0CQJHTHGY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=mGORW&content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_r=131-1534402-8294242&pd_rd_wg=oGjro&pd_rd_r=28fc36b7-6eda-4621-b633-8a670774f5f4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. 1945 Trumman  Cabinet including Averell Harriman, Secretary of Commerce

PREVIEW: PAMELA HARRIMAN: Author Sonia Purnell, "Kingmaker," explains how Pamela Harriman was coached on how to present herself as an N Street fundraiser for the Democratic Party by the young promising Bill Clinton. More tonight. 1923 Washington

2/8  Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue Paperback – Large Print, October 8, 2024 by  Sonia Purnell  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Kingmaker-Harrimans-Astonishing-Seduction-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B0CQJHTHGY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=mGORW&content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_r=131-1534402-8294242&pd_rd_wg=oGjro&pd_rd_r=28fc36b7-6eda-4621-b633-8a670774f5f4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. 1963 Randolph Churchill and POTUS JFK

1/8  Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue Paperback – Large Print, October 8, 2024 by  Sonia Purnell  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Kingmaker-Harrimans-Astonishing-Seduction-Intrigue-ebook/dp/B0CQJHTHGY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=mGORW&content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&pf_rd_r=131-1534402-8294242&pd_rd_wg=oGjro&pd_rd_r=28fc36b7-6eda-4621-b633-8a670774f5f4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. 1927 Johnny Randolph Winston Jack Churchill 

PREVIEW: PAMELA CHURCHILL: Conversation with Sonia Purnell, author of "Kingmaker," regarding the spectacular life of Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman (1920-1997) -- and this episode from her disastrous marriage to Winston Churchill's only son, Randolph. More tonight. 1941 Winston Churchill and FDR

PREVIEW: WINSTON CHURCHILL: ED MURROW: Conversation with Sonia Purnell, author "Kingmaker," regarding how Pamela Digby Churchill, Winston Churchill's daughter-in-law, became a witting seductress of Ed Murrow and other VIP Americans in the cause to save Britain and defeat the Hitlerites. Much more to learn. 1944 Edward Murrow

On this episode of Shelf Care: The Podcast, host Susan Maguire talks to two of her Friends, the co-chairs of the annual book sale at her local branch library. They talk about being picky about donations, pricing, layout, and the treasures they found at the sale. Then, Susan chats with new Books for Youth Associate Editor Kelly Ferreira about what they've been reading and loving lately. Here's what we talked about: 85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy, by Jules Witcover Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus Janesville: An American Story, by Amy Goldstein The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer House, by George Howe Colt A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, by Sonia Purnell, read by Juliet Stevenson Central Park West, by James Comey A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, by James Comey Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love, by Marianne Cronin Are You My Mother? by Dr. Seuss Dragon Rider, by Cornelia Funke P. C. Cast Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer Casey McQuiston Bigfoot's Big Heart, by Sarah Glenn Marsh, illustrated by Ishaa Lobo Compound Fracture, by Andrew Joseph White Ariel Crashes a Train, by Olivia A. Cole The Deep Dark, by Molly Knox Ostertag, art by the author The Sweetness between Us, by Sarah Winifred Searle, art by the author

Sonia Purnell is a former journalist and current author of non-fiction. She first appeared on Book Talk for her previous book, A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II. Her other books include Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill and Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition - A Biography of Boris Johnson. Today we conclude our two-part interview for her new book, KINGMAKER: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue, which is published by Viking. 

Sonia Purnell is a former journalist and current author of non-fiction. She first appeared on Book Talk for her previous book, A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II. Her other books include Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill and Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition - A Biography of Boris Johnson. Today we have the first of a two-part interview talking about her new book, KINGMAKER: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue which is published by Viking. 

Oct. 23, 2024. We talked with Sonia Purnell, author of the new biography "Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue."

Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic – remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's ‘uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history. See Less The Valley by Chris Hammer Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic are back – and Nell is thrown into her most emotionally fraught investigation yet. A controversial entrepreneur is murdered in a remote mountain valley, but this is no ordinary case. Ivan and Nell are soon contending with cowboy lawyers, conmen, bullion thieves and grave robbers. But it's when Nell discovers the victim is a close blood relative that the past begins to take on a looming significance. What did take place in The Valley all those years ago? What was Nell's mother doing there, and what was her connection to troubled young police officer Simmons Burnside? And why do the police hierarchy insist Ivan and Nell stay with the case despite an obvious conflict of interest? LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sonia Purnell – Kingmaker: Pamela Churchill Harriman's astonishing life of seduction, intrigue and power...with TRE's Selina MacKenzie

This week on the show: an examination of power and how it changes lives.  With China and the U.S. vying for supremacy on the world stage, Christiane speaks to Nicholas Burns, veteran diplomat and now U.S. Ambassador to China, about where the relationship stands and what it means.  Also, this hour: 50 years of 'The Powerbroker'. Robert Caro joins Christiane to discuss the long legacy and newfound pop culture status of his book about Robert Moses, one of the most powerful, unelected officials in American history.  Then, correspondent David Culver reports from El Salvador on the power struggle between its president and criminal gangs which has transformed the country and why those who fled are now flocking back.  Plus, power, sex and an unseen kingmaker: the remarkable story of Pamela Churchill Harriman as told by author Sonia Purnell.  And from the Amanpour Archive: Billie Jean King reflects on beating Bobby Riggs 51 years ago in the most watched tennis match in history, dubbed 'the battle of the sexes'.  And finally, French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat on the beauty standards "building a jail" around women and her hit film starring Demi Moore, 'The Substance'.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I often hear from people who went to boarding school – “Nothing happened to me.”What they mean is that they weren't abused, beaten or sexually abused.I then ask, did you see or hear beatings, violence, bullying or abuse?Most reply, yes.So the research around mirror neurons is now showing that the person who witnesses violence whether that be at home or at school will feel it, mirror it in their own brains.Today I draw upon the work of psychiatrists, Dr Judith Herman in her book Trauma and Recovery, Dr Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps The Score and Dr Paul Miller.What are mirror neurons?What happens to us when we witness other people being hurt?I also quote from Boris Johnson's biography, Just Boris by Sonia Purnell about he felt when he heard younger boys being beaten at his boarding school Ashdown House and David Cameron's For The Record.#mirrorneurons #boardingschooltrauma #boardingschool #childhoodtraumaTake care,Piers--- Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community Many blessings, Piers Cross http://piers-cross.com/

Agent Most Wanted by Sonia PurnellVirginia Hall never wanted a simple or traditional life for herself, even if that was what her mother wanted.The life of a society wife moving in high circles in Baltimore and even better if she married into money was her mother's fondest hope! But Virginia's father was always supportive of her doing what she wanted - including riding horses bareback and going hunting. So when it was time to head off to college or get married, you can guess which way Virginia decided to go. But at first, college didn't really help her adventurous spirit. It wasn't until she went to Paris to study abroad that she realized how much she loved being in France.Virginia was in Europe when things were starting to really go south in terms of the dictators who were coming to power, including Hitler. She was able to see all the politics and thought she could be helpful in the foreign office, perhaps working somehow for the state department. However, right away it became obvious that as much as she wanted to help her country, that they didn't really see the benefit of a woman working for them, other than as a secretary. Virginia became disillusioned after several posts of just doing clerical work when she knew she could do so much more.Recommended for grades 7 and up. 

Librarians Meagan and Sarah talk about what they've been reading, including nonfiction books about history, ambition, happiness and spies as well as a couple of novels. Titles discussed in this episode include: The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith, Four Shots in the Night by Henry Hemming, Build the Life You Want by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey, All the Gold Stars by Rainesford Stauffer, The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA by Liza Mundy, Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson, and The Palace by Gareth Russell. Also mentioned: Cultish by Amanda Montell, the TV series C.B. Strike, Tana French, Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie mysteries, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, Belfast Diary by John Conroy and A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. Check out books and movies at countycat.mcfls.org, wplc.overdrive.com and hoopladigital.com. For more about WAPL, visit westallislibrary.org. Music: Tim Moor via Pixabay

Today I spoke to Tabitha from World Herstory all about history form a feminine perspective and travelling for work. Make sure to subscribe so you know when our next episode drops and rate and review if you like what we are doing. Socials Find Tabitha on her linktree: https://linktr.ee/worldherstory Find Sam's Socials on this link: https://linktr.ee/samuelobrien Find the Podcast's Socials on this link: https://linktr.ee/contentncapable - we have Facebook now too! Plugs and Mentions Plug: Sam plugged the new Mean Girls movie. Tabitha plugged A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. Check out the other shows on the Deus Ex Media Network!

O João é mesmo aquela pessoa que queremos levar a tomar um café prolongado. A simpatia já conhecíamos, agora o João enquanto leitor? Sou suspeita mas ficamos ainda mais fãs. Os livros que escolheu: Quando Nietzsche chorou, Irvin D. Yalom; Inês da minha alma, Isabel Allende; Sinopse de amor e guerra, Afonso Cruz; Irmãos Karamazov, Doistoiévski; Trilogia O Século – Ken Follett: - A queda dos gigantes (2010); - O inverno do mundo (2012); - No Limiar da eternidade (2014). Outras referências: O que ofereci ao Salvador Martinha: A cura de Schopenhauer, Irvin D Yalom; A escolha que referi da Isabela Figueiredo: Lá Onde o Rio te Leva, Tobias Scheebaum; A história de Roma, Joana Bértholo; Os pilares da Terra, Ken Follet; O retorno, Maria Dulce Cardoso; Bear Town, a Cidade dos grandes sonhos, Fredrick Backman. Recomendei: Uma Mulher sem importância, Sonia Purnell; Os livros que devoraram o meu pai, Afonso Cruz; A idade do vício, Deepti Kapoor; Caminhadas com Robert Walser, Carls Seelig (sugestão Wook). Ofereci: A Noiva do tradutor, João Reis (sugestão Wook). Cerveja que o João referiu: Cadáver esquisito.

The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II.

Professor Jon Tonge- Professor of British and Irish Politics at University of Liverpool and Sonia Purnell, Journalist & Biographer of Boris Johnson.

Kevin Maguire, Associate Editor with the Daily Mirror and Sonia Purnell, author of 'Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition'

We take a slight turn in our usual narrative to bring you one of the most incredible spy stories ever told. Mike talks with bestselling author Sonia Purnell about her book A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II. It is a biography of Virginia Hall, an American woman who was one of the most successful undercover agents in the second world war despite the attitudes of men in power towards women and the fact that she was a below-knee amputee. The story is better than any fictional spy story you've ever seen.

Sarah Zylstra answers our listeners' questions about Social Media.    Register for the Strong Women Lent Reading Challenge! Visit colsoncenter.org/lent for more information. We hope you join us!  Social Sanity in an Insta World by Sarah Zylstra  Scrolling Alone: How Instagram Is Making a Generation of Girls Lonely, Anxious, and Sad podcast episode   Sarah Zylstra's articles on The Gospel Coalition website   Tech Wise Family by Andy Crouch  Social Sanity Book Club Chapter 9: Posting Well  S2 16: Answering Listener's Questions on Self-Care with Sarah and Erin Strong Women Podcast  Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell     Erin and her husband, Brett, run Maven which “exists to help the next generation know truth, pursue goodness, and create beauty, all for the cause of Christ.” Check out more about Maven here: https://maventruth.com/   The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what's happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/   Visit our website and sign up for our email list so that you can stay up to date on what we are doing here and also receive our monthly book list: https://www.colsoncenter.org/strong-women    Join Strong Women on Social Media:   https://www.facebook.com/StrongWomenCC  https://www.facebook.com/groups/strongwomencommunitycc/  https://www.instagram.com/strongwomencc/   

So many of us have been swept up into social media without asking, “Why am I using this? What is this for?” Sarah Zylstra has thought deeply about these questions. She joins us today to share her journey and struggles and tell us why she decided to give up social media altogether. Sarah is a wife, mom, author, and Senior Writer at The Gospel Coalition.    Register for the Strong Women Lent Reading Challenge! Visit colsoncenter.org/lent for more information. We hope you join us!  Social Sanity in an Insta World by Sarah Zylstra  Scrolling Alone: How Instagram Is Making a Generation of Girls Lonely, Anxious, and Sad podcast episode   Sarah Zylstra's articles on The Gospel Coalition website   Tech Wise Family by Andy Crouch  Social Sanity Book Club Chapter 9: Posting Well  S2 16: Answering Listener's Questions on Self-Care with Sarah and Erin Strong Women Podcast  Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell   Erin and her husband, Brett, run Maven which “exists to help the next generation know truth, pursue goodness, and create beauty, all for the cause of Christ.” Check out more about Maven here: https://maventruth.com/   The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what's happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/   Visit our website and sign up for our email list so that you can stay up to date on what we are doing here and also receive our monthly book list: https://www.colsoncenter.org/strong-women  Join Strong Women on Social Media:   https://www.facebook.com/StrongWomenCC  https://www.facebook.com/groups/strongwomencommunitycc/  https://www.instagram.com/strongwomencc/   

Have you ever wanted to be a hero? Virginia Hall was a real-life hero who risked her life to help free France from the Nazis. She was an undercover agent who established networks of spies and radio operators and devised plans to save the lives of captured operatives. Her story is inspiring, and it's hard to put down Sonia Purnell's book about her called "A Woman of No Importance." If you're looking for an edge-of-your-seat read, this is it! Pick up a copy of "A Woman of No Importance" today and be inspired by Virginia Hall's heroism. Subscribe to my podcast today to learn more about career success and leadership guidance. Visit my website for resources like a list of 40 books that my Jar Head Reading Group has enjoyed. Thank you for listening! Please subscribe, like, and share with your friends. I appreciate your support, input, and questions. Website: https://www.dennisguzik.com I release a new episode every Tuesday, and each one is about 7 minutes in length. My podcast is available on: Apple: https://apple.co/3NqN95Z Google: https://bit.ly/3LAsBXv Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3MClzmv Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3xrxIVX

On this episode of Match+Book, adult services librarian Paul Kibala shares some of the favorite books he has read this year. Click here for all the links to formats available with your EBPL or LMxAC library card! https://ilove.ebpl.org/adults/news/matchbook-s3ep4-pauls-favorite-reads-2022 · Anxious People by Fredrik Backman · The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley · Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris · A Woman of No Importance: the untold story of the American spy who helped win World War II by Sonia Purnell

Matt and Alice speak to Sonia Purnell, journalist and author of 'Just Boris: A Tale of Blonde Ambition'. She shares her memories of her time working with Boris in Brussels during the 90s. They also discuss his early and crucial reinvention, the Johnson appeal, and whether or not we'll see Boris in British politics again.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sonia Purnell, Author of "Just Boris", Matthew Parris, Columnist and former Conservative Party MP, Jon Tonge, Professor of British & Irish Politics at University of LIverpool

On 5th September, the Conservative Party will announce the next leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party and the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  Ahead of this, tune into the latest episode of the Read Smart podcast, where Razia Iqbal, is joined by Sonia Purnell, who has written biographies on Boris Johnson and Clementine Churchill, alongside John Rentoul, Chief Political Commentator for The Independent and author of a number of books on Tony Blair and New Labour. Razia and our guests explore the importance of the political biography, delving into the difficulties of separating the author's beliefs from that of their subject, and how the ascent of the celebrity politician has affected the genre.   Listen now to hear more about the fascinating world of non-fiction. This podcast is generously supported by The Blavatnik Family Foundation. For more podcasts from The Baillie Gifford Prize, click here. Follow @BGPrize on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube. Read Smart Podcast is commissioned by The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and is  generously supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.    Listen to the podcast now on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud  Entale and YouTube. The longlist of the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize will be announced on 13 September, the shortlist on 10 October and the winner on 17 November this year. #BGPrize #ReadSmart #politics #politicalbiography #RishiSunak #LizTruss #Conservatives #PrimeMinister #election

Catherine Riley lives in London and is a writer and director of the literary festival Primadonna. Described as ‘books, with a little bit of rock 'n' roll', Primadonna showcases established and emerging voices that aren't heard enough in the mainstream. They have previously published two works of non-fiction. IS THIS LOVE? is her first novel. Primadonna Festival runs from July 29th - get your tickets at www.primadonnafestival.com and follow them @primadonnafest  Find Catherine at www.catherineriley.co.uk  The Primadonnas are Sabeena Akhtar, Joanna Baker, Amie Corry, Jane Dyball, Catherine Mayer, Kit de Waal, Shona Abhyankar, Jude Kelly, Lisa Milton, Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, Sonia Purnell, Monisha Rajesh, Catherine Riley, Athena Stevens, Cathryn Summerhayes, Sandi Toksvig and Sioned Wiliam. These 17 women got together at the start of 2019 with the aim of establishing a weekend of writing and ideas that gave prominence to work by women and spotlighted authors from the margins.  The first Primadonna festival was held in the summer of 2019, and featured names including Bernardine Evaristo, Elif Shafak, Luke Jennings, Diana Evans, Katy Brand, Sinead Gleeson, Louise Doughty and Konnie Huq. The Primadonna Podcast (The World as it Should Be) is available on Spotify, Acast, Apple and all good streaming platforms.

Chris is getting ready to travel, and of course, Sagewell started the day with an incident, a situation, if you will... Steph talks books perfect for vacations and feels sufficiently scarred regarding still working with moving fixtures over to FactoryBot. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake (https://airbrake.io/?utm_campaign=Q3_2022%3A%20Bike%20Shed%20Podcast%20Ad&utm_source=Bike%20Shed&utm_medium=website). Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Back to Basics: Boolean Expressions (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/back-to-basics-booleans) Sarah Drasner tweet (https://twitter.com/sarah_edo/status/1538998936933122048) Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of The Bike Shed! Transcript: STEPH: All right, I am now officially recording as well. Let me make sure my microphone is in front of my face. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Steph Viccari. CHRIS: And I'm Chris Toomey. STEPH: And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. So, hey, Chris, what's new in your world? CHRIS: What's new in my world? Today is an interesting day. We are recording on a Friday, which is not normal for us, was normal for a long time and then stopped, but now it's back to being normal. But it's the morning, which is confusing. Also, I am traveling this evening. I leave on a flight going to Europe. So I'm going to do a red-eye, that whole thing. So I got a lot to pack into today, literally packing being one of those things. And then this morning, because obviously, this is the way the world should play out, we started the day with an incident at Sagewell, a situation. Some code had gotten out there that was doing some stuff that we didn't want it to do. And so we had to sort of call in the dev team. And we all huddled together and tried to figure it out. Thankfully, it was a series of edge cases. It was sort of one of those perfect storms. So when this edge case happens in this context, then a bad thing could happen. Luckily, we were able to review the logs; nothing bad happened. While I'm unhappy that we had this situation play out... basically, it was a caching thing, just to throw that out there. Caching turns out to be very hard. And the particular way it played out could have manifested in behavior that would have been not good in our system, or an admin would have inadvertently done something that would have been incorrect. But on the positive side, we have an incident review process that we've been slowly incubating within the team. One of our team members introduced it to us, and then we've been using it on a few different cases. And it's really great to just have a structured process. I think it's one of those things that will grow over time. It's a very simple; what's the timeline of what happened? What's the story as to why it happened and why it wasn't caught earlier? What are the actions that we're going to take? And then what's the appendix? What's the data that we have around it? And so it's really great to just have that structure to work within. And then similarly, as far as I can tell, the first even observable instance of this behavior in our system was yesterday morning. We saw it, started to respond to it, saw one more. We were able to chase it down in the logs. Overall, the combination of the alerting that we have in Sentry and the way in which we respond to the alerting in Sentry, which I think is probably the most critical part. Datadog is our log metrics tool right now. So we're able to go through Datadog, and we have Lograge configured to add more detail to our log lines. And so we're able to see a very robust story of exactly what happened and ask the question, did anything actually bad happen? Or was it just possible that something bad could happen? And it turns out just possible. Nothing actually happened. We were able to determine that. We were even able to get a more detailed picture of who were all the users who potentially could have been impacted. Again, I don't think there was any impact. But all total, it was both a very stressful process, especially as I'm about to go on vacation. It's like, oh cool, start to the day where I'm trying to wrap up things, and instead, we're going to spend a couple of hours chasing down an incident. But that said, these things will happen. The way in which we were able to respond, the alerting and observability that we had in place make me feel good. STEPH: I like the incident structure that you just laid out. That sounds really nice in clarifying what happened when it happened in the logs. And the fact that you're able to go through and confirm if anything really bad happened or not is really nice. And I was also just debating this is one of those things, right? Right when you're about to go on vacation, that's when something's going to break. And that's like, is that good or bad? Is it good that I was here to take care of it right before, or is it bad? Because I'd really like to not be here to take care of it. [laughs] You may have mixed feelings. I have mixed feelings. CHRIS: I think I'm happy. Unsurprisingly, this exists in one of the most complex parts of our codebase. And it involves caching. And I remember when we introduced the caching, I looked at it, and I was like, hmm, we have a performance hotspot that involves us making a lot of requests to an external system. And so we thought about it a little bit, and we were like, well, if we do a little bit of caching here, we can actually reduce that down from seven calls down to one over external HTTP. And so okay, that seems to make sense. We had a pull request. We did a formal review. And even I looked at the pull request where this was introduced initially, and my comments on it were like, yep, this all looks good. Makes sense to me. But it's caching-related. So let's be very careful and look very closely at it and determine if there's anything, but it's so hard to know. And in fact, the code that actually was at play here was introduced a month ago. And interestingly, the observable side effect only occurred in the past two days, which we find very surprising. But again, it's this weird like, if A happens and then within a short period after that B happens...and so it's not quite a race condition. But it was something where a lot of stuff had to happen in a short span of time for this to actually manifest. And so, again, we were able to look through the logs and see all of the instances where it could have happened and then what did happen. Everything was fine, but yeah, it was interesting. I feel actually good to have seen it. And I think we've cleared everything up related to it and been very proactive in our response to it so that all feels good. And also, this is the sort of thing we've done this a few times now where we've had what I would call lesser incidents. There was no customer-facing impact to this. Similarly, previous incidents, we've had no or very minimal customer-facing impact. So at one point, we had a situation where we weren't processing our background jobs for a little while. So we eventually caught up and did everything we needed to. It just meant that something may not have happened in as timely a fashion as necessary. But there were no deep ramifications to that. But in each of those cases, we've pushed ourselves to go through the incident process to make sure that we're building the muscle as a team to like, actually, when the bad one comes, we want to be ready. We want to have done a couple of fire drills first. And so partly, I viewed this as that because again, there was smoke, but no fire is how we would describe it. STEPH: Nice. And that also makes sense to me how you were saying y'all introduced this about a month ago, but you were just now seeing that observable side effect. I feel like that's also how it goes. Like, you implement, especially with caching, some performance improvement, and then you immediately see that. And it's like, yay, this is wonderful. And then it's not til sometime passes that then you get that perfect storm of user interactions that then trigger some flow that you didn't consider or realize that could create an issue with that caching behavior. So yeah, that resonates. That seems right. All caching problems usually take about a month or two when you've just forgotten about what you've done. And then you have to go back in. CHRIS: Yep. Yep, yep, yep. So now we've done the obvious thing, which is we've removed every cache from the system whatsoever. There are no caches anymore because it turns out we just can't be trusted with caches in any form whatsoever. ActiveRecord, we turned off caching, Redis we threw it out. No, I'm kidding. We still have lots of caching in the app. But, man, caching is so hard. STEPH: I would love if that's in the project README where it says, "We can't be trusted with caches. No caches allowed." [laughs] CHRIS: Yeah, we have not gone all the way to forbid caching within the application. It's a trade-off. But this does have that you get those scars over time. You have that incident that happens, and then forever you're like, no, no, no, we can't do X. And I feel like I'm just a collection of those. Again, I think we've talked about this in previous episodes. But consulting for as long as I did, I saw a lot of stuff. And a lot of it was not great. And so I basically just look at everything, and I'm like, urgh, no, this will be hard to maintain. This is going to go wrong. That's going to blow up someday. And so, I'm having to work on trying to be a little more positive in my development work. But I do like that I have that inclination to be very cautious, be very pessimistic, assume the worst. I think it leads to safer code in general. There was actually a tweet by Sarah Drasner that was really wonderful. And it's basically a conversation between her and another developer. It's a pretend conversation. But it's like, "But why don't you like higher-order components?" And then it's Squints. "Well, in the summer of 2018, something bad happened, Takes a long drag of a cigarette. something very bad." It's just written so well and captures the ethos just perfectly. Like, sit down. Let me tell you a tale of the time in 2018. [laughs] So I'll include a link to that in the show notes because she actually wrote it so well too. It's got like scene direction within a tweet and really fantastic stuff. But yeah, we'll allow some caching to continue within the app. STEPH: That's amazing. So I was just thinking where you're talking about being more pessimistic versus optimistic. And there's an interesting nuance there for me because there's a difference in like if someone's pessimistic where if someone just brings up an idea and someone's like, "Nope, like, that's just not going to work," and they just always shoot it down, that level of being pessimistic is too much. And it's just going to prevent the team from having a collaborative and experimental environment. But always asking the question of like, well, what's the worst that could happen? And what are the things that we should mitigate for? And what are the things that are probably so unlikely that we should just wait and see if that happens and then address it? That feels like a really nice balance. So it's not just leaning into saying no to everything. But sure, let's consider all the really bad things that could happen, make a plan for those, but still move forward with trying things out. And I realized I do this in my own life, like when someone asks me a question around if there's something that we want to do that's a bit kind of risky. And the first thing I always think of is like, well, what's the worst that could happen? And I think that has confused people that I immediately go there because they think that I'm immediately saying no to the idea. And so I have to explain like, no, no, no. I'm very intrigued, very interested. I just have to think through what's the worst that can happen. And if I'm okay with that, then I feel better about accepting it. But my emotional state, I have to think through what's the worst and then go from there. CHRIS: Wow, it's a very bottom-up approach for your life planning there. [chuckles] STEPH: Yep, I think that's, you know, it's from being a developer for so long. It has impacted now how I make other decisions. Good or bad? Who knows? Yeah, it turns out being a developer has leaked into my personal life. I've got leaky abstractions over here. So, good or bad? Who knows? CHRIS: Leaky abstractions all the way down. Yeah, circling back to, like, I don't think I'm pessimistic per se. The way that I see this playing out often is there will be a discussion of an architectural approach, or there's a PR that goes up. And my reaction isn't no, or this has a known failure point; it is more of uh, this makes me uncomfortable. And it's that like; I can't even say exactly why, and that's what makes it so difficult. And I think this is a place that can be really complicated for communication, particularly between developers who have been around for a little bit longer and have done this sort of thing and have gathered these battle scars and developers who are a bit newer. Having that conversation and being like, um, I can't say exactly why. I can tell you some weird stories. I might not even remember the stories. Some of it just feeds into just like, does this code make me uncomfortable? Or does this code make me happy? And I tend towards wildly explicit code for these reasons. I want to make it as clear as possible and match as close as possible to the words that we're saying because I know that the bugs hide in the weird corners of our code. So I try and have as few corners. Make very rounded rooms of code is a weird analogy that doesn't play, but here we go. That's what I do on this show is I make weird analogies. Actually, we were working on some code that was dealing with branching conditional things. So we had a record which has a boolean value on it. So we've got true or false, and then we've got two states, and then we've gotten an enum with three states. So all total, we have six possible states. But as we were going through this conversation, I was pairing with another developer on the team. And I was like, something feels weird here. And I actually invoked the name of Joël Quenneville because much of the data structure thought that I had here I associate with work that Joël has done around Maybe and things like that. And then also, my suggestion was let's build a truth table because that seems like a fun way to manage this and look at it and see what's true. Because I know that there are spots on this two-by-three grid that should never happen. So let's name that and then put that in the code. We couldn't quite get it to map into the data type, like into that Boolean in the enum. Because it's possible to get into those states, but we never should. And therefore, we should alert and handle that and understand, like, how did this even happen? This should never happen. And so we ended up taking what was a larger method body with some of the logic in it and collapsing it down to very explicitly enumerate the branches of the conditional and then feed out to a method. Like, call a method that had a very explicit name to say, okay, if it's true and we're in this enum state, then it's bad, alert bad. And then the other case like, handle the good case. And I was very happy with what we refactored down to because this is another one of those very complex parts of our code. Critical infrastructure-y is how I would describe it. And so, in my mind, it was worth the I'm going to go with pathological refactoring that we got to there. But yes, I was channeling Joël in that moment. I'm very happy to have had many conversations with him that help me think through these things. STEPH: That's awesome. Yeah, those truth tables can be so helpful. There's a particular article that, of course, Joël has written that then describes how a truth table works and ways that you can implement it into your habits. It's called Back to Basics: Boolean Expressions. I will be sure to include a link in the show notes. CHRIS: But yeah, I think that summarizes my day and probably the next couple of days as I prepare for an adventure over to Europe and chat about developer spidey sense. But yeah, what's new in your world? STEPH: Yeah, that's a big day. There's a lot going on. Well, I actually want to circle back because you mentioned that you're packing and you're going on this trip. And I'm curious, do you have any books queued up for vacation? CHRIS: I do, yeah. I'm currently reading Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. Folks might be aware of his work from the highest-funded Kickstarter of all time, which was absurd. Did you see this happen? STEPH: I don't think so, uh-uh. CHRIS: He did this fun, cheeky little Kickstarter. The video was sort of a fake around...oh, it almost sounded like he might be retiring or something like that. And then he's like, JK, I wrote five new books. And so the Kickstarter was for those books with different tiered packages and whatnot. I think he got just the right viral coefficient going on. And apologies for the spoiler if anyone's not seen the video, but it's been out there for a while. So he wrote some books, and that's what the Kickstarter is for. You get some books. You sort of join a book club, and you'll get one a quarter. A million dollars seems like that will be a bunch for that. That'd be great. If he raised a million dollars, that'd be amazing. $40 million four-zero million dollars. [laughs] I'm just watching it play out in real-time as well. It just skyrocketed up. The video, I think, was structured just right. He got it onto the...it was on Reddit and Twitter and just bouncing around, and people were sharing it. And just everything about it seemed to go perfectly. And yes, the highest-funded Kickstarter of all time, I believe, certainly within the publishing world. But yeah, Brandon Sanderson, prolific author, and his stuff ends up just being kind of light and fun. And so I was reading Elantris for that. It's been a little bit slower to pick up than I would like. So I'm now in the latter half. I'm hoping it'll go a little bit more quickly and be...I'm just kind of looking for a fun read, some fantasy thing to go on an adventure. But as the next book, I downloaded a second one just to make sure I'm covered. I have a book by John Scalzi, who's a sci-fi, fantasy, more on the sci-fi end of the spectrum. And I've read some of his other stuff and enjoyed it. And this particular book has a very consistent set of reviews. I've read the reviews a few times. And everybody who reviews it is just like, "This isn't the greatest book I've ever read, but man was it a fun ride." Or "Yeah, no, best book? No. Fun book? Yes." And just like, "This book was a fun ride. This was great." And I was like, perfect. That is exactly what I'm looking for on a European vacation. The book is called The Kaiju Preservation Society, which also plays on monsters, Pacific Rim Godzilla. Kaiju, I think, is the word for that category of giant dinosaur-like monster. And so it's the Kaiju Preservation Society, which, I don't know, means some stuff, and I'm going to go on a fun adventure. So yeah, those are my books. STEPH: Nice. I've got one that I'm reading right now. It's called Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill, written by Sonia Purnell. And Sonia Purnell tends to focus on female historical figures. And so it's historical fiction, which is a sweet spot for me. The only thing I'm debating on is because I'm realizing as I'm reading through it, I'm questioning, okay, well, what's real and what's not? Because I don't want to be that person that's like, did you know? And then, I quote this fictional fact about somebody that was made up for the novel. [laughs] So I'm realizing that maybe historical fiction is fun, but then I'm having to fact-check all the things because then I'm just curious. I'm like, oh, did this really happen, or how did it go down? So it's been pretty good so far. But then it makes me wish that historical fiction novels had at the back of them they're like, these are all the events that were real versus some of the stuff that we fictionalized or added a little flair to. I'm in that interesting space. I also like how you highlighted that you chose a fun book. I was having a conversation with a colleague recently about downtime. And like, do you consume more tech during downtime? Like, are you actively looking for technical blog posts or technical books to read or podcasts, things like that? And I was like, I don't. My downtime is for fun. Like, I want it to be all the things that are not tech. Maybe some tech sneaks in there here and there, but for the most part, I definitely prioritize stuff that's fun over more technical content in my spare time, which has taken me a little while to not feel guilty about. Earlier in my career, I definitely felt like I should be crunching technical content all the time. And now I'm just like, nope, this is a job. I'm very thankful that I really enjoy my job, but it's still a job. CHRIS: It is an interesting aspect of the world that we work in where that's even a question. In my previous life as a mechanical engineer, the idea that I would go home and read about mechanical engineering...I could attend a conference, but I would do that for very particular reasons and not because, like, oh, it's fun. I'll go meet my friends. For me, this was a big reason that I moved into tech because I am one of those folks who will, like, I will probably watch a video about Remix in particular because that's my new thing that I like to play around with and think about. But it needs to be a particular shape of thing I've found. It needs to be exploratory, puzzle-y. Fun code, reading, learning work that I do needs to be separated from my work-work in a certain way. Otherwise, then it feels like work, then it is sort of a drudgery. But yeah, my brain just seems to really like the puzzle of programming and trying to build things. And being able to come into a world where people share as much as they do blogs and conference talks and all of that is utterly fantastic. But it is a double-edged sword because I 100% agree that the ability to disconnect to, like, work a nine-to-five and then go home at the end of the day. Yeah, go home, you know, because you remember when we went to an office and then we would go home afterwards? I have to commute every once in a while into the city and -- STEPH: You mean go downstairs or go to another room? That's what you mean? [laughs] CHRIS: I used to commute every day, and it took a lot of time. And now when I do it, I feel that so viscerally because I'm like, it's just a lot easier to just walk to my office in my house. But yes, I 100% I'm aligned to that like, yeah, no, you're done with work for the day, walk away. That's that. And learning a new technology or things like that, that's part of the job. There shouldn't be the expectation that that just happens. There's continuing education in every other field. It's like, oh, we'll pay for your master's degree so you can go learn a thing. That's the norm in every other...not in every other industry but many, many, many industries. And yet the nature of our world the accessibility of it is one of the most wonderful things about it. But it can be a double-edged sword in that if there are the expectations that, oh yeah, and then, of course, you're going to go home and have side projects and be learning things. Like, no, that is an unreasonable expectation, and we got to cut that off. But then again, I do do that. So I'm saying two things at the same time, and that's always complicated. STEPH: But I agree with what you're saying because you're basically respecting both sides. If people enjoy this as a hobby, more power to you.; that's great. This is what you enjoy doing. If you don't want to do this as a hobby and respect it as a job, then that's also great too. There can be both sides, and no side should feel guilty or judged for whichever path that they pursue. And I absolutely agree, if there are new skills that you need to learn for a job, then there should be time that's carved out during your work hours that then you get to focus on those new skills. It shouldn't be an expectation that then you're going to work all day and then spend your evening hours learning something else. And same for interviews; there shouldn't be a field that says, "Hey, what are your side projects?" Or at least that should not be an important part of the interview. There should be an alternative to be like, "Or what work code do you want to talk about?" Or something else that's more in that nine-to-five window that you want to talk about. That way, there's a balance between like, sure, if you have something that you want to talk about on the side, great, but if not, then let's focus on something that you've done during your actual work hours because that's more realistic. CHRIS: I do think there's an interesting aspect at play because the world of development moves so rapidly and because it's constantly changing. And to frame it differently, I don't think we've got this thing figured out. And so many people lament how quickly it changes and that there's a new framework every other week. And there's a bit of churn that is perhaps unnecessary. But at the same time, I do not feel like as a community, as a working population, that we're like, yeah, got it, crushed it. We know how to make great software, no question about it. It's going to be awesome. We're going to be able to maintain it for forever, don't even worry about it. New feature? We can get that in there. They're actually still pretty rare. So we need to be learning, and evolving, and exploring new techniques. I think the amount of thinking is probably good mostly in the development world. But organizations have to make space for that with their teams. And thoughtbot obviously does that with investment days. That's just such a wonderful structure that embraces that reality and also brings happiness, and it's just a pleasant way to work. And frankly, my team does not have that right now. We do the crispy Brussels snack hour, which also now has a corresponding crispy Brussels work lunch, which is one week we think about it, and the next week we do the thing. We're trying to make space for that. But even that is still more intentional and purposeful and less exploratory and learning. And so it's an interesting trade-off. I deeply believe in this thing, and also, the team that I'm leading isn't doing it right now. Granted, we're an early-stage startup. We got to build a bunch of stuff. I think that's fine for right now. But it is a thing that...again, I'm saying two things at the same time, always fun. STEPH: Well, and there might be a nice incremental approach to this as well. So thoughtbot has the entire day, and maybe it's less than a full day. So perhaps it's just there's an hour or two hours or something like that where you start to introduce some of that self-improvement time and then blossom out from there. Because yeah, I understand that not all teams may feel like they have the space for that. But then I agree with everything else you said that it really does improve team morale and gives people a space to then be able to get to explore some of those questions that they had earlier. So then they don't feel like they have to then dedicate some weekend time or off hours' time to then look into a question. And I admit, I'm totally guilty too. I am that person that then I've worked extra hours, but it's because, like you said, if there's a puzzle that my brain is stuck on and I just feel the need to get through it. But then I look at that as am I doing this because I want to? Yes. Okay, then as long as I'm happy and I don't feel like this is increasing any concern around burnout, then I don't worry about it. MIDROLL AD: Debugging errors can be a developer's worst nightmare… but it doesn't have to be. 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And so this really means that you can just create bad data that your application doesn't actually allow your application to create. So there are tests that are exercising behavior that should never exist. And then porting that over to FactoryBot then highlights that because then as soon as I move that record over and then try to create it or do something with it, then the app, the test, do the right thing and let me know saying no, no, no, we've added validations. You can't do that anymore. That has been grinding my gears in terms of trying to then translate. Because then I have to really dive into the code to understand it. And the goal here is to stay as high level as possible and not have to dive in too much. But then that means that I do have to dive in and understand more. So this has frankly just been one of those times in my career where you just kind of have to slog through the work. It's important work to be done. It'll be great once it's done. But it's a painful process. And the best way that I've found to make it more enjoyable is to be in heavy communication with Joël, who's on the project with me, just so if we get stuck on something, then we can chat with each other. And then also there's one file that's particularly gnarly. And so we moved over one test. We were successful, and which felt great because then we could at least document like, okay, when we come back to this, at least we have one example that highlights the wonkiness that we ran into. But we've decided, okay, we're done with that file. We're going to take a break. There's a lot there, but we're going to move on and give ourselves a break and do some of the easier ones, and then we'll circle back to the harder one. Which was, I think, just a bit of bad luck in terms of, like, as we're going down the list, that happened to be like the gnarliest one, and it was like the first one that Joël picked up. And so I'm going through a couple of files, and Joël is like, "What? [laughs] How are you making progress?" And we realize it's just because that file, in particular, is very hard to find all the mystery guests and then to move everything over. Finding a positive note through all of the cruft, I will say this is helping with some of my code sleuthing skills. So as I am running into these problems and then looking for mystery guests, I'm noticing ways that I can then, as quickly as possible, try to triage and identify as to why one test doesn't match another test. Some of it is more specific to the application setup, so it won't be as applicable to future projects. But then some other areas have been really helpful. Like, I'm using caller a lot more to understand, like, I know this is getting called, but I don't know who's calling you. So I can put in a line that basically outputs like, show me your stack traces to how you got here. So that's been really nice as well. So it has improved some of my code sleuthing skills and also my spidey sense in terms of it's typically mystery guests. Like when a test isn't passing, it's because fixtures are creating extra data that are getting pulled in when there are queries that are being run. But they're not explicitly referenced in the test setup itself. So that's typically then where I start is looking for what record looks relevant to this test that I haven't pulled over to my test setup. CHRIS: I appreciate you finding the silver lining, the positive bit of this. Because as you're describing, the work that you're doing sounds like I think you use the word slog, which seems like a very accurate term. But sometimes we have to do that sometimes for a variety of reasons. We end up either having to introduce new code or fix old code, but this is sometimes the work. And this is something that I think you and I share about this show is we get to show all sides of the work. And the work can be glamorous and new. And oh, I've got this greenfield app that I'm building, and it's wonderful. Look at the architecture. And I know in the moment that I'm building someone else's legacy code three years from now. [laughs] And so telling the other side of the story and providing that rounded point of view, because like, yeah, this is all part of it. Again, I don't believe that this is a solved problem, building robust software that we can maintain. And so yeah, you're doing the good work in there. And I thank you for sharing it with us. STEPH: Thanks. Just don't use fixtures in your test, I beg of you. Please don't do that to the legacy code that you're writing for future developers. [laughs] That is my one request. CHRIS: And I will maybe add on to that, sparingly use callbacks. Maybe don't use them at all, and certainly don't use the combination because, my goodness, that'll lead you into some fun times. But yeah, just two small recommendations there. STEPH: Oh, there's something else I wanted to share. I saw that Slack added a new audio feature that allows you to record the pronunciation of your name, which is the feature that I was so excited about when we added it to our internal tool called Hub at thoughtbot. And now Slack has it on their profile so that way you can upload the pronunciation. And then anyone looking at your profile can then listen to how to pronounce your name. There are a couple of other features that they released, I think just in June, so about a month ago from the recording of today. [laughs] That's weird to say, but here we are. So I'll include a link in the show notes so folks can see that feature in addition to others, but I'm super excited. CHRIS: Oh, that is nice. I also like all right, so Slack now has it. Hub now has it. But I don't have access to Hub anymore. And I don't have access to every Slack in the world yet. But here's my suggestion. All right, everybody, stick with me here. I want you to own a domain. I want you to have a personal site on it. And I want the personal site to include the pronunciation of your name. I get that that's a big ask. And I get that there are other platforms that are calling to you, and you may be writing on those. But you know what? Just stand up a little site, just a little place on the internet that you own. And if it includes the pronunciation of your name, I will be forever grateful. STEPH: I like this idea. I initially was taking your idea and immediately running with it as you were speaking it because then I wondered if everyone had their own YouTube channel. But I don't know how hard it is to create a YouTube channel. I am not a YouTube channeler, so I don't know what that looks like. [laughs] But not everybody will know how to purchase a domain. So that might be another approach. CHRIS: I think it's pretty easy to do a YouTube channel. I'm conflating a couple of things. This is my basket of beliefs about people on the internet, but I kind of think everybody should own their own little slice of the internet. And so totally, YouTube is a place where the people make some stuff, make videos, put them on YouTube, absolutely. But ideally, you own something. I see a lot of people that are on YouTube, and that's it, and so their entire audience lives on YouTube. And if YouTube someday decides to change or remove them or say Medium as an example, Medium actually, I think, does a more interesting version of this where your identity kind of gets subsumed into Medium. And I really think everybody should just have their own little, tiny slice of the internet that's there. It has their name that they own that no platform can decide; hey, we've shifted, and now your stuff is gone. Cool URIs don't change as they say, and that's what I want. And then yeah, if you can have the pronunciation of your name on there, that's extra nice. Although I say that, and I don't know that I would do it because my name feels very obvious. One day someone was like, "Oh, how do you pronounce your last name?" I forget if I actually replied with the pronunciation. Or if I was like, "I need to know what options you're considering. I'm so interested because I've really only got the one." Maybe I'm anchored. Maybe I'm biased. [chuckles] I've been doing this for a while. But I really cannot think of another pronunciation of my name. STEPH: You might hear another one that you really like, and you need to pivot. CHRIS: Oh gosh. STEPH: That's the point where you start pronouncing your name differently. CHRIS: Wow, that would be a lot. And then, I could have a change log on my personal site where people can see this is the pronunciation, and this is what the pronunciation used to be. STEPH: [laughs] I like this idea. I also like this idea that everybody has their own slice of internet land. I like this encouragement that you're providing for everyone. On a slightly different note, there's a blog post that I'm really excited to talk about. It's written by Eric Bailey, who's a former thoughtboter. It's called The Optics of Pair Programming. And given how much pair programming that I'm doing, especially with Joël on the current project, it was a really wonderful read. And it also helped me think about pairing from a different perspective because we do have a very strong pairing culture at thoughtbot. So there's a lot of nuance, especially social nuances that can go along with when you invite someone to pair with you that I had not considered until I read this wonderful post by Eric. And we'll be sure to include a link in the show notes. But to provide an overview, essentially, Eric shares that given coming from thoughtbot where we do have a very open approach to pairing where pairing sessions are voluntary and then also last as long as the problem will last...but then when you're at a new company, you could experience pushback if you're inviting someone to pair and then to consider why that pushback may exist. And some of the high-level areas that Eric highlighted are power dynamics, assessment, privacy, and learning styles. So to dive into each of some of those, there's a power dynamics of it's important to consider who's offering to pair. So if I've joined a team as a consultant, there may be a power dynamic there that someone is feeling where their team is paying for my time. So they may feel like they can't say no if I offered to pair. They feel like they need to say yes to the invitation, even if they don't really want to. Or probably a more classic example would be like, what if your boss wants to pair or someone that's just more senior than you? Then it could leave you feeling like, well, I can't say no to this person, can I? Which yes, you totally can say no to that person, but it may leave you in a place where you feel like you can't. And so, it puts you in this sort of uncomfortable and powerless position. The other one is assessment, so offering to pair with someone could feel like you are implying that you want to assess their skills or that you're implying that they're not up to the task and therefore they need your help. So then that could also place someone in an uncomfortable position. There's also privacy. So someone who isn't confident may not want someone to observe their behavior or observe how they're working. It could make them feel really anxious, which then I love that Eric points this out. Ironically, pairing is really good at addressing that lack of confidence because then you get to see how other people work through their problems or how they think, or they may also have some anxiety. Or it just helps you become more comfortable in talking and thinking through with other people. So that one is a tough one where it's hard to get over that initial hurdle. But actually, the more you pair, then the less anxious you'll feel when you pair. And then there's also learning styles because pairing really involves a lot of deep thinking but in our personal time. And it can be hard to balance both of those, and it's just not as effective for some people. So I know that even as much as I really enjoy pairing, I just need to sit with code on my own sometimes. I need to think about it. I need to run it; I need to look at it. So it's really nice to talk with someone. But then I also need that alone time to then just think through it on my own because I can't have that same deep focus if I'm also worried about how the other person is experiencing that session because then my mental energy is going towards them. So that covers a number of the social nuances that can be included or running through someone's mind when you extend an invitation to them to pair. And it really resonated with me the areas that Eric highlights in this blog post. He also talks about a couple of strategies, which I'd love to dive into as well. But I'm going to pause here and see what thoughts you have. CHRIS: Yeah, I love this post. And it got me thinking about pairing and the broader human backdrop of all of the processes and workflows that we have. Everything he highlighted about pairing feels true. Although similar to you and to Eric, I've worked in a context where pairing was a very natural, very regular part of the work and sort of from the very top-down. And so everyone pairing between developers of any different level or developers and designers or really anyone in the...it was just such a part of how we worked that no one really questioned it or at least not after the first couple of weeks. I imagine joining thoughtbot those first weeks; you're like, oh God. As I shared, I think in the previous episode that we recorded, my pairing interview was with Joe Ferris, the CTO of thoughtbot, [laughs] writing a book about good and bad code. And I was like, I don't know what anything is here but very quickly getting over that hurdle. And having that normalizing experience was actually really great, and then have been comfortable with it since. But the idea that there are so many different social dynamics at play feels true. And then as I think about other things, like stand-up is one that I think of as this very simple this is a way to communicate where we're at. And where necessary or where useful, allow people to interject or step in to say, "Oh, let me help you get unblocked there or whatever it is." But so often, I see stand-up being a ritual about demonstrating that you are, in fact, doing work, which is like, here's what I did yesterday. I don't know if it's useful. Then mention that you're working on this project. But the enumeration of look, obviously, work was done by me. You can see it; here are the receipts. It's very much this social dynamic at play. And retro is another one where like, if retro is very much owned by one voice and not a place that change actually happens where people feel safe airing their opinions or their concerns, then it's going to be a terrible experience. But if you can structure it and enforce that it is a space that we can have a conversation, that everyone's voice is welcome and that real change happens as a result of, then it's a magical tool for making sure we're doing the right things. But always behind these are the people, and feelings, and the psychology at play. And so this was just such an interesting post to read and ruminate on that a little bit more. STEPH: Yeah, I agree, especially with a comment that you made about those daily syncs where I really just want to focus on today and what you have that you're blocked on. So it's a really nice update in case there are any cross-collaboration opportunities. That's really what I'm looking for in a daily update. And so I appreciate when people don't go through a laundry list of what they did yesterday because it's like, that's great. But then, like you said, it's just like you're trying to prove here's what I've done, and I trust you; you're working. So just let me know what you're doing today, friend. So Eric does a wonderful job of also including some strategies for ways that then you can address some of these concerns and then how there may be some extra anxiety that's increased when you're inviting somebody to pair. There are some wonderful strategies. I'll let folks read through the blog post itself. There are a couple in particular that came to mind for me because I was then self-assessing how do I tend to approach pairing with someone? And some ways that I want them to feel very comfortable with that experience. And there's a couple. There's one where I recognize that I need to build trust with each person. I can't just go on to a team and expect everyone to know that I have good intentions and that I'm going to do my best to be a fun, helpful pairing partner, and that it's not a zone of judgment. And that has to be cultivated with each person. Because especially as a consultant, if I'm joining a team, the people who hired me are not necessarily the people that I'm working with. It's someone that's probably in leadership or management that has then brought on thoughtbot. And so then the people that I'm working with they don't know me, and they don't know what my pairing style is going to be. So looking for ways to build trust with each person and then also inviting them or asking for help myself. So there's a bit of vulnerability that has to be shown to build trust with someone to say," Hey, I'm stuck on a problem. I would love a second set of eyes. Would you be willing to help me out with this?" So then that way, they're coming in to help me initially versus I'm going in and saying, "Hey, can I help you?" I have found that to be an effective strategy. And there's one that I do really want to talk about, and that's not everyone is going to pair well together. Like, you may find someone who always leaves you feeling just stressed or demoralized. And while it's important to consider your role and why that's true, that does not mean it's your fault and necessarily your problem to fix. So similar to having to manage up, you may need to coach the person that you're pairing with in ways that help you feel comfortable pairing. But if they don't listen to your requests and implement any of that feedback, then just don't pair with that person. That is a very fine option to recognize people that are not receptive to your needs and, therefore, not someone that you need to then force into being a great pairing buddy. And I emphasize that last one because it took me a little while to become comfortable with that and accepting that it wasn't my fault that I wasn't having a great pairing session with people. Similar to when I'm learning from someone that if someone is explaining something to me and they're making me feel inadequate while they're explaining it to me, that's not necessarily my fault. Like, I used to internalize that as like, oh, I just can't get this. But I am now a very staunch believer in if you can't explain it to me in a way that I understand, then that's probably more on you than on me. And that has also taken me time to just really accept and embrace. But once you do, it is so freeing to realize that if someone's explaining a concept and you're still not getting it, it's like, hey, how can we try harder together versus you just making me try harder? CHRIS: I like that right there of like, if I don't understand this, it may actually be you, not me, or something to that effect. Let's get that on a bumper sticker and put that in The Bike Shed store so that everybody can buy it and put it on their cars or at least just us. But yeah, that starting from the bottom sometimes it's just not going to work great. There are even...I think what you're describing sounds a little more complicated, individuals who are personally not great at communicating or pairing or things like that. And that's going to happen. We're going to run into folks that...pairing is communication. That's just the core of it, and some folks, that may not be their strongest suit. But I think there's another category of just like different working styles. And whereas I might...judge is such a heavy word, but I'm going to use it. I might judge someone who is not doing a great job at communicating to someone else, or understanding their point of view, or striving to do that, or taking feedback. Like, those are not great things. Whereas there may just be two different development styles or backgrounds, or there are other reasons that actually they may be not an ideal fit. That said, I have definitely found that in almost every variation of pairing, I've seen work at some point. Like, when I was very early on in my career pairing with folks that are very senior, I didn't get most of it, but I got some stuff. And then folks that are very much on the same level or folks that have a deep knowledge in framework, code base language, whatever and folks that are new to it but have a different set of experiences. Basically, every version of that, I found that pairing is actually an incredibly powerful technique for knowledge sharing, for collaboration, for all of that. So although there are rare cases where there might be some misalignment, in general, I think pairing can work. I do think you hit on something earlier of there are certain folks that are more private thinkers, is how I would describe it, where thinking out loud is complicated for them. I'm very much someone who talks. That's how I figure out what I think is I say stuff. And I'm like, oh, I agree with what I just said. That's good. But I find I actually struggle. There's something I think of...maybe I'm just a loudmouth is what I'm hearing as I say it, but that is how I process things. Other folks, that is not true. Other folks, it's quite internal, and actually trying to vocalize that or trying to share the thought process as they're going may be uncomfortable. And I think that's perfectly reasonable and something that we should recognize and make space for. And so pairing should not be forced upon a team or an individual because there are just different mindsets, different ways of thinking that we need to account for. But again, the vast majority of cases...I've seen plenty of cases where it's someone's like, "I don't like to pair. That's not my thing." And it's actually that they've had bad experiences. And then when they find a space that feels safe or they see the pattern demonstrated in a way that is collegial, and useful, and friendly, then they're like, oh, actually, I thought I didn't like pairing. I thought I didn't like retro. I thought I didn't like stand-up. But actually, all of these things can be good. STEPH: Yeah, absolutely. It's a skill like anything else. You need to see value in it. And if you haven't seen value in it yet or if it's always made you anxious and uncomfortable, then it's something that you're going to avoid as much as possible until someone can provide a valuable, positive experience around how it can go. I'm going to pull back the curtains just a little bit on our recording and share because you've mentioned that you are very much you think out loud, and that's how you decide that you agree with yourself. And I think already at least twice while we've been recording this episode, I have started to say something, and I'm like, no, wait, I don't agree with that and have backed myself up. CHRIS: [laughs] STEPH: And I'm like, no, I just thought through it; I'm going to cancel it out, [laughs] and then moved in a different direction. So I, too, seem to be someone that I start to say things, and I'm like, oh, wait, I don't actually agree with what I just said [laughs], so let's remove that. CHRIS: Yep. You've described it as Michael Scott-ing on a handful of different episodes or maybe things that were cut from episodes. But where you start a sentence and then you're like, I don't know where I was going to end up there. I hoped I'd figure it out by the end, but then I did not get there. And yeah, I think we've all experienced that at various times. STEPH: That's some of my favorite advice from you is where you've been like, just lean into it, just see where it goes. Finish it out. We can always take it out later. [laughs] Because I stop myself because I immediately start editing what I'm trying to say and you're like, "No, no, just finish it, and then we'll see what happens." That's been fun. CHRIS: This is how you find out what you think. You say it out loud, and then you're like, never mind. That was ridic – STEPH: [laughs] CHRIS: I do. Actually, now I'm thinking back, and I have plenty of those where I'll say a thing, and I'm like, nope, never mind, send that one back. [chuckles] As an aside, so we do this thing where we host a podcast, and we get to talk. But we're both now describing the pattern where we'll start to say something, and we'll be like no, no, no, actually, not that. And I think, dear listeners out there, you probably don't hear any of this, the vast majority of it, because we have wonderful editors behind the scenes, Thom Obarski for many years, and now Mandy Moore, who's been with us for a while. And so once again, thank you so much to the editor team that allows us to, I think, again, feel safe in this conversation that we can say whatever feels true and then know that we'll be able to switch that around. So thank you so much to the editors who help us out and make us sound better than we are. STEPH: Yeah, that has made a big difference in my capabilities to podcast. If we were doing this live, ooh goodness, this might be a whole different, weird show. [laughs] CHRIS: I mean, the same is true for code, right? I deeply value the ability to make an absolute mess in my local editor and have nine different commits that eventually I throw two out. And then I revert that file, and then eventually, the PR that I put up that's my Instagram selfie. That's like, I carefully curated this, but what's behind the scenes it's just a pile of trash. So yeah, the ability to separate the creation and the editing that's a meaningful thing to have in life. STEPH: Oh, I can't unsee that now. [laughs] A pull request is now the equivalent of that curated Instagram selfie. That is beautiful. [laughs] CHRIS: To be clear, I don't think I've ever taken an Instagram selfie. But I get the idea, and I felt like it was an analogy that would work. Again, I try out analogies on this show, and many of them do not stick. But I think that one is all right. STEPH: It might even go back to pairing because then you've got help in taking that picture. So hey, you're making a mess with somebody until you get that right perfect thing, and then you push it up for the world to see. So safe spaces for all the activities, I think that's the takeaway. On that note, shall we wrap up? CHRIS: Let's wrap up. The show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. STEPH: This show is produced and edited by Mandy Moore. CHRIS: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review on iTunes, as it really helps other folks find the show. STEPH: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us at @_bikeshed or reach me on Twitter @SViccari. CHRIS: And I'm @christoomey. STEPH: Or you can reach us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. CHRIS: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. ALL: Byeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. A bit of a mouthful. To most people - and there are those that hate it - he's simply Boris. This series tells the story of Boris Johnson - from boy to man to Prime Minister. In each episode Adam Fleming talks to a range of people who've known, watched, worked or dealt with him. In this first episode we hear about the early years. Guests: Andrew Gimson, political journalist and author of Boris - The Making of the Prime Minister. Sonia Purnell, writer and journalist and author of Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition Michael Cockerell, broadcaster and journalist who made the acclaimed documentary Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise Producers: Ben Carter and Natasha Fernandes Editor: Emma Rippon Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Studio Engineer: Rod Farqahar

Geri Scott, Political Reporter Times London, Adam Boulton, Political Commentator, Sonia Purnell, Author of "Just Boris"

Matthew Parris, Former Conservative MP, Columnist with The Times, Sonia Purnell, author of "Just Boris"

The British Prime Minister, his wife, and the UK's second most powerful politician were fined by London's metropolitan police for attending illegal parties in government buildings, breaking their own Covid-19 lockdown rules. This means Boris Johnson is the first sitting British prime minister to be fined for breaking the law. So, what happens to his leadership now? Here to discuss is Johnson's biographer Sonia Purnell.  Also on today's show: Former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe Sir Richard Shirreff, French journalist Christine Ockrent, French Journalist Yascha Mounk, author Daniel Yergin, and Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

(*Esta conversa foi gravada antes do cenário actual de guerra.) A minha 1ª convidada sugerida pelos ouvintes. Boa surpresa, óptica conversa. Quem se lembra dos "Pen Friends"? A Inês tem a melhor história de sempre. Fiquei cheia de vontade de ler os livros que não conhecia. E obrigada por me recomendaram esta fã nr1 do Churchill, valeu a pena. Os livros sugeridos pela jurista e empresária: The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson; Uma Mulher sem Importância, Sonia Purnell; A Educação de Eleanor, Gail Honeyman.

What a great conversation with Pat Gehant, competitive tennis player, grandmother, recently retired so she can now focus on her other passion projects. Join us to hear the conversation and learn about her:·       Many talents including photography.·       Journey out of the box was so important.·       Career Principles: know yourself, learn new things, work collaboratively and future oriented focus on new opportunity.·       Career as an IT Director without any certifications!·       Gifts as a visionary, collaborator and networker.·       Career decision based on her 4-year old daughter's concerns.·       Message: ‘I close the time and place for my shift to continue a passion focused life on my terms'.·       Challenge to let go and actually retire to shift to other life passions. Pat offers such vulnerable insight into her passion led career journey and what she has learned along the way. Reclaim your sovereignty over your career with knowledge, creativity and leave the fear of failure at the door. Golden rule of passion driven career- work hard in the current job with an eye towards the future and find the doors and open them. BTW she only applied for 2 jobs in her entire career…..everything else was networking, showcasing her skills and being tapped.  The conversation is important, as so many shifts in the workforce, jobs and roles and responsibilities are evolving which is creating new jobs needing new skills.  Do you have a chance to create your next role? Recommendations from Pat:·       Creative Confidence, Unleashing the creative potential within us, Tom, and David Kelly. We are taught in school to follow the syllabus and chase the grade. When we enter the workplace many times, we are stuck. “Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the "creative types." Tom and David Kelly, two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative.” This book will allow you to understand your creative side and that if you want more success you will have to shrug off more failure. An energizing read at any stage of your career. #1 Know yourself·       Open, The Andre Agassi story, Autobiography. From Andre Agassi, one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men ever to step onto a tennis court, a beautiful, haunting autobiography. This is a story that will captivate both tennis players as well as anyone interested in learning how one can overcome failure on such a public forum and become a beloved and humble citizen of the world. #1 Know yourself·       A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy...Book by Sonia Purnell. In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and--despite her prosthetic leg--helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it. Why read this? Because this book reads like the best of Daniel Silva, John Le Carre, and other, only this is real…all of it! #3 – Work Collaboratively (I know a stretch, but an amazing women we never learned about in school. What a story!)·       Unstoppable" Siggi B. Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend" by Joshia M. Greene. Unstoppable is the ultimate immigrant story and an epic David-and-Goliath adventure. While American teens were socializing in ice cream parlors, Siggi was suffering beatings by Nazi hoodlums for being a Jew and was soon deported along with his family to the darkest place the world has ever known: Auschwitz. The story of his perseverance and commitment to faith, family and country is a reminder of the good and the evil that can result from our lack of understanding. #4 – Future Oriented with focus on the new opportunities·       Tournament de Pizza, (Formerly Tour de Pizza) at the Racquet Club of St. Pete that has a menu comprised of specialty 'zas, subs, salads and more with a full liquor bar with 3Daughters on tap., It is the home of the famous pizza diet and Kahwa Coffee! The restaurant is also known for owner Matt McClellan's belief that pizza is healthy food. It's the home of the "30-day pizza diet". Matt is an award-winning body builder who believes tennis is the best cardio workout to a full and healthy lifestyle. So, Matt is not just pizza, Tournament de Pizza is a lifestyle. Located at the Racquet Club of St. Petersburg 170 47th Avenue NE Saint Petersburg, FL 33703 727-898-5555 And tell Matt you heard about it on Shifting Inside Out Podcast! Listen here https://angiemccourt.transistor.fm/episodes

Boris Johnson remains consistent in at least one regard – he continues to disappoint yet fails to surprise with his actions. With the PM's bluster having backfired of late, journalist and author of Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition Sonia Purnell joins us to discuss his position. Meanwhile, questions have been raised over “dirty money” from Russia “flowing into” London. How does this tie in with our politics – and place on the world stage?  “Boris was driven by the agenda of his own career. He had to be number 1 and of course the most powerful person in the country is the Prime Minister.” - Sonia Purnell  “It's getting hard to defend the system.” - Ian Dunt  “Tory MPs have essentially desensitised themselves, and there are no boundaries to what they will defend.” - Ros Taylor  “Johnson is not a nice, cuddly teddy bear. There is a loss of control when he's under threat.” - Sonia Purnell  “For the Tory party to change, you have to hurt it at the ballot box.” - Ros Taylor www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Ian Dunt and Ros Taylor. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Lead Producer: Jacob Jarvis. Producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You won't want to miss this all things year-in-review! Director of Bloom, Heidy Tandy joins Lisa in our 4th annual Year End Celebration!  Gather book recommendations, hear lessons learned and get a sneak peek of Bloom 2022. Try Softer by Aundi Kolber Unaffendable by Brant Hansen Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee Mitford Series by Jan Karon I Am Restored by Lecrae The Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell

You won't want to miss this all things year-in-review! Director of Bloom, Heidy Tandy joins Lisa in our 4th annual Year End Celebration!  Gather book recommendations, hear lessons learned and get a sneak peek of Bloom 2022. Try Softer by Aundi Kolber Unaffendable by Brant Hansen Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee Mitford Series by Jan Karon I Am Restored by Lecrae The Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell

What to Read Wednesdays comes at you every other Wednesday and is your one stop for reading, watching, and listening recommendations from your favorite library staff members! This week's episode features recommendations from Mark at the Powell branch and podcast host Annie. Books recommended include A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Junie B. Jones and the Stupid, Smelly Bus by Barbara Park, Thunderstruck by Eric Larsen and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia, and many more. To read about more recommendations, click here. To request any of these titles, just click here. Email us with book recommendations, suggestions, & feedback at whattoread@delawarelibrary.org 

Adam Boulton and guests deliver an end of term report as Boris Johnson marks two years as Prime Minister.The pledges made on the steps of Number Ten Downing Street in 2019 have been overshadowed somewhat by the coronavirus pandemic.But what about the future? How can he reset the agenda to achieve the goals he set out on that sunny day in Westminster two years ago.Joining Adam this week are the former Conservative Cabinet Minister David Gauke, the writer and journalist - and Boris Johnson biographer - Sonia Purnell and Sky's chief political correspondent Jon Craig.

A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE AMERICAN SPY WHO HELPED WIN WORLD WAR IIIn 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: “She is the most dangerous of all Allies spies. We must find and destroy her.” The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organisation dubbed Winston Churchill's “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” Sonia Purnell gives a brilliant talk on this astonishingly brave woman who became a linchpin of the Resistance and liberated swathes of France from the Nazis after D-Day. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the penultimate episode of season two, Mackenzie and Lily tackle a few of their favorite non-romance Smart People Books™ that'll not only give you plenty of food for thought but are also just delightful reads.Major episode timestamps: Introduction (0:00), Housekeeping (3:33), Introduction to Main Topic (4:58), Discussion of Infinite Country by Patricia Engel (6:16), Discussion of A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell (8:15), Discussion of What Doesn’t Kill You by Tessa Miller (11:58), Discussion of A Measure of Belonging edited by Cinelle Barnes (15:41), Discussion of Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo (17:30), Ace by Angela Chen (21: 28), What Else We’re Reading (27:15), Conclusion (32:00).You can get full show notes and episode transcriptions on the Bad Bitch Book Club website: http://badbitchbookclub.com/podcast.Give us a five-star rating wherever you get your podcasts, and say hi to us at @F2LPodcast on Twitter and Instagram. You can also join the private F2L Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/292095932008569.If you want to support Bad Bitch Book Club's initiatives (including this podcast), become a Patreon member: https://www.patreon.com/badbitchbookclub.Buy all books mentioned on Friends to Lovers: https://bookshop.org/lists/friends-to-lovers-podcast.Friends to Lovers is a Bad Bitch Book Club podcast hosted by BBBC founder Mackenzie Newcomb and writer, editor, and bestie Lily Herman. Each week, they use books as a jumping off point to talk about sex, relationships, dating, love, romance, and more.Podcast logo by MKW Creative Co. (https://mkwcreative.co/) and music by Eliza Rose Vera (http://www.elizarosevera.com).

En este episodio hablaremos de la vida de Virginia Hall, como se convirtió en la espía más buscada por los nazis y las hazañas que realizo para liberar algunas partes de Francia. Acompáñanos a conocer la vida de Virginia y porque es considerada una Mujer con Historia. Libro "Una mujer sin importancia" https://www.amazon.com.mx/Una-mujer-importancia-Sonia-Purnell-ebook/dp/B08FHF4F75 *Música: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nGhxroVr8k

This episode covers a LOT of ground! Lisa interviews Katie Alesso, Connections Pastor at Thrive Los Angeles. Katie shares about how God has uniquely wired her for ministry through extroversion and relationships and how that all connects with her journey in church planting. You'll also learn Katie's definition of a Sunday afternoon mega-nap. Resources shared on the show today: Managing Leadership Anxiety By Steve Cuss Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero A Women of No Importance by Sonia Purnell

This episode covers a LOT of ground! Lisa interviews Katie Alesso, Connections Pastor at Thrive Los Angeles. Katie shares about how God has uniquely wired her for ministry through extroversion and relationships and how that all connects with her journey in church planting. You’ll also learn Katie’s definition of a Sunday afternoon mega-nap. Resources shared on the show today: Managing Leadership Anxiety By Steve Cuss Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero A Women of No Importance by Sonia Purnell

Stephen Kinzer explains the twisted life of Sidney Gottlieb, a CIA operative who tortured and poisoned for a supposed greater good. Former CIA Chief of Counterintelligence James M. Olson on what it takes to catch a spy. Sonia Purnell tells the story of Virginia Hall, a highly unlikely but most dangerous Allied spy in WWII.

Boris Johnson is in Brussels today to have a face to face meeting with European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. They’re trying to find a post-Brexit trade deal. So how will the dynamics work between the two? Sonia Purnell used to work with Boris Johnson in Brussels when they wrote for the Telegraph together. She’s written a biography about him. And Maria von Welser knows Ursula von der Leyen. They wrote a book together about women in German society. What’s the best way to approach shyness in your child? Nadia Finer joins Andrea to offer her advice. She runs an online programme called The Mighty Mob. It's for 7-14 year olds who want to feel braver, more able to speak up and join in, and more comfortable to be themselves. Nadia, who is shy herself, says that shy children do not need to change who they are, nor should we make them. In her new cookbook The Home Cookery Year, Claire Thomson offers solutions for quick dishes that are easy to make in minimal time at the end of a busy working day. The former chef and mother of three discusses cooking with her children during lockdown, with only half a kitchen, and how to Cook the Perfect…Brussels Sprout Galette with Pancetta & Chestnuts. We’ve been asking women how it feels to reach the age their mum was when she died. Today’s story is a bit different. Beth is 24 and her story is complicated. When she heard we were looking for stories on this subject she thought, at first, that she didn’t have anything to say.

This week's episode of the KPL Podcast is sure to strike a chord with history buffs and fans of WW2 espionage alike. We speak with author Sonia Purnell about her best-seller "A Woman of No Importance" and the courageous life of Virginia Hall. All this and much more on this can't miss episode of the KPL Podcast! Links and RecommendationsA Woman of No Importance by Sonia PurnellThe Spy Princess by Shrabani BasuThese 5 Women of World War II Who Should Be Household Names

In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization deemed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France. Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic flare, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pbliving/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pbliving/support

The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love, Power, and Morality in Mussolini’s Italy by Victoria De Grazia Victoriadegrazia.com “As Fellini did in film, The Perfect Fascist takes us into the dark and complicated heart of Italian fascism…It is an extraordinary story that illuminates the ways in which the all-consuming nature of fascism distorted Italian society and destroyed the lives of individuals. I could not put it down.” ―Margaret MacMillan, author of Paris 1919 “With lyrical precision, The Perfect Fascist reveals how ideology corrupts the truth, how untrammeled ambition destroys the soul, and how the vanity of white male supremacy distorts emotion, making even love a matter of state.” ―Sonia Purnell, author of A Woman of No Importance Through the story of one exemplary fascist―a war hero turned commander of Mussolini’s Black Shirts―the award-winning author of How Fascism Ruled Women reveals how the personal became political in the fascist quest for manhood and power. When Attilio Teruzzi, Mussolini’s handsome political enforcer, married a rising young American opera star, his good fortune seemed settled. The wedding was a carefully stage-managed affair, capped with a blessing by Mussolini himself. Yet only three years later, after being promoted to commander of the Black Shirts, Teruzzi renounced his wife. In fascist Italy, a Catholic country with no divorce law, he could only dissolve the marriage by filing for an annulment through the medieval procedures of the Church Court. The proceedings took an ominous turn when Mussolini joined Hitler: Lilliana Teruzzi was Jewish, and fascist Italy would soon introduce its first race laws. The Perfect Fascist pivots from the intimate story of a tempestuous seduction and inconvenient marriage―brilliantly reconstructed through family letters and court records―to a riveting account of Mussolini’s rise and fall. It invites us to see in the vain, loyal, lecherous, and impetuous Attilio Teruzzi, a decorated military officer, an exemplar of fascism’s New Man. Why did he abruptly discard the woman he had so eagerly courted? And why, when the time came to find another partner, did he choose another Jewish woman as his would-be wife? In Victoria de Grazia’s engrossing account, we see him vacillating between the will of his Duce and the dictates of his heart. De Grazia’s landmark history captures the seductive appeal of fascism and shows us how, in his moral pieties and intimate betrayals, his violence and opportunism, Teruzzi is a forefather of the illiberal politicians of today.

Today we revisit one of my favorite interviews with an a story so compelling you keep reading. I interviewed Sonia Purnell on her historical book… In 1942, as World War II was raging, the Gestapo sent out an urgent message: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.”

Progressive Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan answers listener questions for a national Town Hall meeting, addressing frequently asked queries on the upcoming election and the recent revelations from the Woodward book.

Book to be discussed: A woman of no importance: the untold story of the American spy who helped win WWII DB95178 NLS ANNOTATION: A woman of no importance: the untold story of the American spy who helped win WWII DB95178

In an extra special podcast, Matt Chorley looks back over Boris Johnson's first year in office by assessing the success of promises made in his first ever speech and talking to historian Anthony Seldon, biographer Sonia Purnell and friend and former aide Guto Harri. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jonathan Rée tells the story of his father, a British schoolmaster who snuck behind enemy lines to partner with the French Resistance. Sonia Purnell tells the story of Virginia Hall, a highly unlikely but most dangerous Allied spy in WWII.

On this week's Tech Nation, journalist Sonia Purnell talks about the spycraft of Virginia Hall, an American in Occupied France during World War II. Her book is called “A Woman of No Importance.” Then Dr. John Haurum (ha-RUMM) from F-Star in Cambridge, England describes their approach to creating cancer drugs, and Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent Dr. Daniel Kraft talks about sleep – and upsides and downsides of all this technology.

On this week’s Tech Nation, journalist Sonia Purnell talks about the spycraft of Virginia Hall, an American in Occupied France during World War II. Her book is called “A Woman of No Importance.” Then Dr. John Haurum (ha-RUMM) from F-Star in Cambridge, England describes their approach to creating cancer drugs, and Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent Dr. Daniel Kraft talks about sleep – and upsides and downsides of all this technology.

Stephen Kinzer explains the twisted life of Sidney Gottlieb, a CIA operative who tortured and poisoned for a supposed greater good. Former CIA Chief of Counterintelligence James M. Olson on what it takes to catch a spy. Sonia Purnell tells the story of Virginia Hall, a highly unlikely but most dangerous Allied spy in WWII.

Sonia Purnell discusses Virginia Hall, who she wrote about in A Woman of No Importance. Working for SOE Virginia was able to do what many of her male colleagues had tried and failed to do- she build a strong resistance network that was able to undermine fascist authority in Vichy France from below. Additional audio taken from School for Danger, licensed by IWM.

Sonia Purnell is a journalist and non-fiction author. Her books include: Just Boris: A Tale of Blonde Ambition, Clementine: The Life of Mrs Winston Churchill, and today, well be talking about he most recent title, A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, which is now in paperback from Penguin.

After a severe fever in 1776, Rhode Island farmer's daughter Jemima Wilkinson was reborn as a genderless celestial being who had been sent to warn of the coming Apocalypse. But the general public was too scandalized by the messenger to pay heed to the message. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the Public Universal Friend and the prejudiced reaction of a newly formed nation. We'll also bid on an immortal piano and puzzle over some Icelandic conceptions. Intro: When identical images of a tower are placed side by side, the towers appear to diverge. In 2002, Erl E. Kepner patented a one-sided coffee mug. Sources for our feature on the Public Universal Friend: Paul B. Moyer, The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America, 2015. Herbert Andrew Wisbey, Pioneer Prophetess: Jemima Wilkinson, the Publick Universal Friend, 1964. Catherine A. Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845, 2000. Michael Bronski, A Queer History of the United States, 2011. Joel Whitney Tibbetts, Women Who Were Called: A Study of the Contributions to American Christianity of Ann Lee, Jemima Wilkinson, Mary Baker Eddy and Aimee Semple McPherson, 1978. Stafford Canning Cleveland, History and Directory of Yates County, 1873. Lewis Cass Aldrich, History of Yates County, N.Y., 1892. Wilkins Updike, James MacSparran, and Daniel Goodwin, A History of the Episcopal Church in Narragansett, Rhode Island, Volume 1, 1907. Sharon Betcher, "'The Second Descent of the Spirit of Life from God': The Assumption of Jemima Wilkinson," in Brenda E. Brasher and Lee Quinby, eds., Gender and Apocalyptic Desire, 2014. Paul Buckley, "The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America," Friends Journal 62:6 (June-July 2016), 38. Scott Larson, "'Indescribable Being': Theological Performances of Genderlessness in the Society of the Publick Universal Friend, 1776-1819," Early American Studies 12:3 (Fall 2014), 576-600. Shelby M. Balik, "The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America," Journal of the Early Republic 38:1, 157-160. Gwen Gosney Erickson, "The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America," Quaker History 106:1 (Spring 2017), 28-29. Beverly C. Tomek, "The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America," Journal of American History 103:3 (December 2016), 746–747. Charles Lowell Marlin, "Jemima Wilkinson: Errant Quaker Divine," Quaker History 52:2 (Autumn 1963), 90-94. Jeremy Rapport, "The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America," Early American Literature 52:1 (2017), 249-253, 267. Janet Moore Lindman, "From Salvation to Damnation: Popular Religion in Early America," Reviews in American History 45:4 (December 2017), 570-575. Margaret Bendroth, "Angry Women and the History of American Evangelicalism," Fides et Historia 34:2 (Summer 2002), 113. Samantha Schmidt, "A Genderless Prophet Drew Hundreds of Followers Long Before the Age of Nonbinary Pronouns," Washington Post, Jan. 5, 2020. Molly Worthen, "A Tour Through the 'American Messiahs' of Our Past," New York Times, April 26, 2019. Greg Barnhisel, "The Book of Nonconformists: America Has Always Been a Home to Self-Styled Messiahs," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 7, 2019, E5. Chris Jennings, "The Prophets Among Us," Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2019, A15. Gary Craig, "'Friend' Fund Named in Suit Found Offshore," Rochester [N.Y.] Democrat and Chronicle, Jan. 7, 2007, A7. "Life Story: The Public Universal Friend (1752–1819)," Women & The American Story, New York Historical Society (accessed Feb. 25, 2020). Listener mail: Sonia Purnell, A Woman of No Importance, 2019. "Britain's Secret WWII Weapons Revealed," BBC News, Oct. 26, 1999. Patrick Sawer and Hannah Furness, "From Garlic Chocolate to Exploding Animal Droppings: How Britain's Weird WWII Inventions Helped Fool the Nazis," Telegraph, June 1, 2017. Neil Johnston, "Weird Weapons That Nobbled Nazis Revealed in New Book," Times, June 2, 2017. Wikipedia, "Charles Fraser-Smith" (accessed Feb. 29, 2020). Wikipedia, "Q-Ship" (accessed Feb. 29, 2020). James Barron, "Charles Fraser-Smith, Mr. Gadget For James Bond Tales, Dies at 88," New York Times, Nov. 13, 1992. Barry Fox, "Review: Careful Carruthers, That Paper Clip Is Loaded," New Scientist, Aug. 14, 1993. Owen Mortimer, "'Immortal Piano' Offered for Sale Online," Rhinegold Publishing, Jan. 20, 2020. Russian pianist Anatole Kitain performs the Adagio from Bach's Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564, on the Siena piano. eBay, "Siena Pianoforte Immortal Piano Marchisio 1800's Sculpted By Bartalozzi & Ferri," listing ended Feb. 5, 2020. "Seized by Nazis, Found in Israel, 'Immortal Piano' Expected to Fetch $1m," Times of Israel, March 1, 2020. "'Immortal Piano' Set for Israel Auction," ArtDaily, March 6, 2020. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Chris Pallant. Here's a corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

Sonia Purnell has thoughts about a man she knows quite well, Boris Johnson; then, Joel VanderSpek of CSI shares more stories of Christians being freed from slavery through the generosity of our audience.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sonia Purnell joins Eric in the studio to tell the fascinating story of Winston Churchill’s closest confidante, fiercest critic, and shrewdest advisor—his wife Clementine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

April 11, 2019 at the Boston Athenæum. This lecture is in conjunction with the Royal Oak Foundation. In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent command: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." This spy was Virginia Hall, a young socialite from Baltimore, who, after being rejected from the Foreign Service because of her gender and prosthetic leg, talked her way into the SOE, the WWII British spy organization dubbed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare." Hall, known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," was one of the greatest spies in American and English history, yet her full story remains untold. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Hall coordinated a network of spies to report on German troop movements, arranged equipment parachute drops for Resistance fighters, and recruited and trained guerrilla units to ambush enemy convoys and blow up bridges and railroads. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Hall refused orders to evacuate. She finally escaped in a death- defying climb over of the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had more lives to save, she plunged back into the field with the American OSS secret service, directing partisan armies to back up the Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. A Woman of No Importance: The Spy Who Helped Win WWII will reveal the captivating story of a formidable, yet shockingly overlooked, heroine whose fierce persistence helped win the war.

National town hall with Rep Mark Pocan and callers. - For the Book Club Thom reads from "A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy who Helped Win World War II" by Sonia Purnell - Thom asks callers how should the Dems deal with the fact that Trump's base loves his cruelty on the border? - Talk Media News report with former congressman now journalist, Bob Ney. - Mueller Report reading starting at page 121. - Thom is devastated by insights from the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics on how the children at the border have been emotionally traumatized. - Callers weigh in on the Nike Betsy Ross shoe controversy and significance of American flags.

This week Alice and Kim talk ridiculously long subtitles and books about the ocean, from the science of jellyfish to the true story of the mutiny on the HMS Bounty.  This episode is sponsored by Libro.fm audiobooks, Amazon Publishing, and Book Riot Insiders. Subscribe to For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher. For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kim Ukura. FOLLOW UP Washington Post: “Book subtitles are getting ridiculously long. What is going on?” NEW BOOKS For the Love of Books by Graham Tarrant The Weather Machine by Andrew Blum A Death in the Rainforest by Don Kulick More Than Enough by Elaine Welteroth I Like to Watch by Emily Nussbaum NATIONAL OCEANS MONTH Spineless by Juli Berwald The Bounty by Caroline Alexander Fisherman’s Blues by Anna Badkhen Poseidon’s Steed by Helen Scales Hawaiki Rising by Dr. Sam Low READING NOW Exit West by Mohsin Hamid A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell

It's Boris Johnson versus Jeremy Hunt in the race to be Prime Minister. For this week's podcast episode, Gary Gibbon talks to Boris biographers Sonia Purnell and Andrew Gimson about what we should all expect from the bookies' favourite.  Subscribe to Politics: Where Next? for more in-depth discussion every Friday.     

In 1942, as World War II was raging, the Gestapo sent out an urgent message: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.” That spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman who—rejected from the Foreign Service because of her gender and prosthetic leg—talked her way behind enemy lines in occupied France and went on to become one of the greatest (and most unlikely) spies in U.S. history. Today I talk with Sonia Purnell, author of the book "A Woman of No Importance." Virginia quickly established a network of spies to blow up bridges and track German troop movements; she recruited and trained guerrilla fighters, arming them with weapons she called in from the skies. As “the limping lady of Lyon” and later “the Madonna of the Mountains,” she became legend. Eluding the Nazis hot on her tail, her face covering WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused orders to evacuate. Finally—her cover blown and her associates imprisoned or executed—she escaped in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain. But, adamant that she had “more lives to save,” she dove back in as soon as she could, helping lay the groundwork for the Allied liberation of France.

Sonia Purnell discloses the true story of espionage about the heroic woman the Gestapo called “the most dangerous of all Allied spies” in her riveting new bestseller, “A Woman of No Importance.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week’s Tech Nation, journalist Sonia Purnell talks about the spycraft of Virginia Hall, an American in Occupied France during World War II. Her book is called “A Woman of No Importance.” Then Dr. John Haurum (ha-RUMM) from F-Star in Cambridge, England describes their approach to creating cancer drugs, and Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent Dr. Daniel Kraft talks about sleep – and upsides and downsides of all this technology.

On this week’s Tech Nation, journalist Sonia Purnell talks about the spycraft of Virginia Hall, an American in Occupied France during World War II. Her book is called “A Woman of No Importance.” Then Dr. John Haurum (ha-RUMM) from F-Star in Cambridge, England describes their approach to creating cancer drugs, and Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent Dr. Daniel Kraft talks about sleep – and upsides and downsides of all this technology.

Meet AWC alumna Astrid Scholte, author of ‘Four Dead Queens’. Discover why you should write your query letter first! We have 3 copies of ‘A Woman of No Importance’ by Sonia Purnell up for grabs. Plus, don’t miss your chance to see So You Want To Be A Writer live. Read the show notes.  Email Valerie and Allison podcast@writerscentre.com.au. WritersCentre.com.au | AllisonTait.com | ValerieKhoo.com 

Look, nobody wants to go through hard times. We’d prefer that things go according to plan, that what could go wrong doesn’t, so that we might enjoy our lives without being challenged or tested beyond our limits. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen. Which leaves us then with the question of what good there is in such difficulty and how we might—either in the moment or after the fact—come to understand what it is that we’re going through...today, tomorrow, and always. This passage from Sonia Purnell’s wonderful biography of Clementine Churchill, wife of Winston Churchill, is worth thinking about this morning:“Clementine was not cut out from birth for the part history handed her. Adversity, combined with sheer willpower, burnished a timorous, self-doubting bundle of nerves and emotion into a wartime consort of unparalleled composure, wisdom, and courage. The flames of many hardships in early life forged the inner core of steel she needed for her biggest test of all. By the Second World War the young child terrified of her father...had transmogrified into a woman cowed by no one.” The Stoics believed that adversity was inevitable. They knew that Fortune was capricious and that it often subjected us to things we were not remotely prepared to handle. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Because it teaches us. It strengthens us. It gives us a chance to prove ourselves. “Disaster,” Seneca wrote, “is Virtue’s opportunity.”As he writes in On Providence:“Familiarity with exposure to danger will give contempt for danger. So the bodies of sailors are hardy from buffeting the sea, the hands of farmers are callous, the soldier’s muscles have the strength to hurl weapons, and the legs of a runner are nimble. In each, his staunchest member is the one that he has exercised. By enduring ills the mind attains contempt for the endurance of them; you will know what this can accomplish in our own case, if you will observe how much the peoples that are destitute and, by reason of their want, more sturdy, secure by toil.”Basically, he was describing the same phenomenon that transformed Clementine Churchill from a timid young girl into the brave woman who inspired millions of Britons and Europeans through one of the darkest ordeals in the history of the modern world. The difficulty she went through early in life forged for her a backbone upon which she and countless others came to depend.And so the same can be true for you and whatever it is that you’re going through right now. Yes, it would probably be preferable if everything went your way and if you could count on smooth sailing for the rest of your life. But you can’t. You’re stuck with this present moment instead. So use it. Be hardened and improved by it. Be transformed by it. The world needs more Clementines. And you can be one of them.

This Virago podcast features Virago Publisher Sarah Savitt in conversation with biographer and journalist Sonia Purnell, discussing Sonia's latest book, A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of WWII's Most Dangerous Spy, Virginia Hall.A Woman of No Importance tells the incredible untold story of Virginia Hall, an American woman with a wooden leg who infiltrated Occupied France for the SOE and became the Gestapo's most wanted Allied spy.Discover five additional unsung heroines on the Virago blog: https://www.virago.co.uk/five-unsung-heroines-by-sonia-purnell/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The folk duo, Fran and Flora play Eastern European inspired music from their album, Unfurl.The former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark, tells us about her recent work with the children's charity World Vision where she's been trying to help eradicate child marriage in Afghanistan.According to recent research Maths anxiety is real and one in ten children suffer from despair and rage when faced with the subject. We hear from Kayla Fuller who suffered from maths anxiety at school and from Lucy Rycroft Smith a research and communications officer at Cambridge mathematics.Do cultural attitudes to women and pain stand in the way of effective treatments? We're joined by Katy Vincent, Senior Pain Fellow at the Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health at the University of Oxford.Sonia Purnell on her book, A Woman of No Importance, about Virginia Hall an American turned British spy who overcame a lost leg to become a legend in espionage and guerrilla warfare. We hear from Julie Morgan the deputy minister for Health and Social Services in the Welsh Assembly on why she is fighting to ban smacking children in Wales.And Hallie Rubenhold tells us about the five female victims of Jack the Ripper. She's written about their lives in her new book The Five.Presented by Jenni Murray Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed Edited by Jane ThurlowInterviewed guest: Helen Clark Interviewed guest: Kayla Fuller Interviewed guest: Lucy Rycroft Smith Interviewed guest: Katy Vincent Interviewed guest: Sonia Purnell Interviewed guest: Julie Morgan Interviewed guest: Hallie Rubenhold

When you go shopping do you use the self-service checkouts? Or when you pop into a fast food place do you order on the touch- screens rather than go to the counter? If so, your transaction is through computers rather than people. This week the Office of National Statistics says that nearly 1.5 million jobs are at risk because of this type of automation and they're jobs that many women carry out.Victoria, a new ballet being performed at Sadler's Wells in London, tells the remarkable story of Queen Victoria through the eyes of her youngest child and lifelong companion Beatrice. Choreographer and director, Cathy Marston and dramaturg, Uzma Hameed join Jenni to discuss the challenges of recreating a royal icon onstage, and reveal the true story behind Victoria and Beatrice's unique mother-daughter relationship. Zeenat Aman has often been called Bollywood's first sex symbol. She starred in numerous films in the 70s and 80s and redefined the archetypal heroine in Indian cinema. In an era when women played secondary characters, largely obedient wives and lovers, she was drawn to more unconventional roles. From the drug-taking hippie in 'Hare Rama Hare Krishna' to the opportunist who leaves her unemployed lover for a millionaire in 'Roti', she was an inspiration for so many other heroines. She tell us about her illustrious career, Bollywood and the UK Asian Film Festival. Last year Gina Haspel became the first female director of the CIA . She talked about how she stood “on the shoulders of heroines who never sought public acclaim” and was “deeply indebted” to women who challenged stereotypes and broke down barriers to make her appointment possible. One of the women she was referring to was Virginia Hall, an American-turned-British spy who became a legend in espionage and guerrilla warfare. Sonia Purnell has spent more than three years finding out more and talks to Jenni about her new book 'A Woman of No Importance' which has already been optioned for a film with Daisy Ridley set to play Virginia.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Professor Gina Neff Interviewed Guest: Cathy Marston Interviewed Guest: Uzma Hazeed Interviewed Guest: Zeenat Aman Interviewed Guest: Sonia Purnell

Best known as the wife of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill served as one of her husband's closest confidantes, aiding him during his brightest moments as well as his darkest hours. During World War II, she led the Young Women's Christian Association's wartime efforts and also assisted in the Red Cross's efforts to provide relief in Russia. Sonia Purnell is a political reporter who has worked for a number of high-profile newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Independent on Sunday and the London Evening Standard. She is the author of Just Boris, an acclaimed biography of Boris Johnson, London’s exuberant mayor. Her latest book, Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill, explores the peculiar dynamics of the fascinating union between Clementine and Winston Churchill. She joins us on Culture Insight to share her insight into the life and work of Clementine Churchill.

Sir Winston Churchill remains one of the most well-known world leaders, but few realize the impact his wife had on his political career. Clementine Churchill both tamed and empowered the “British Bulldog”. We spoke with Sonia Purnell, author of Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill, to understand Clementine’s leadership and legacy.

If modern economic theory led to the Financial Crisis of 2008, some of its basic ideas need to change—but how? In this podcast, Howard Reed describes how the discipline went wrong, and how it must be reformed and Linda Yueh asks how the great economists of the nineteenth century might have reacted to modern times. And if we do develop a new economic outlook, who will be in No 10 to implement it? Jacob Rees-Mogg? Perhaps, says Sonia Purnell, who describes the Tory MP's continuing allure for his party—even if others elsewhere find him less appetising. And Patience Wheatcroft, the Conservative peer, discusses the Parliamentary fight over Brexit. Will it happen? Chaired by the Editor of Prospect, Tom Clark. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Andrew Jenks was ready to sell his new movie based on the inspirational Winston Churchill, who had chronic depression but still saved the free world from Hitler and the Nazis. Like Churchill, Jenks lives with depression. But after speaking with biographer Paul Reid and Sonia Purnell, Jenks wonders if Churchill’s depression, or ‘black dog’, is really just a myth. Jenks also speaks with Dr. Paul Keedwell.

Anushka Asthana is joined by Boris Johnson's biographer Sonia Purnell to discuss the foreign secretary's 4,000-word intervention on Brexit this week. Plus: the Labour chair Ian Lavery on changes to the party's leadership election rules. On the panel: Gaby Hinsliff, Paul Mason and Richard Angell. Please support our work and help us keep the world informed. To fund us, go to https://www.theguardian.com/give/podcast

Sonia Purnell presents the inspiring but often ignored story of one of the most important women in modern history - the original 'First Lady'. Discover the fascinating story of her influence on Britain's wartime leader, through the Churchills' 'wilderness years' in the 1930s, to Clementine's desperate efforts to preserve her husband's health during the struggle against Hitler.Sonia Purnell is a journalist and author.

Bike blogger Mark Ames (ibikelondon.blogspot.com) joins Jack and Jen to talk about this week's elections for London Mayor. Is there a cycling vote? Which candidate is best? Views from blogger Danny Williams, journalist Sonia Purnell, Julian Sayerer of Londoners on Bikes and Mustafa Arif of the London Cycling Campaign Continue reading →