I'm reading the journalistically rigorous biography of her by Sarah Helm; after that, I'll tackle the more superficial one by William Stevenson (the one that gets, of all things, her haircolor wrong).

Then maybe I'll build a shrine to her, right above my gin tokonoma.

h/t for Atkins goes to Mark Steyn, even though he's on vacation right now, because it was his musings about Ian Fleming, M, and Miss Moneypenny (for whom Atkins may or may not have served as a bit of an inspiration, at least for her beauty and her competence) that got me started on this literary pash.

But of course as one reads up a bit Atkins is even larger than life than Steyn presented her.

I went to bed this afternoon when the heat got to be too much, reading in my sunny bedroom about Vera's luxurious upbringing in Romania, and Helm's struggle to find out about her buried past. And I finally slept, dreaming of marble and velvet and caviar and Old World luxury; I woke up drenched in a perimenopausal sweat, happy as always when I have a hot flash while I"m asleep and have had a chance to enjoy the vivid color and sweet intensity of those dreams.

So I'm wet, but happy.

Naturally, I cannot close this entry without linking 64 Baker Street, Andy Forbes' definitive internet memorial to the chicks of the SOE, who humble me with their service and their sacrifices.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:07 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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