Book gives glimpse into post-9/11 CIA
Hard Measures, written by Puerto Rican-born Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr., is a fascinating book about his 31 years of service in the CIA. His mission was to oversee the running…
‘Fight for Home’ offers insight into post-Katrina New Orleans
From January 2006, author Daniel Wolff and film producer Jonathan Demme visited a poor, predominantly African-American area of New Orleans every six months or so to record its progress in…
Book documents Pacific Crest Trail journey
Cheryl Strayed actually walked the Pacific Crest Trail, a walk of some 1,100 miles virtually from the Mexican border to Washington State – alone. She walked away from a marriage…
Memoir provides glimpse into WWII prisoner of war experience
Loet Velmans was reluctant to write Long Way Back to the River Kwai; his memories of being a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II were so painful to…
Vidal memoir a pleasure to read
Gore Vidal once served on a freighter based in the Aleutian Islands where the weather was so bad the sailors often had to rely on maps or memorize points or…
Book offers first-hand account of Phnom Penh exile
When the Khmer Rouge overran Cambodia in the early 1970s, everyone was driven out of Phnom Penh, its capital, to work as laborers in the countryside, forced to find their…
Age of Desire fictionalizes Wharton’s life
I have never read a book of this kind – a fictionalized version of a very real period in a person’s life using actual letters written by and to her…
Collection of letters provides glimpse into Lennon’s life
This book of John Lennon’s letters, with running clarifying biographical narrative by the editor, Hunter Davies, shows what a multi-faceted person John Lennon was. I had no idea he’d written…
Allende’s ‘Island Beneath the Sea’ is complex emotional tale
Isabel Allende is well-known for the unique situations and settings she creates in her novels. This one may be the most complex of them all, since the first part of…
Book uses politicians’ private lives as framework for American history
Don’t laugh – One Nation Under Sex is a serious, well-researched, informative look at American history as reflected by the sexual lives of many of its leaders and how they…