Each day, it seems like we are rewriting another segment of history by adding the silenced chapters – particularly from BIPOC and women. We’re experiencing an opportunity to flesh history out so that the stars aren’t just white guys. The beauty of it is, the stars were never just white guys.

Take Elizebeth Friedman, born in 1892. She became one of the pioneer code breakers at a time when the CIA and the FBI were just coming in to being.

I listened to the audiobook, The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America’s Enemies, by Jason Fangone. Narrated by Cassandra Campbell, the audiobook is just over 13.5 hours and is supposed to come with a PDF enhancement with photos and samples of codes.

I got my copy from my library’s digital offerings. I wasn’t able to access the enhancement, so after I finished the book, I looked Friedman up online to find images to fill in what I missed.

The book is long and detailed, covering the entire span of Friedman’s life. Her relationship with her husband and the interplay of their work has a central role, as since they got their start in life and love as a code breaking team. However, their careers took very different paths and Friedman is definitely the focus of the arc of the story.

The Woman Who Smashed Codes felt a bit like the curtain had been pulled back on American policy so that the reader gets a peak at what was going on behind the scenes – who America was spying on and why, and who was breaking those codes.

I’m not typically drawn to nonfiction. When I read it that I learn something (or a lot of things) I didn’t know, and the truth is usually not boring.

The feature photo of Elizebeth Friedman is from Pocket Worthy.