Diane Simmons’s The Courtship of Eva Eldridge: A Story of Bigamy in the Marriage-Mad Fifties tells the true story of one woman, whose life was transformed by World War II and its aftermath. Here is the rarely told female side of the “Greatest Generation:” her war work, the shifting government propaganda about women’s roles, and the charming man she loved, …
I am a huge fan of naval warfare nonfiction and fiction. I have a special affinity for the American Revolution against England and with France. I have just finished Give Me a Fast Ship by Tim McGrath. It was published the summer of 2014. This is non-fiction. The author gives a blow by blow description of most of …
So, you think you know the whole story about WWII? I thought I did! That was before I started reading books by Ben Macintyre: Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat, and finally Double Cross. I strongly recommend all three. Agent Zigzag follows one of the first double-triple-quadruple-crossing spies that MI5 recruited during WWII. Operation Mincemeat tells the more complete story …
In 2011, my wife and I visited Oradour-sur-Glane in France. It has a small but nice museum through which you must travel in order to see the burned out village. While volunteering at our local library, I recently “discovered” a book about the village. Another book, Oradour by Robin Mackness, was also recommended. I decided to read …
There’s a quip I sometimes use at the conclusion of a book purchase. It’s meant to be amusing but also contains a serious grain of truth. When the customer is in a good mood, my occasional comment as I hand over the selected items is, “These are ready for immediate use the moment you get …
“Right now our bookshelves and tables are groaning with the weight of all the Father’s Day flotsam and jetsam that publishers could launch. An entire years worth of manly books arrived in the last two weeks and there’s way too much to absorb. It’s hard to pick out the pearls amidst the crashing waves of …
Let me preface this review by saying I am Jewish and planning a trip to Israel. I want to read material that will help me understand the Palestinian and Jewish sides of the conflict in Israel and Palestine.
