MAY AND AMY : A TRUE STORY OF FAMILY, FORBIDDEN LOVE, AND THE SECRET LIVES OF MAY GASKELL, HER DAUGHTER AMY, AND SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES
by Josceline Dimbleby

Andrew Lloyd Webber collects art by Pre-Raphaelite painters. One of the portraits, in his home, is of a beautiful, haunting young woman painted by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The subject of the painting is Amy Gaskell, the author's great-aunt, who had died young "of a broken heart."
Josceline Dimbleby always wanted to know about her family's past and sets out on a quest to discover the secrets. She comes across unpublished letters from Burne-Jones to May Gaskell, her, unhappily, married great-grandmother. The correspondence is passionate, adoring, intimate and continues for six years. Through paintings, family photographs and writings mysteries and tragedies of the Gaskell family are revealed.
May and Amy is a riveting memoir of the Victorian era. Great sleuth work.
A highly, enjoyable read.

THE LOST SPY : AN AMERICAN IN STALIN'S SECRET SERVICE
by Andrew Meier

Isaiah "Cy" Oggins was an undergraduate at Columbia University when he joined the Communist Party in 1920. Soviet intelligence recruited him in 1926 and that is when his travels and undercover schemes began.
In Berlin he posed as an antiquarian dealer so that he could run a safe house.
While he was in Paris he spied on the Romanovs.
He went to China and Manchuria spying on the Japanese occupiers and their puppet emperor, Pu-Yi.
Despite his long, devoted service to the Soviets, he was arrested and sent to an Arctic gulag and languished there for eight years. Then, on orders from Stalin, he was brutally murdered.
Author Andrew Meier began his quest in 2000 while researching information for his previous book about post-Soviet Russia and heard about an American from elderly camp survivors.
Eight years later, he has written a masterpiece.
The Lost Spy is a tremendous story.
Highly recommended.

A ROMANCE ON THREE LEGS : GLENN GOULD'S OBSESSIVE QUEST FOR THE PERFCT PIANO
by Katie Hafner

He was a perfectionist to the extreme. When he played not only was it important for the sound to be beautiful, but the touch of the keys had to feel right. Searching for the best piano became Glenn Gould's manic obsession.
Gould was considered one of the twentieth century's most gifted musicians, albeit bizarre. He was just as famous for his eccentricities: refusing to shake hands for fear of germs, wearing a hat, gloves and coat during the summer months, humming while he played, and taking his creaky, sawed-off chair with him wherever he performed.
In A Romance on Three Legs Katie Hafner writes about Verne Edquist, Gould's nearly blind tuner; the history and science of tuning; the Steinway factory during World War II; CD 318.
It's a marvelous story about genius, craftsmanship and drive.
Highly recommended.

BOMBAY ANNA : THE REAL STORY AND REMARKABLE ADVENTURES OF THE KING AND I GOVERNESS
by Susan Morgan

The Rogers and Hammerstein 1950s musical The King and I conjures up unforgettable memories. We envision Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner dancing together amongst the people of Siam.
The movie was supposed to portray real life events at that time, but in truth it was mostly fictionalized. But, then again, Anna's life was an invention, too.
Anna Leonowens was born as a mixed-race army brat and lived with her family, in extreme poverty, in India. When she went to work for the King of Siam to teach his children and wives English, in the 1860s, she was not British, as she claimed. That was her first invention. She stayed for five years and then reinvented herself as an author, journalist, teacher, and lecturer living in the United States and Canada.
Bombay Anna is a densely, detailed biography which took author Susan Morgan ten years to research and who found facts that had eluded other writers.
The book has quite an extensive bibliography, an index, two appendices and black and white photographs.
A fascinating account of a remarkable woman.

SEE YOU IN A HUNDRED YEARS : FOUR SEASONS IN FORGOTTEN AMERICA
by Logan Ward

Imagine what it would be like to walk away from the twenty-first century and give up telephones, computers, electricity, cars, supermarkets; everything that is familiar and taken for granted.
Logan Ward and his wife, Heather, after becoming worn down from their rat race life in New York, pull up stakes and move to rural Virginia to live as dirt farmers, but in the year 1900.
They learn how to cook on a wood stove, milk their two goats (Heather becomes quite adept at making cheese), harvest their crops, can food to store in their root cellar, how to drive a wagon, and use tools that were available back then.
See You in a Hundred Years is a wonderful book and beautifully written.
Highly recommended.

THE ASSASSIN'S ACCOMPLICE : MARY SURRATT AND THE PLOT TO KILL ABRAHAM LINCOLN
by Kate Clifford Larson

Three days after John Wilkes Booth murdered Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, Mary Surratt was arrested on April 17, 1865. She was a Confederate sympathizer who ran a boardinghouse in Washington. There the conspirators met, along with her rebel son John, to plan the assassination. In less than three months, Mary became the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government of the United States.
The Assassin's Accomplice reveals Mary's deep involvement in the plot via interviews, testimonies of the court and confessions.
The book is extremely well written and a great read.

THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE
by Douglas Preston

In August of 2000, Douglas Preston, along with his wife and two young children, moved from their farmhouse in Maine to a tiny town in Italy. Douglas, who is a journalist and murder mystery writer, was planning on writing a novel about a lost painting. While doing research, he was introduced to Mario Spezi, who was known as a famous crime reporter in the Tuscany region. Spezi told Preston that between 1974 and 1985 seven couples were brutally murdered while making love in parked cars in the hills of Florence.
The case has never been solved and the murderer has never been found.
Preston and Spezi work together to seek out the truth and to track down the killer.
The Monster of Florence is suspenseful, chilling and shocking.
Great writing by a masterful author.
Highly recommended, but not for the faint-hearted.