COMING CLEAN : A MEMOIR
 by Kimberly Rae Miller

Her father really loved stuff. Paper, pens, broken computers, radios, unused junk stuffed in boxes would cover the entire house leaving barely enough space to walk through. Some of the rooms (the kitchen and the bathrooms) were unusable. The squalor, the bugs, the absolute mess was what Kimberly Rae Miller grew up in on Long Island. Nobody outside knew what went on inside behind closed doors. It was a humiliating secret that Miller had promised her mother to never tell anyone.
The word "hoarder" is well-known today but back in the 1980s there was no designation for it. As a child, Miller knew there was something wrong, that nobody else could possibly live the way they did. It took quite an emotional toll on her. Yet, through all of this dysfunction, Miller never stopped loving her parents.
Coming Clean is a very fast read (two days for me). The book is extremely well-written and very hard to put down. What is very interesting is the fact that Miller's father and mother seemed normal to other people who met them. When they were away from the garbage, they acted like anybody else, laughing, talking, having a great time. This behavior would retreat the minute they walked back inside their home. For some, it may be difficult to wade through the highly-detailed descriptions. It's truly horrible but Miller rises above the embarrassment with no blaming of her parents. She's dead honest yet humanizes their painful story.
Recommended.

THE SKIES BELONG TO US : LOVE AND TERROR IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF HIJACKING
by Brendan I. Koerner

Not so long ago, you could walk through an entire airport and not have to go through any X-ray machines nor metal detectors. There was no security; you didn't have to present any kinds of identification when buying a ticket. You could even walk out on the tarmac and queue up to board. This all changed in the era of skyjacking. From 1961 to 1972, 159 commercial flights were intercepted. The skyjackers were both disillusioned and depressed about the state of society in America. Grabbing a plane and ordering it to be flown to a country of their choice gave them a huge jolt of power. Each year they became more and more brazen. Soon they began to ask for ransoms of exorbitant amounts. In time, the FBI tried to intervene with only violent results.
The most frightening year to fly was 1972: forty hijackers took control.
Willie Roger Holder and Catherine Marie Kerkow commandeered Western Airlines Flight 701 and executed the longest-distance skyjacking in American history. They were famous all around the world. Their success made them different from their peers.
The Skies Belong To Us is a fascinating story that keeps you in your seat. Brendan I. Koerner does a great job detailing all of the different hijackings over the years. It took him four years to gather everything together (4,000 declassified documents and tons of interviews which included one of the hijackers who was living incognito). What happened afterwards to the couple keeps you spellbound.
If you like true crime, get this book.
Recommended.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT : NINE AMERICANS AND THEIR EPIC QUEST FOR GOLD AT THE 1936 BERLIN OLYMPICS
by Daniel James Brown

Joe Rantz had a hardscrabble childhood. Poverty was always around him. At the age of four, his mother died and one year later his father married again. Joe's stepmother, Thula, barely acknowledged him and he could never understand why she treated him so unkindly. When Joe was fifteen, his father, Harry, Thula, and their three kids jumped in their car and abandoned Joe. From then on, he learned to fend for himself and not to rely on anybody else. Through the Depression he found jobs that could keep him afloat. Joe grew ever more self-reliant and stronger. He stayed in school and had good grades.
In 1931, Joe's older brother, Fred, wanted him to live in Seattle and attend Roosevelt High School where Fred taught chemistry. It was a difficult year for Joe because he was used to being on his own but he excelled at school. He joined the gymnastics team which would lead him to a sport that would become his pinnacle. Alvin Ulbrickson, the head coach of crew at the University of Washington, visited the high school one day and saw Joe in action. His life would never be the same again.
Joe joined crew and became one of nine young men that would row fluidly as one and be totally committed to each other.
The Boys in the Boat has to be one of the greatest books I have ever read. From the first page, I was immediately hooked. Author Daniel James Brown's writing is nothing short of brilliant. You get history, exciting boat races, descriptions of how the shells were built (entirely handmade by a British boat designer, George Yeoman Pocock whose sayings grace the beginnings of every chapter), technique, weather, the dynamic coaches, and inspiration. There are great black-and-white photographs within every chapter that follow the story.
You don't have to be a sports fan because this is the kind of book that will have massive appeal. It's a feel good human interest story not to be missed.
Very highly recommended.

THE COOKED SEED : A MEMOIR
by Anchee Min

On August 31, 1984, Anchee Min landed in Chicago scared to death. She didn't speak English and only had five hundred dollars which was borrowed. Anchee had been accepted to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and had lied on her application. She had circled "Excellent" for English. (Someone else filled out the papers for her.)
Upon arrival in the United States, when the immigration officer welcomed her, Anchee didn't understand a word that he said. A translator told her that she was going to be deported immediately. After examining everything, a clause was discovered in the papers that the school was going to place her in an intensive language learning program. If after six months she still wasn't up to par, back to China she would go.
Anchee had to pay for the course and it was a total waste of time. She learned nothing and got out of it. Television became the means of learning English, primarily Sesame Street. In order to keep herself afloat, she worked five jobs and slept in desolate areas to save money.
Her struggle to survive both in Communist China and in America and her sheer determination, stamina, and strength made Anchee quite successful.
The Cooked Seed is an immigrant story that should be read universally. Those of us who were born and raised in the United States and take things for granted should learn what went on during the Cultural Revolution and Anchee explicitly describes the horrors and deprivation of living under Mao.
Anchee was extremely lucky to leave China.
This book is honest, revealing, eye-opening, and full of grit.
Recommended.

A FORT OF NINE TOWERS : AN AFGHAN FAMILY STORY
by Qais Akbar Omar

Up until the age of seven, Qais Akbar Omar lived in Kabul (where he was born) with his father who taught high school physics (he was also a professional boxer), his mother who managed a bank, and several siblings in a large compound built by his grandfather. They shared the spacious abode with a multitude of cousins (twenty-five plus) and his father's brothers and their wives. It was a relatively peaceful time. The entire family would eat dinner together with a cloth spread out on the grass. Wondrous stories were told. Poetry was spoken. Soon enough, this idyllic atmosphere would be destroyed.
Different factions (Mujahedin, then Taliban) arrived and it became too dangerous to stay in their home. Omar's immediate family left and took shelter in the historic Fort of Nine Towers (an old palace with one tower left). Unfortunately, they had to flee again due to escalating violence. For a period of time, they lived in caves behind the huge Buddha statues in Bamyan. When that no longer was safe, they traveled with Kurchi herders (their nomadic cousins). Omar's father kept trying to hire smugglers to get his family our of Afghanistan. Money, of course, was needed and they didn't have much. Omar tried to help his father support their family. When he learned how to weave carpets, this would become the turning point for all of them.
A Fort of Nine Towers is quite a story. Apparently, it is one of the few books written by an Afghan who never left because he loved his country so much. The resilience, bravery, and stamina of the Afghan people is startling. The years of war and unrest would make most people crazy with no will to live yet Omar's family and others like them bore their tribulations steadfastly and, amazingly, could even joke about it. This is the book to read if you don't know anything at all about Afghanistan and what exactly happened there over the years. It is an eye-opener.
Recommended. 

 

THE BARONESS : THE SEARCH FOR NICA, THE REBELLIOUS ROTHSCHILD
by Hannah Rothschild

They were hoping for a boy. Victor was born first in 1910 and then two sisters followed. In the Rothschild, family male heirs were extremely important. The founding father laid down the principle, in 1812 (still upheld today), that only Rothschild men could inherit and run the business of running the banks. Women ruled the homes but they certainly were not weak. Most of them were quite headstrong and aggressive.
The birth of Kathleen Annie Pannonica on December 10, 1913 was a huge disappointment. The spare heir was not to be. Nica was named after her father's favorite moth (she told outsiders that she was named after a butterfly). Pannonica means 'of Hungary' (Nica's mother was Hungarian) and means a creature of the night which became very appropriate for Nica years later. The family was crazy about insects. Both Nica's father Charles and her uncle Walter had huge collections (over six million).
Nica grew up surrounded by a multitude of servants with limited parental contact. The food and the routine were repetitive. It was like living in a cage. Eventually Nica would leave this stultifying existence and marry Baron Jules de Koenigswarter. Their home was a chateau in France; five children were born. Soon enough, this life too became a cage.
In the 1950s Nica heard a piece of music that would completely transform her. Jazz pianist Thelonious Monk played "Round Midnight" and Nica was spellbound. She left her marriage and moved to New York to find this man. Nica chose to help Monk and other musicians by paying their bills, taking them to the hospital, spending money by supporting them in their musical careers. This was her true calling and she was finally happy.
Hannah Rothschild, the great-niece of Nica, is a wonderful writer. It's fascinating to read about the entire family by how they first started in business, the rules that were set up, the descendants, the idiosyncrasies, the brilliance. Nica was considered well ahead of her time and certainly was rebellious. Because of her fortune, she was able to carve out her own life and be free.
Within every chapter, there are black-and-white photographs depicting the people that are described in the text so you feel as if you are right there with them.
Luckily for Hannah, she was able to interview many of the musicians that knew Nica plus producers and her own family (even Nica herself before she passed).
The Baroness is a great story of an eccentric woman who was passionate about music and devoted herself to always be there for the love of her life.
Highly recommended.

FROZEN IN TIME : AN EPIC STORY OF SURVIVAL AND A MODERN QUEST FOR LOST HEROES OF WORLD WAR II
by Mitchell Zuckoff

On November 5, 1942, a U.S. cargo plane (C-53) on a normal flight in Greenland crashed into an ice cap. Five men were on board. Four days later, a B-17 bomber (one of the search planes) got lost in a storm and also crashed. (Add nine more men.) To make matters even worse, the U.S. Coast Guard sent an amphibious plane called a Grumman Duck to rescue everyone and they, too, became blindsided by a horrendous storm and simply vanished. (Three more men.)
For five months, survivors valiantly fought to stay alive through the brutally harsh Arctic winter. How they were going to be saved keeps you riveted.
Mitchell Zuckoff certainly knows how to write amazing adventure stories about World War II. His previous book was Lost in Shangri-La and that was tremendous.
Frozen in Time is equally great and can keep you glued to your seat. I have one caveat with the book, though. Interspersed throughout (every other chapter), is a modern day tale. It completely throws you off and is neither compelling nor that interesting. By rights, it should be at the end.
Black-and-white photographs of the men, the planes, the terrain are fascinating to look at.
If you're one of those people who like to read about heroic men in disastrous situations, this is your book.
Recommended.