Introducing our July Book Club Pick

Desert Queen: The extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell: adventurer, advisor to kings and ally of Lawrence of Arabia by Janet Wallach

It’s risky to choose a long-ish, deeply researched book as we head into beach read season, but hear me out…

I first picked up Desert Queen in the late aughts when I’d just left my comfy life in Chicago to settle in balmy Los Angeles. Something about the words “adventurer” and “advisor to kings” spoke to me.

Her life and adventures were so profound that the second I closed the book, I was sending copies to friends. I even made her a member of the (imaginary) Board of Directors for my life.

So when the Radical Women Book Club was born, her story had to be part of it…

Yes, Gertrude Bell was born to great privilege, but what she decided to do with that shattered limits of what was considered possible for Victorian women. Raised by an affluent and progressive family who revered education, she was the first woman to earn a first class degree in Modern History at Oxford.

That didn’t exempt her from almost three insufferable years of the balls and parties constituting London’s “season”—designed for young women to find suitable husbands. An unconventional choice as wife, she failed to make a match and decided to travel instead.

It changed everything.

Adventurous, often dangerous travel combined with her insatiable curiosity became her way of making sense of the world—and ultimately changing the face of the modern Middle East.

Gertrude Bell was a bevy of contradictions:

• Meekly accepting her father’s refusal to become engaged to her first love, she later invested heavily in a relationship with a married man.

• Largely ignoring conventions that irritated her (like not being granted official permission to travel across deserts), she was a stickler for certain proprieties and social rules.

• Typically kind and nurturing to the men she admired, she had no qualms about holding them to their promises and pushing them to reach their potential.

• Easily mixing with highly-placed representatives of church and state—and rarely unsure of herself—she was humble and often self-effacing in her personal relationships.

• Channeling an endless patience and energy for the countless conversations required to form a new country, she had little tolerance for the lazy, entitled or uninformed.

Or as Wallach notes: “Invigorating to some, tactless to others, her assertiveness would exhilarate many and intimidate many more.”

Kinda sounds like what people have said about smart, radical women throughout history, eh?

Please do grab a copy and dive in—you won’t forget her story. You can find the book at your local independent bookstore or use this link to my bookstore page which supports independent book sellers.

Stay tuned for discussion prompts (paid subscribers can jump into the community discussion), but feel free to comment on (or share) this post anytime…

Cheers,

Rochelle