Jenniemae & James

 by Brooke Newman. A mathematician, friend of Albert Einstein, and father of two employed an illiterate, numbers-savvy maid to take care of his affluent Washington, D.C., home, and an improbable friendship ensued. In this thoroughly engaging memoir, Newman, the daughter of James Newman, author of 1956's The World of Mathematics, wonderfully recreates the early Civil Rights era when the miraculous Jenniemae Harrington came into the family's lives and rendered their emotionally reticent, offbeat household more warmly human. Jenniemae was a large African-American woman from rural Alabama who lived with her sister in the Washington ghetto when she first came to work for the Newmans in 1948. She spouted folksy wisdom (e.g., "Only a fool will argue against the sun") and gambled (with phenomenal success) on numbers that had occurred to her in her dreams. As James worked in his home office during the day, he learned of Jenniemae's daily numbers betting, although she refused to admit it was gambling ("It's the Lord's gift," was how she explained it). Over the years, their endearingly antagonistic friendship deepened, and they managed to see the other through numerous crises (including Jenniemae's rape by a bus driver and James's marital and girlfriend grief). The author, as a keen observer growing up in this fraught household, absorbed the emotional ramifications of Jenniemae's presence, and fashions dialogue that is pitch-perfect. --Publishers weekly. (Check Catalog)

Kaboom : embracing the suck in a savage little war

 by Matt Gallagher. Lt. Gallagher arrived in Iraq in 2007 and promptly started to blog about it; his site became widely read by soldiers. It was ordered shut down in 2008 but was part of the cultural shift that by the next year embraced blogging by soldiers. Here, his exceptional narrative technique makes the soldier in-group cant both believable and coherent; his relentless pursuit of sanity in the midst of a chaotic storm of IEDs, policy changes, sheiks, civilians, and baffling missions makes this blog-based memoir an exciting read reminiscent of Anthony Swofford's Jarhead. --Library Journal. (Check catalog)

The death of American virtue : Clinton vs. Starr

 by Ken Gormley. The Whitewater investigation, led by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, investigated the scandals that tarnished the Clinton administration-scandals that, says Gormley (law, Duquesne Univ.; Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation), diminished respect for the office of the President. The author interviewed many major players, including Bill Clinton himself, who would not discuss the Lewinsky affair. The result is an illuminating account that could overwhelm the general reader with oceans of detail. Starr is presented as a highly respected attorney and not a religious fanatic determined to destroy Clinton. His weakness was his lack of experience as a prosecutor; he later acknowledged that he should not have expanded the Whitewater investigation to include the Lewinsky affair. Starr resigned in 1999, and the Office of Independent Counsel's final report, issued by his successor, Robert Ray, concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Clinton. VERDICT This is the most complete and likely the most impartial account available of the Clinton scandals. It will appeal to readers of such recent serious works as Richard Sale's Clinton's Secret Wars: The Evolution of a Commander in Chief and Taylor Branch's The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President. --Library Journal (Check catalog)

Valley of death : the tragedy at Dien Bien Phu that led America into the Vietnam War

 by Ted Morgan. In 1956, the French-born Ted Morgan, who later became a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and an author (e.g., My Battle of Algiers), served as a lieutenant in the French army. At that time, he conducted interviews, used here as source material, with veterans of the bloody battle of Dien Bien Phu, fought in 1954 between France, a nation trying to reclaim its pre-World War II Indochina empire, and the Vietminh peasant army under the determined leadership of Ho Chi Minh and Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap. Morgan is effectively providing an update to Bernard Fall's classic Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu by accessing sources not available to Fall and showing that this first Indochina War in 1954 was actually a proxy fight between America, which wanted a strong France to stand against the USSR, and China, which loathed any colonial presence that threatened its supremacy. He skillfully appraises the Cold War diplomacy that led up to the battle and includes gripping and graphic accounts of the protracted fight that resulted in more than 7000 French and 20,000 Vietminh casualties. He also faults France for its ineffective strategy and poor leadership. VERDICT This compelling narrative shows how the American-led Vietnam War repeated many of France's earlier mistakes. Highly recommended for all serious readers of military history. --Library Journal. (Check catalog)

The intimate lives of the founding fathers

by Thomas J. Fleming. In this solid, sometimes titillating account, novelist and historian Fleming (The Perils of Peace) draws parallels to today's media obsession with our leaders' sex lives. The media were obsessed at the nation's beginning, too. As president, Washington suffered torrents of abuse, sometimes personal, but his marriage to Martha remained happy, although unconvincing efforts to find affairs, illegitimate children and slave mistresses persist to this day. The most genial founding father, Benjamin Franklin, had a shockingly bad family life with a jealous wife and dreadful relations with his son. Despite his brilliance, Alexander Hamilton behaved foolishly with women, triggering America's first public sex scandal. Fleming rocks no historical boats describing John and Abigail Adams's legendary love and agrees that Dolly brought color into the life of shy, intellectual James Madison. Jefferson's wife died young, and he focused his love on the often unhappy lives of two daughters. Examining the controversy over his slave, Sally Hemings, Fleming says evidence that he fathered her children remains inconclusive. Showing the more human and sometimes unlikable sides of our founders, the author writes good history, debunking more scandal than he confirms. --Publishers Weekly. (Check catalog)

The Glory Guys: The Story of the U.S. Army Rangers

By Mona D. Sizer


Chronicles the history of the U.S. Army Rangers through the dramatic experiences of its officers in conflicts ranging from the French and Indian War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in an account that includes stories about such famous figures as Robert Rogers, William Barker Cushing and Ralph Puckett.

(Check Catalog)

Aphrodite's Island: The European Discovery of Tahiti

By Anne Salmond

Aphrodite's Island is a bold new account of the European discovery of Tahiti, the Pacific island of mythic status that has figured so powerfully in European imaginings about sexuality, the exotic, and the nobility or bestiality of "savages." In this groundbreaking book, Anne Salmond takes readers to the center of the shared history to furnish rich insights into Tahitian perceptions of the visitors while illuminating the full extent of European fascination with Tahiti. As she discerns the impact and meaning of the European effect on the islands, she demonstrates how, during the early contact period, the mythologies of Europe and Tahiti intersected and became entwined. Drawing on Tahitian oral histories, European manuscripts and artworks, collections of Tahitian artifacts, and illustrated with contemporary sketches, paintings, and engravings from the voyages, Aphrodite's Island provides a vivid account of the Europeans' Tahitian adventures. At the same time, the book's compelling insights into Tahitian life significantly change the way we view the history of this small island during a period when it became a crossroads for Europe.

(Check Catalog)

Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp

By Christopher R. Browning


Drawing on the testimony of survivors of the Holocaust-era Starachowice slave-labor camps, the author of Ordinary Men examines the Jewish prisoners' fight for survival through a succession of brutal Nazi camp regimes.

(Check Catalog)

Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan

By Doug Stanton

Documents the post-September 11 mission during which a small band of Special Forces soldiers captured the strategic Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif as part of an effort to defeat the Taliban, in a dramatic account that includes testimonies by Afghanistan citizens whose lives were changed by the war.

(Check Catalog)