Best Books of 2025 – Chapter 5

I have found that I love to read books about the woman behind (or beside) a famous man and many of these books have made my “best of” lists over the years.  I first read about Bertha Benz (yes that Benz of Mercedes-Benz) in a book my daughter and son-in-law gave me entitled The Car so when I became aware of this historical fiction novel about her, I knew I had to read it.  And as you know by now, I love to read books about cars.

Penny Haw, in her book The Woman at the Wheel tells the story of the critical role Bertha played in the development of the first automobile eventually called the Motorwagen replacing the term “horseless carriage.”  While it was predominantly the genius of her husband Karl that invented, built, and patented the first “automobile” in 1886 it was Bertha that spearheaded its adoption.  The story covers all the trials and tribulations Karl went through to develop the car and how Bertha supported him all along the way, while at the same time giving birth to their two sons and first two daughters.

This mode of transportation was so unique and foreign to carriages pulled by horses for centuries that the key to getting the car adopted for widespread use was to show its functionality.  Expositions where the car sat statically on display, had failed to garner any interest.  Bertha knew it had to be demonstrated on the road, and she was key to that being allowed in an 1888 exposition in Munich, Germany.

Leading up to that event was what had been written about in the previous book I mentioned. Unbeknownst to Karl, Bertha set off with her two sons on what was the first ever road trip by automobile, a round trip of almost 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, her childhood home.  The car had never been driven that far before and there were breakdowns along the way, but repairs were easily made.  The internal combustion engine ran on ligroin (a distillate of petroleum) which at the time was available from a pharmacist (I shudder to think what they did with it) and so pharmacists along the way became the first petrol stops.  While her two sons shared in the driving on the trip, Bertha also became the first woman driver.

As I finished the book and looked back at the cover, I realized that I had actually seen one of these three wheeled cars before at a car museum in Holland.  I remember going past it quickly thinking it wasn’t really a car (my four-wheel bias).  I didn’t even stop to take a picture but rather snapped one of another unusual looking car.

In America, we are most familiar with the firsts of Henry Ford, but this book tells a most enjoyable tale of the truly first car, and the critical woman behind it.

In 2022, I read and thoroughly enjoyed Hadfield’s first historical fiction novel about the Apollo space program, The Apollo Murders.  You may recall it made my “Best of” list that year.  Last year I read his second in this series, but I don’t recall why it did not make my “Best of” list.  So, in 2025, when I came across his third and last in this series, Final Orbit, having enjoyed the first book so much, I decided to give it a try.  Obviously, I am glad I did as you are reading about it.

This story is set in July 1975 around the factual Apollo-Soyuz project and included many of the real-life players involved in the unprecedented docking of the two countries’ space capsules.  The main two protagonists are one American male and one Soviet female.  The American, Kazimieras “Kaz” Zemeckis, a NASA flight controller was featured in all three books.  The Soviet, Svetlana Savitskaya, was the second female cosmonaut.  While the actual joint project went off successfully, in Hadfield’s book, both interesting and dangerous actions are included which ultimately threatened the lives of both crews.

If you read Apollo 13 and like me, found it to be a page turner with exciting factual events, you will revel in this fictional version of the joint American-Soviet space project.  Without giving too many details that would be a spoiler, imagine Apollo 13 with terrorist activities along with an unfriendly foreign government’s interferences.  And with a surprise ending to boot, I am confident you will enjoy this book as well as I did.

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, when I ran across this book by Eliza Knight with the tagline that if you enjoyed Lessons, you would definitely enjoy this book too I couldn’t resist.

But rather than being about chemistry, this novel is about books.  Set in the early 1960s, the protagonist in this novel is a woman named Bernadette Swift who has the ambitious goal of becoming the first female CEO of a publishing house in New York City. The story starts with her as a manuscript copy editor at a fictional publishing company.  Breaking into the “boys club” with a promotion, she quickly is the subject of sexual harassment that in our time, would result in a lawsuit.  But not in the 1960s.

Thankfully, she has several female friends to console her and is supported by a couple of male employees as well.  She even has a cute dog who literally speaks his mind also.  She and her friends collaborate to bring the fight for women’s rights to the forefront of New York City with a couple of surprises along the way.

There are times when it is almost unbearable to read some of the discriminatory actions taken by her male boss but then I have to remember it is the 1960s.  As I approached the climax of the book, I could hardly put it down.  But whether or not she achieves her goal of becoming the first female CEO, I would have to leave that for you to learn if you so chose to read this entertaining book.

     To be continued…