WWII

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris A romance set in the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau sounds both improbable and rather insensitive, but The Tattooist of Auschwitz is neither. Based […]

The Splendid and the Vile

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 […]

Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre The English have always appreciated, even treasured, eccentricity, and nowhere was this more evident than in the staffing of the British Secret Service during WW […]

Churchill’s Citadel

Churchill’s Citadel, Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm by Katherine Carter Do we really need another Winston Churchill book? Probably not, but author Katherine Carter, curator at Chartwell, takes […]

The Girls of Atomic City

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, […]

The Georgetown Set

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 […]

The Cut-Out Girl

The Cut-Out Girl by Bart van Es In 2014, Bart van Es, a professor of English Literature at Oxford University, visits his father’s foster sister, Lien, in Amsterdam. Lien is […]

Spain in Our Hearts

Spain in Our Hearts, Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 by Adam Hochschild Sum total of my knowledge of the Spanish Civil War: 1-Guernica (the painting not the city) […]

The Hare with Amber Eyes

The Hare with Amber Eyes, A Family’s Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal Telling the story of the Ephrussis family through their exquisite collection of Japanese netsuke […]

Shanghai Diary

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 […]

The Illusionist

The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler by Robert Hutton In December of 1940, Colonel Dudley Clarke arrived in Cario as ‘Personal Intelligence Officer (Special Duties)’ […]

Hide & Seek

Hide & Seek, the Irish Priest in the Vatican Who Defied the Nazi Command by Stephen Walker You know I love a good WWII book! Hide & Seek, the Irish […]

Troublesome Young Men

Troublesome Young Men by Lynne Olson In hindsight, Winston Churchill’s election to Prime Minister in May 1940 looks inevitable. In fact, as Lynne Olson brilliantly describes in her book Troublesome […]

Those Angry Days

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941 by Lynne Olson In Those Angry Days, Olson returns to the pre-WWII period of her earlier non-fiction book Troublesome Young […]

Double Cross

Double Cross by Ben Macintyre Those wacky MI5 British intelligence offices are at it again in Ben Macintyre’s latest book Double Cross. Like his earlier novel Operation Mincemeat, Macintyre relays […]