Before the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, and NASCAR, the national sport in the United States was horse racing. At the turn of the last century, there were over 300 racetracks in the U.S., and over 500 million dollars was bet on horseracing by 1900. If you were a small, black boy from Bluegrass country, ... [Continue Reading]
The Churchill Sisters by Rachel Trethewey
Without question, Winston Churchill was one of the great statesmen of the 20thC, but as a parent, less great. This is somewhat understandable as his own parents set a lousy example. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a harsh man and often unkind to his son. Winston’s mother, the lovely Jennie ... [Continue Reading]
A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell Reading histories of World War II, one could assume that the resistance movement in France was populated entirely by men. Not so, as two recent biographies of heroic women ... [Continue Reading]
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
How could I resist a book with such an unusual title set on an island about which I know nothing (cows, right?) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a charming novel of 1946 London and Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. London based writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a ... [Continue Reading]
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Geraldine Books, the author of March and Year of Wonders, has written another inspired work of historical fiction. People of the Book is the story of an ancient Hebrew manuscript known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, and the book’s conservator, Hanna Heath. The novel alternates between the dramatic ... [Continue Reading]
The Crown in Crisis, Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman
I was disappointed in The Crown in Crisis, Countdown to the Abdication, a day-by-day account of the last month of King Edward VIII’s reign. The author claims to have unearthed unseen archival material and interviews about the crisis in which the king renounces the throne for the woman he loves, the ... [Continue Reading]
When a Toy Dog Became a Wolf and the Moon Broke Curfew… By Hendrika de Vries
A WWII Memoir When a Toy Dog Became a Wolf and the Moon Broke Curfew… is a moving memoir about the author’s childhood in Amsterdam, during and in the immediate aftermath of the war. Although the Germans invaded and occupied the Netherlands in 1940, little Hendrika, born in 1937, was too young to ... [Continue Reading]
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
Post-war England In 1945, the tiny village of Chawton is coping with the after effects of WWII. Its most famous resident, Jane Austen, who lived in an estate cottage belonging to her brother Edward Knight, is a faint and increasingly diminishing presence. Recognizing the important of the ... [Continue Reading]
Madame Fourcade’s Secret War by Lynne Olson
I have read almost all of Lynne Olson’s World War II era nonfiction books. Although I have my favorites, Citizens of London and Troublesome Young Men, they are all excellent. Her latest, Madam Fourcade’s Secret War, is a welcome addition to the lineup. It may not topple my current favorites, but ... [Continue Reading]
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
Given the enormous number of Churchill biographies, especially of the war years, one might wonder about the necessity of yet another. Eric Larson, author of narrative nonfiction bestsellers, The Devil in the White City and In the Garden of the Beasts, takes the vast mountain of Churchill material ... [Continue Reading]