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Athena's Reading Tips for A Sharp Midlife Mind
14
items What a reasonable goddess reads to keep her midlife mind on razor-edge.
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Sharp reading tips from the goddess Athena
Sharp reading tips from the goddess Athena
Welcome to Athena's reading recommendations on clear thinking, formidable women, brilliant mysteries and the triumphs and failures of military strategy.
I often call on Athena to help me out in tricky situations. She is the goddess of wisdom, strategy, and the kind of quiet authority that doesn’t need to shout to be heard, so when she makes reading recommendations, I know they will benefit me; either...
Reasonable Goddess
No goddess goes about her business without reading the GOAT treatise on being a woman.
The Second Sex
You wouldn't think a detailed historical narrative of the 1415 battle of Agincourt could be so thrilling, but even Athena, goddess of war, was captivated.
Agincourt: The King; the Campaign; the Battle
Nellie Coker builds a nightlife empire in 1920s London. Ruthless in business, ambitious and loyal when it comes to her family - Nellie is a woman after Athena's own heart. All told in Atkinson's trademark witty and glorious prose.
Shrines of Gaiety: A Novel
This is one of Christie's best plots with a killer that is one of the most cold-blooded strategists you'll ever meet. Under the impression that Christie only wrote cosy crime books? You're in for a surprise.
The ABC Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery
A brilliant reckoning with decision-making, miscalculation and strategy at the beginning of the First World War. Athena takes notes, and shakes her head as the disaster unfolds.
The Guns of August: Pulitzer Prize Classic WWI
Harriet Vane is very much an Athena kind of woman. She's in Oxford, investigating disturbing incidents at a women's college. Intellect, independence, ethics and detection all in one.
Gaudy Night: Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery
Dynastic manoeuvring at its worst - and best, when it comes to factional entertainment. Larger than life personalities, questionable judgement, and over-passionate reckonings; not that far from an average family Christmas dinner, but these people kep...
The Plantagenets: Warrior Kings & Queens
The Wolf Hall trilogy could grace any goddess reading list. Athena empathises with Thomas Cromwell, the chief progatonist of the story, for his political intelligence as he navigates the machinery of Tudor power. Hopefully, Hilary Mantel is a regular...
The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel - 3 Books
Read this short and sharp text as a follow-up to The Second Sex. Mary Beard pinpoints how women's voices and authority have been mistreated in Western culture and how important it is for all of us that powerful women take up space.
Women & Power: A Manifesto
Mildred Lathbury is a mild-mannered spinster living in 1950s England. Kind and reliable, she is the go-to person for friends and neighbours in need, but beneath the slightly repressed surface lurks intelligence, wit and humor, which the reader gets t...
Excellent Women (Penguin Classics)
Even Athena will concede that it's impossible to have all the facts beforehand, so develop as watertight a strategy as possible instead. Duke looks at decision-making under uncertainty, separating the quality of a decision from the eventual outcome. ...
Thinking in Bets: Smarter Decisions
In Jean Brodie, Murial Spark created a woman who is seriously flawed, even sinsiter, in her beliefs, but who we end up somehow sympathising with just because women characters of her conviction are in so short supply. The novel is a showpiece of elega...
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: Classic Novel
Meet Athena's sisters at Substack/Reasonable Goddess.
Meet a sister of Athena in my goddess support system at Substack: Artemis and the Experimental Phase of Sleep