Transcription by Kate Atkinson The shady and shadowy world of WWII espionage is the subject of the latest Atkinson novel. Like many of her novels, the plot does not unfold chronologically but rather skips back and forth between three pivotal years (1940, 1950, 1981) in the life of Juliet ... [Continue Reading]
The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan
The Girls of Atomic City, The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan What are the odds today of the Federal government funding, constructing, and populating a secret city of 75,000 people without the general public knowing about it or its top secret ... [Continue Reading]
Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell
When you are married to a legend, you get short shrift in the great one’s biography. And if that legend is Winston Churchill, you are truly an afterthought. While there are scores of Churchill biographies, there are precious few Mrs. Churchill biographies. In this excellent and long-overdue ... [Continue Reading]
Shanghai Diary by Ursula Bacon
Shanghai Diary by Ursula Bacon For those who wanted out of Nazi Germany in the Spring of 1939, the options were limited, dangerous, and expensive. The only country who had not closed their doors to refugees was Shanghai. Thus in March of 1939, eleven-year-old Ursula Blomberg and her parents ... [Continue Reading]
The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington by Gregg Herken
The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington by Gregg Herken “The hand that mixes the Georgetown martini is time and again the hand that guides the destiny of the Western world.” ---Henry Kissinger The Georgetown Set is a fascinating portrait of a smaller, cozier Washington, ... [Continue Reading]
The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian In the summer of 1955, Serafina Bettini, the only female detective in the Florence (Italy!)Police Department’s Homicide unit, is assigned the grisly death of a member of the aristocratic Rosati family. When another family member is murdered soon after, ... [Continue Reading]
The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal
The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal If the name Elisabeth de Waal sounds familiar, then you probably read her grandson Edmund de Waal’s book The Hare with Amber Eyes, a memoir of their family, the Ephrussis, wealthy Viennese Jews by way of Odessa. The Exiles Return, Elisabeth’s posthumously ... [Continue Reading]
A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre
A Spy Among Friends, Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre I’m a big fan of the non-fiction works of Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat and Double Cross, and his latest, A Spy Among Friends, doesn’t disappoint. Ken Philby was one of the infamous Cambridge Five, a group of young ... [Continue Reading]
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown Everyone loves an underdog, and The Boys in the Boat has all the elements of a classic comeback story--- farm boys from the wrong side of the country (Seattle) overcome a chronic lack of funds, illness, and weather to triumph over the Eastern elite and ... [Continue Reading]
The Viceroy’s Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters by Anne de Courcy
The Viceroy’s Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters by Anne de Courcy As the daughters of Lord Curzon, confidants of royalty, and friends, lovers, and wives of politicians and the powerful, the Curzon sisters, Irene, Cimmie, and Baba knew everyone who was anyone in England between the wars ... [Continue Reading]