I want to tell you about a book I just finished and loved – Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead.  It is the story of two woman.  Marian Graves is a female aviator in the early 20^th century, who disappeared in the Antarctic towards the end of an attempted around the world flight.  Hadley Baxter is a troubled young starlet in the present day, caught in a Hollywood scandal, who is trying to redefine her career, and herself, by playing Marian in a movie about her final flight.  The narrative goes back and forth between the two women, but focuses mainly on Marian – her early years, how she became interested in learning to fly, the choices that she made (good and bad) that allowed her to do so, and details of that final fateful flight.  It is easy to forget that Marian is fictional, likely a composite of many of those early women aviators. The writing in this book is lovely- you can tell that the author herself loves flight- and the story takes readers through the early (dangerous!) days of aviation in this country through its role in World War Two.  The great circle of the title is obviously Marian’s final flight, but there are so many more circles that I kept thinking of new ones for days after I finished the last page.

This novel also made me think of the circles and connections that lifelong readers make.  Many years ago, I read West With the Night by Beryl Markham. She was the first aviator, man or woman, to fly from England to North America nonstop.  Imagine my delight when Circling the Sun by Paula McLain was published.  This is a fictionalized telling of Markham’s life in Kenya – her early years, her life as a horse trainer, and of course her trailblazing flight.  Recently, for a book club, I read Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien.  This was a fascinating look at the early women aviators in the United States – their challenges, their early deaths, their accomplishments, their competitions with each other to be first.  It was because I had flight on my mind that I picked up Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. I like thinking about how these books all connect in my reading brain, and about how they will likely lead me to read more about this subject again, fiction and nonfiction.  Circle closed?  More like a circle has no end!

There are so many fiction/nonfiction crossover circles that we could list – here are just a few others to think about:

If you read The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson and want to read a bit more about the Churchill women, try these historical fiction novels – Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict, Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elisa MacNeil, and That Churchill Woman by Stephanie Barron.

If you read The Martian by Andy Weir, or are looking forward to his new book Project Hail Mary, learn a bit more about the science of life in space in Packing For Mars by Mary Roach or about the red planet itself in The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson.

If you were fascinated by the women spies in Liar Temptress Soldier Spy by Karen Abbott, you might enjoy the fictional spies in The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini, The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott or The Alice Network by Kate Quinn.

What fiction/nonfiction crossover circles have you enjoyed?