War stories for boys
I joined the Library of Science back in the sixties, when I was in high school. The book club seduced me by offering me a membership premium in the form of the MIT Press edition of Mathematics: Its Content, Methods, and Meaning, translated from the original Russian of authors Aleksandrov, Kolmogorov, and Lavrent'ev. You can imagine how jealous the other high school seniors were. (That is, not at all.)
Today the Library of Science is represented by its successor, the Scientific American Book Club. The monthly arrival of new offerings in my mail box is not quite the event that it was in my college years—I'm perhaps a bit jaded now—but I still enjoy flipping through the catalog booklet and shuffling the sheaf of special offers. These latter are often from affiliated book clubs and do not usually focus on the science, technology, and math that are the bread and butter of the Scientific American Book Club. One such affiliate is the Military Book Club. Its flier was in the most recent SciAm mailing. Behold:
What are we to make of this hot-pants aviatrix? She certainly appears respectful and ready to take orders. And who at the Military Book Club decided that it was 1930 again (from the waist up, at least)? And that girls aren't interested in military history? Some boy, no doubt.
I mean, it couldn't be a grown-up.
