The Stars at Noon (Flight, its first seventy-five years)

Rating:
Summary: Oh, Puh-leeeeeze!
Review: For weeks after the book arrived at my bookstore, I was doing Jackie Cochran impersonations.

"Well, after the war, I just *had* to go to Paris. So, I took Mr. Odlum, my "wingman" and so, I went. And so I found myself near the Ritz, at Maxims! and they were closed. Closed! To me! So Mr. Odlum timidly suggested we go elsewhere. But I said nothing to it. Instead, I used some of the "animal instinct" I used back in Florida when I was but a wild child, and went back to find the "garbage can"....garbage can, if you can say that...and of course, I found oh, a great feast. Honestly, those French throw away in a day what would feed an American family in a week! And beside me, I found this ragged little gamine rootling right next to me...taking even worse scraps than I. Well! I told her how to get better than that, and put her on the payroll that week."

Jackie Cochran was indeed a great American story. But so was my great-aunt, and many others. If she hadn't been so ready to pat herself on the back, I would have rated her higher. Read her, if only to get her side, then read Yeager. You'll be the better for it.

Rating:
Summary: Oh, Puh-leeeeeze!
Review: For weeks after the book arrived at my bookstore, I was doing Jackie Cochran impersonations.

"Well, after the war, I just *had* to go to Paris. So, I took Mr. Odlum, my "wingman"<giggle> and so, I went. And so I found myself near the Ritz, at Maxims! and they were closed. Closed! To me! So Mr. Odlum timidly suggested we go elsewhere. But I said nothing to it. Instead, I used some of the "animal instinct" <MUCH giggling> I used back in Florida when I was but a wild child, and went back to find the "garbage can"....garbage can, if you can say that...and of course, I found oh, a great feast. Honestly, those French throw away in a day what would feed an American family in a week! And beside me, I found this ragged little gamine rootling right next to me...taking even worse scraps than I. Well! I told her how to get better than that, and put her on the payroll that week."

Jackie Cochran was indeed a great American story. But so was my great-aunt, and many others. If she hadn't been so ready to pat herself on the back, I would have rated her higher. Read her, if only to get her side, then read Yeager. You'll be the better for it.

Rating:
Summary: Good Autobiography
Review: I thought it was fairly well written, Jackie was not known for being reserved. She tells about her childhood and her life as a beautician. How she met her rich husband and how she started her own cometic company and why she began flying. She tells little of how she manipulated her way into starting the WASP's. That she was successful, demonstrates her will. She tells about how she broke women's speed records after the fall of the WASP's, I felt she was using her money for a last swan song. In "Jackie Cochran" written with Maryanne Bucknum Brinley, thoughts from Chuck Yeager are enlightening. Brinley's book uses much of what is in "The Stars at Noon", and adds thoughts from her friends and I felt it was a little better organized.