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Born with a strong bent towards math and chemistry, the author met Larned "Larry" Asprey at Los Alamos, where both were working on the Manhattan Project, "trying to beat Hitler to this theoretical atom bomb." They married soon thereafter, and she began to combine career and housewife chores, not to mention bearing and raising seven children. Larry became a noted chemist, and the author worked on similar projects whenever possible. She was involved, among other endeavors, in safety analysis of nuclear weapons and analysis of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor in Oak Ridge. In 2005, just after the death of her husband, she was given the Walter H. Zinn Award by the American Nuclear Society, only one of two women to have been so honored. By her own account, however, she accomplished perhaps more important personal goals: living abroad, flying her own plane, designing and building, with Larry, their own house, and playing the piano.
Margaret Williams Asprey has assiduously constructed this charming chronicle, as she has lived her life, with verve and logic. Her brilliant thought processes and unflagging mental energies are clearly demonstrated in the clarity with which she tackles the subject of her own varied and fascinating history and the lives of those close to her. Though this book will be perhaps of greatest interest to her family and large circle of friends and colleagues, anyone who is interested in how to be or become a dynamic, free-thinking woman without letting go of family values should study the methodology of Margaret Williams Asprey.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review