by Patrick Modiano (Get the Book)
Acclaimed French novelist Modiano weaves an oddly compelling blend of true-life mystery tale and family memoir against the backdrop of the Holocaust. While scanning a World War II-era Paris newspaper in 1988, Modiano finds a personal advertisement concerning a missing 15-year-old Jewish girl, Dora Bruder. Compelled by familiarity with the neighborhood mentioned in the advertisement and by personal curiosity, Modiano begins to painstakingly trace the history of the missing girl from her birth to the convent school from which she ran away in 1941 to her deportation to Auschwitz in 1942. Along the way, his investigation brings him face-to-face with reminders of his earlier life, as well as with memories of his father, who, like Dora, was rounded up by the Jewish Affairs police in Paris in 1942. Although at times the progress of events seems somewhat arbitrary, Modiano's short book ends strongly and leaves the reader thankful for the power of memory and imagination to combat loss.
by James Gavin (Get the Book)
Peggy Lee developed her soft and sultry sound from the influences of black singers and her early days of singing in dinner clubs, where she deliberately softened her voice to force the audience to listen. When she purred, audiences would lean in. That softness and an equally hard-edged sexiness set her apart from others, from her beginning as a singer in the swing era to her voice-over work with Disney to her inspiring of the Muppet character, Miss Piggy. Lee, born Norma Deloris Egstrom, had a hardscrabble childhood in desolate North Dakota but an outsize talent and personality that eventually drove her to a career in Hollywood. Gavin (Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne, 2009) offers a penetrating portrait of a woman embittered by childhood memories and failed marriages, struggling with alcohol and drugs, yet determined to have a career worthy of her voice. Best known for her songs Fever and Is That All There Is?, Lee sang with legendary musicians Benny Goodman, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. Old and new fans will appreciate this revealing portrait of troubled and talented woman. --Booklist
by Richard Norton Smith (Get the Book)
A nightmare for political handlers, the man who claimed a Democratic heart with a Republican head poses no small challenge for a biographer. But after a decade of exhaustive research, Smith delivers a compelling portrait of a man who defied the simplifying ideologies of his age. Born to privilege but schooled as a social progressive by his philanthropist parents, Nelson Rockefeller traveled an improbable trajectory, serving as both a Roosevelt New Dealer and an Eisenhower Cold Warrior, repeatedly demonstrating exceptional leadership and unflagging energy. In-depth research illuminates Rockefeller's exceptional record as a governor of New York, expanding welfare benefits, protecting the environment, and subsidizing the arts, only to alienate the state's liberals with his forceful handling of the Attica Prison riots. But Rockefeller's maverick impulses emerge most clearly in Smith's account of why the governor clashed with Barry Goldwater over the future of the GOP. Readers see how Rockefeller's liberal sympathies repeatedly doomed his presidential aspirations as conservative intraparty foes frustrated his hopes, refusing even to recognize his loyal service as Gerald Ford's vice president. And though Smith focuses on Rockefeller's public service, he does delve into the tangled marital and family life behind that service. Complete and balanced, a biography of exceptional substance. --Booklist
by Andrew Roberts (Get the Book)
Military historian Roberts (Lehrman Inst. Distinguished Fellow, New-York Historical Soc.; Napoleon and Wellington) revisits the subject of a former work with a compelling biography of the preeminent French general Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) that stands apart from the rest owing to the author's thoroughness, accuracy, and attention to detail. Roberts relies on his military expertise, Napoleon's surviving correspondence (33,000 items in all), and exhaustive on-site studies of French battlegrounds during the Hundred Days to carefully describe what each battle, including the Waterloo Campaign and the Neapolitan War, must have been like for victors and losers. In the process, he deflates many of the myths that still surround the emperor nearly 200 years after his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. The author doesn't apologize for Napoleon's errors but the tone of his study is positive: Napoleon "personified the best parts of the French Revolution" and his example and military reforms impacted not only European life but had lasting consequences on how contemporary wars are fought. VERDICT This voluminous work is likely to set the standard for subsequent accounts of Napoleon's life. It should appeal widely to readers of all types. --Library Journal
by Hermione Lee (Get the Book)
Although, sadly, not as well known in the U.S., Booker Prize winner Fitzgerald (1916-2000) was a powerhouse of British letters, particularly acclaimed for her novel The Blue Flower (1995). Fitzgerald's wide-ranging career was made all the more remarkable by the fact that she didn't publish her first work, a biography of the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burke-Jones, until she was nearly 60. Her life up to that point, however, provided her with rich source material upon which to draw. Hers was a bohemian existence in London during the 1960s and 1970s, a turbulent time in which she tried to raise a family in near poverty, suffering the misfortunes of her alcoholic husband. Fitzgerald herself once said that biographies should be written about people you love, and clearly, exceptional biographer Lee (Edith Wharton, 2007) is fully enamored of her subject. Extensively researched and exuberantly detailed, Lee's examination delves the depths and heights of this roller-coaster life while meticulously deconstructing each of Fitzgerald's works. A first-rate trove of literary criticism and background that lovers of literature will find invaluable. --Booklist
by Boris Johnson (Get the Book)
While there are many accounts of Winston Churchill and his political savvy, one would be remiss to ignore this sprightly written volume by Johnson, whose day job is serving as mayor of London. Johnson's purpose in retelling Churchill's story is quite simple: he believes that the portly, cigar smoking, whiskey imbibing politician was, without doubt, the greatest British statesman in history. He further contends that we can learn much from examining how Churchill defended the British Empire, defeated Adolf Hitler's intimidating forces, and confronted the rise of communism-all in the name of representative government in the modern age. The author surveys Churchill's life (1874-1965) from beginning to end in a style that uses descriptive and occasionally unexpected words to portray the politician's business arrangements and entry into World War II. (For example, he employs the terms vaginal, cervix, uterus, and phallus to describe the Gallipoli Campaign, one of the Allies' greatest failures.) VERDICT Johnson's history of Churchill is well crafted, amply researched, and a pleasure to read. It can serve as a change of pace from more plodding accounts. --Library Journal
