BIRDSEYE : THE ADVENTURES OF A CURIOUS MAN
by Mark Kurlansky

Although he was known as "the father of frozen foods," Clarence Birdseye had many other interests and by the time he died had two hundred patents. He was considered an eccentric inventor and the neighborhood kids loved to watch him create. An electric sunlamp, a harpoon for whales, a reflective lightbulb, and paper made from leftover pulp from sugar plants are just a few of his inventions. Birdseye had an insatiable curiosity and always wanted to solve problems. If something didn't work right, he would figure out how to improve it. Garages and basements (even the front lawn) were his laboratories where he built his contraptions.
Birdseye was an avid hunter who ate anything and enjoyed writing about it. Today he would be considered a "foodie" except that he would eat things that most people wouldn't, such as: chipmunk, rattlesnake, gophers, etc. Birdseye loved to cook, was a naturalist, a taxidermist, and enjoyed fishing. To him, life was one big adventure.
In 1912, Birdseye went to Labrador, Canada to work as a fur trapper. Food was difficult because nothing was fresh but preserved heavily in salt. As this was a problem, his mind started thinking and he began experimenting with vegetables. By leaving them outside in the frigid cold, the vegetables froze and when they were thawed, the freshness was still there.
Birdseye's next big job was working for the U.S. Fisheries Association. He developed the patented freezing process by using a bucket of brine and a fan to keep fish fresh. He was off and running and started the Birdseye company.
What a tremendous book. Birdseye's personality virtually jumps off the pages. He truly was an amazing man and really enjoyed living life to its fullest. Author Mark Kurlansky has written a fantastic biography of a man who changed the way people ate.
Very highly recommended.

MIDNIGHT IN PEKING : HOW THE MURDER OF A YOUNG ENGLISHWOMAN HAUNTED THE LAST DAYS OF OLD CHINA
by Paul French

Peking in 1937 was a wealthy city. Out of a population of one and half million people, two thousand were foreigners. They congregated in an area called the Legation Quarter which is where the embassies and consulates were. Within the huge gates, it could have been Europe: clubs, hotels, bars, jewelers, bakeries, bookshops, etc. Outside of it were opium dens, brothels, and an unsavory underworld. The Japanese were circling planning to take over and the residents were quite fearful. In this midst, a young woman is murdered. It is appalling and gruesome. Her body is mutilated with internal organs ripped out.
Two detectives, Colonel Han Shih-ching and Richard Dennis (he trained at Scotland Yard), collaborate together to try and solve the case.
Paul French has written an incredible book. It took him seven years of research from both the archives of China and England. It's fascinating reading about pre-Communist China. For true-crime, it can't get much better. Midnight in Peking is impossible to put down (I read it in two days). If you want suspense, it will be delivered.
Very highly recommended.

THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN : A MUSLIM BOY MEETS THE WEST
by Imran Ahmad

Imran Ahmad was born in Pakistan but one year later he and his parents moved to England in the early 1960s. Jobs were scarce in Karachi and the British government were encouraging migration. It was a rude awakening. Imran's parents were educated professionals but not in the eyes of the English. To them, they were lower-class manual workers and if they accepted this, it was the only way that they could acquire jobs. It was this defined class system that Imran, a Muslim, grew up in.  As a young boy and beyond, he's anxious to fit in. Imran is constantly confused about many things. He's proud of his Islamic identity but he always seeks the truth and so religion is a constant factor.
Imran plans on going to medical school but his grades aren't good enough. He ends up at Stirling University in Scotland majoring in chemistry. Imran does quite well with it. Now his goal is to meet women and the best way (in his mind) to do that is to be cool, suave, and extremely well-dressed (think James Bond). Also a car would help (Jaguar XJS) but he settles for an Alfa Romeo.
Eventually chemistry doesn't do it for him and he starts reading up on recruitment brochures. He sees pictures of people in business suits which really impresses him. Imran convinces Unilever to hire him and begins working in finance and then management consulting which takes him all over the world.
The Perfect Gentleman is not your conventional memoir. It's written quite differently. Each chapter has a title which signifies some kind of event that happened to him or something that was quite significant, a two-year spread, and his age. They are short comprising only a couple of pages.
The book is extremely readable and thought-provoking. Imran Ahmad is honest, direct, funny, sensitive and his writing showcases his personality and emotions. The prose is beautiful. If you want a clear-cut description of Islam, get this book.
Highly recommended.

THAT WOMAN : THE LIFE OF WALLIS SIMPSON DUCHESS OF WINDSOR
by Anne Sebba

She was born in a hotel at a summer resort in 1896. Her birth name was Bessiewallis Warfield. While at school, she would change her name to Wallis. She never knew her father because he died five months after she was born. For most of her childhood, Wallis lived with her grandmother in Baltimore. Because of her destitute upbringing, Wallis always strove to rise above it. It was her wits that eventually brought her to the attention of the Prince of Wales. She certainly was not beautiful nor pretty and was not too smart, either. Wallis knew how to flatter and build up the person to make them think they were the one and only. The Prince found her very amusing and then became obsessed by her. Wallis thought that the relationship was not going to last and that it was just going to be a mild flirtation. Of course, he showered her with magnificent jewels and gifts. She loved that the most. Many times, she would escape alone to be away from the Prince because she found being around him too claustrophobic. The Royal Family wanted nothing to do with her and tried to persuade him to leave her but he refused.
He would have been King but Wallis could never have been the Queen, so he abdicated to marry her and they were given the titles the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
There has been much speculation on Wallis to the point that nobody really knows much about her. Even her birth certificate doesn't exist. She was always very secretive and was not forthcoming on saying anything about herself. What is known is that Wallis was a golddigger and wasn't in love with the Duke. He was a petulant child (she called him "little man") and she treated him that way privately and publicly. They were made for one another. 
That Woman was an interesting read and the author used letters between Wallis and Edward, National Archives, film, and books. There's plenty of photographs interspersed in the middle of the book.
It's a good biography that reveals much about their character.
Recommended.
 
 

HOUSE OF STONE : A MEMOIR OF HOME, FAMILY, AND A LOST MIDDLE EAST
by Anthony Shadid 

Anthony Shadid was a New York Times reporter who after having been captured in Libya and then freed, returned to Beirut to restore his great-grandfather's ancestral home. Shadid had been raised in Oklahoma City. The family moved there to escape the wars and constant strife. The home is a shambles and he uses artisans to recreate what was with beautiful mosaic tiles called "cemento."
Shadid writes about his family that once lived in Beirut, their flight to America, a country torn apart. The natives think that he is crazy to restore a home that they believe doesn't legally belong to him.
The writing is beautiful and though there are no pictures to showcase the house, just from reading his descriptions you can see the home spring back to life.
The greatest tragedy is, unfortunately, that Shadid is no longer around to enjoy his new/old home. He died in February of 2012 at the age of forty-four. 
So, we have spectacular visions of the Middle East from the past and the present but the writer has disappeared from the pages.
An absolutely stunning book.
Highly recommended. 

THE WOMAN WHO WASN'T THERE : THE TRUE STORY OF AN INCREDIBLE DECEPTION
by Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo J. Guglielmo, Jr.

She would make a name for herself not only as a victim, but as a hero and a celebrity. Two years after September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center Survivors' Network was born. The mouthpiece of this organization was a woman by the name of Tania Head. She led the group taking on the responsibility of bringing them to the public eye by saving remnants of the World Trade Center, such as the "Survivors Stairway," taking people on tours of Ground Zero, funding events by using her own assets. Tania was chosen, actually, to do all of this because her story was deemed much more powerful than all of the survivors combined. (She had escaped the south tower from the seventy-eight floor.) Tania was everyone's idol and mentor. She helped them deal with their stress, depression, and nightmares.
Tania's story began to fall apart in 2007 with discrepancies that didn't match up. She avoided reporters like the plague and when the New York Times tried to wrangle an interview with her, she kept on refusing to meet with them. At last, the article was printed (she never spoke to the reporter) and it sent shock waves throughout the country and the world.
What a disturbing tale. It's a quick read (I finished the book in a day and a half) unable to put it down. The story comes off like a mystery novel except that everything is true. One of the authors, Anthony J. Guglielmo, Jr., made a documentary and was, at one time, Tania's closest friend.
What she did was horrendous and broke the spirits of all that were mentally and physically inspired by her.
Until the last page, you will be shaking your head in disbelief.
Highly recommended.

A RARE TITANIC FAMILY : THE CALDWELL STORY OF SURVIVAL
by Julie Hedgepeth Williams

Albert and Sylvia Caldwell were two young, very idealistic Presbyterian missionaries hailing from Missouri. They had met one another at Park College which was a school to train students to do Christian work. The two of them knew that they wanted to teach and when a job opened up in Bangkok, they went for it. On September 1, 1909 (the day of their wedding), they started off on their trip to Siam (now, Thailand).
For a while, they loved Bangkok and thought it was enchanting. Then, Sylvia became pregnant and her health deteriorated. The heat of the tropics made everything worse. Sylvia went to a doctor who determined that she had neurasthenia of which the diagnosis is unknown today. The symptoms were muscle weakness, fatigue, numbness in extremities, headaches, mental breakdown. She had to stop teaching. When the baby, Alden, arrived, she couldn't even hold him. Sylvia did not get better and they knew that it was best for them to go back to America. The Foreign Missions Board did not believe that Sylvia was really ill and thought that she and Albert were trying to get out of their contract. Eventually, though, they were allowed to leave. They were supposed to go to Italy for a rest cure, but there had been a cholera epidemic the year before so that was nixed. The Caldwells ended up traveling around Europe taking different ocean liners with Sylvia constantly being seasick. When they landed in London, they bought second class tickets for the Titanic to bring them back to America.
There have been so many books written about the Titanic and most of them have not been very good. The authors list tons of statistical information about what was brought over on the big ship, too many names, the amount of money that was spent to build this huge vessel and after a while, the prose becomes deadening. Not so with A Rare Titanic Family. Julie Hedgepeth Williams is the great-niece of Albert Caldwell and she was able to use family artifacts such as scrapbooks, playbills, photos, letters, tapes, and written speeches. She is an excellent writer and she is certainly no slouch with research. The story about the Caldwell family living in Bankok is just as interesting as their Titanic adventure, so it's as if you get two unique stories for the price of one. It's definitely a fascinating read.
Highly recommended.