Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings #50

It's Friday . . . time to share excerpts from one of my current reads with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring:

 

Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, 

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

by Richard Rhodes

 

Beginning:  She was Viennese, not yet seventeen in the spring of 1931 but already a professional actress, in rehearsal for a play.  Hedwig Kiesler (pronounced HAYD-vig KEES-lur)--Hedy--had won a small role in the Berlin incarnation of The Weaker Sex, which the celebrated Austrian impresario Max Reinhardt was directing.

 

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Page 56: "This event was probably the occasion that Aaron Copland recalled 'where Antheil played, and Ezra Pound, with his striking red beard much in evidence, passionately turned pages.'"

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One of my book clubs will be discussing this title tonight.  I was surprised when it was selected, not because of the subject per se, but because I had no idea that Hedy Lamarr was anything other than one of the most popular film stars of her day.

From the book flap:  What do legendary film siren Hedy Lamarr, avant-garde composer George Antheil, and your cell phone have in common?  The answer is spread-spectrum radio: a revolutionary invention based on the rapid switching of communications signals among a range of different frequencies.  Without it, we would not have the digital comforts that we take for granted today.  Wireless phones, Bluetooth networks, GPS devices, and most military communications rely on Lamarr and Antheil's breakthrough.

 

Which book are you reading now or about to start?
 

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings #50 was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.