A-Z Books My Parents Enjoyed: B is for Nellie Bly

As mentioned in my initial post for this list, over a period of several years, I brought my dad books from the South Portland Library every few weeks. I tried to select an assortment. I learned what he liked and what he didn't like by which books he was still reading the next time I visited versus which books ended up on the chair near the door for me to return. 

One book I selected early on surprised me. I got it for its connection to Verne and travel. I didn't anticipate how much my father would enjoy reading about two female travelers in the late 1800s. 

The book is Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race around the World by Matthew Goodman. The title is reasonably self-explanatory. In sum, Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days came out in 1873. Several people set out to prove he was right about the eighty days and, in fact, proved that the eighty days was only needed if one underwent all kinds of narratively exciting crises. Many people made the trip is less than 80 days: Bly in 72 days. 

My father was fascinated! And I was reminded that in many ways, my dad was an old-fashioned feminist. Born in 1928, he was a patriarch of the sweet and responsible kind. He not only supported the education of all his children (male and female), he thought women should do whatever jobs they wanted. He didn't get political on the matter. He was certainly not the type to start preaching about women and cats and babies. The part of him that left people to their own devices wouldn't have understood why he should be determining someone else's personality and life. 

Not to forget, he married a woman with decided views of her own! 

Over a period of several weeks, he told me stories about Bly and Bisland whenever I came to visit. The book was one of my successful choices and gave me a stronger idea of what my father found appealing as reading material: shaggy dog adventure stories in real life with strong female protagonists!