THE FORSAKEN : AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY IN STALIN'S RUSSIA
by Tim Tzouliadis

There is a photograph, from 1934, of young men on a baseball team. They are all from cities across America. One team is the Foreign Workers' Club of Moscow and they're playing against the Autoworkers' Club from nearby Gorky. They smile for the camera.
Thousands of families left the United States for the Five-Year Plan of Soviet Russia in search of a better life. Being unemployed during the Great Depression they were lured by the promise of jobs, plenty of food, a place to live.
They thought they were going to the "Promised Land."
Four years later most of these men will be arrested along with the rest of the Americans and become victims of Stalin's Terror. Some will be killed immediately. Others will be sent to labor camps where they will starve and be worked to death.
The book is an indictment of both Communism and the American government. Roosevelt was deaf, dumb and blind when it came to his dealings with the Soviets. His American Ambassador, Joseph Davies, was totally clueless, naive and oblivious who totally admired Joseph Stalin.
The Forsaken is a superb story of forgotten history. Tsouliadis captures the horrors, the guilt and the innocence in a meticulously researched epic tome.
Highly recommended.

WALKING THROUGH WALLS : A MEMOIR
by Philip Smith

Lew Smith was an interior decorator for the rich and famous in Miami during the 1960s. He was well known for his designs and anybody who had money (including the president of Haiti) wanted their residences decorated by him. But this was not his true calling. His real work was as a psychic healer who cured thousands of people. Exorcisms, seances, talking spirits were daily occurrences.
In Walking Through Walls Philip Smith describes his unusual coming of age story of a father with supernatural powers. It is hilarious, bizarre, and a terrific read.
Highly recommended.

THE GIRL FROM FOREIGN : A SEARCH FOR SHIPWRECKED ANCESTORS, FORGOTTEN HISTORIES, AND A SENSE OF HOME
by Sadia Shepard

Half-Muslim, half-Christian, Sadia Shepard grew up in Boston, the daughter of a Protestant father from Colorado and a Pakistani mother. Her parents had plenty of stories to tell her about their backgrounds and customs. But, her maternal grandmother's legacy was the most complex. She was not Muslim, but had started her life as Rachel Jacobs, descending from the Bene Israel, one of the lost tribes of Israel, who were shipwrecked in India thousands of years ago. Before her grandmother dies, Sadia promises her that she will travel to India to learn about her ancestors.
Armed with film equipment, she takes off for Bombay.
The Girl from Foreign is a fascinating tale of three cultures. Shepard, seamlessly, weaves together the story of her grandparents' secret marriage and a little-known Jewish community. At the same time, she is trying to discover where she, herself, belongs.
I absolutely loved this book. It is so beautifully written. From the prologue to the end, you are swept away into its clutches.
Very highly recommended.

IN THE LAND OF INVISIBLE WOMEN : A FEMALE DOCTOR'S JOURNEY IN THE SAUDI KINGDOM
by Quanta A. Ahmed

Before 9/11, Ahmed, a British-born Muslim of Pakistani origin, leaves the U.S. and goes to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to practice medicine. It was an opportunity that she couldn't pass up. She believes that because she is Muslim, she will have no problem fitting in. Instead, she finds an environment filled with contradictions and a clash between modern and medieval.
The book opens with Ahmed's first patient, an elderly Bedouin woman lying naked on an examining table, with her face veiled, which is required by the Kingdom.
Women must be covered at all times in public even in the hospital where Ahmed worked as a doctor. It is a suffocating and oppressive existence.
Men are free to go wherever they please, to drive, to walk around. Not so for women. They must be always chaperoned, are not allowed to drive, have to be careful no matter where they are.
Ahmed lived in Saudi Arabia for two years and learned how to re-create herself. In a society that is extremely racist and intolerant, she found honesty and love.
In the Land of Invisible Women is a journey that most people will never take, but it's important to know about.
A fascinating and revealing memoir.

MY FATHER'S PARADISE : A SON'S SEARCH FOR HIS JEWISH PAST IN KURDISH IRAQ
by Ariel Sabar

For 2700 years a community of Kurdish Jews lived in the mountainous area of Zakho, Iraq. They lived peacefully with their Christian and Muslim neighbors.
In the 1950s the Jews of Zakho were airlifted to the new state of Israel. Within no time, their exotic culture would soon be extinct as they tried to blend into their surroundings.
Ariel Sabar didn't really know much about Yona, his father. And, he didn't really care growing up in Los Angeles. He just thought his father was strange, holding on to the past. Even though Yona became a renowned authority on the Aramaic language, it didn't phase Ariel. Not until the birth of his first son.
In My Father's Paradise Sabar writes about his family's history in four generations. It is quite a saga. With his skills as a journalist, he pens an incredible tale.
A terrific story, wonderfully told.
Highly recommended.

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.