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.

THE GHOST RUNNER : THE EPIC JOURNEY OF THE MAN THEY COULDN'T STOP
by Bill Jones

In 1940, John Tarrant and his younger brother, Victor, were sent to a children's home in Kent, England to live. Their father, Jack, served in the war and their mother, Edna, was too sick to deal with the boys. They thought they would only be in the home for two years but it stretched to seven, interminably, horrendous years. It was a hideous place. When they finally got out and were retrieved by their father, they were no longer children but teenagers and strangers to him. Edna had died of tuberculosis. Jack had remarried. Tarrant couldn't stand his new environment (smoke-filled rooms, clutter, babies) so he looked for a way out. He took up amateur boxing and competed in a few fights earning a mere pittance. Tarrant quit due to injury. Naturally fit and prone to keeping to himself, he turned to long-distance running. When he tried to join a respectable running club, he was turned down. Because Tarrant had taken cash for sport, the authorities banned him from competing anywhere in Britain and overseas. For the next twenty years, he would fight back by appearing at major running events in disguise. When the pistol was fired, Tarrant would throw off his long coat dressed in his running gear and join the other racers. He set world records of 40 miles and 100 miles. Tarrant never gave up his obsession to be legit. All he ever wanted was to have a number on a vest. So while the officials didn't want to have anything to do with him and tried to keep him away from races, they never succeeded. "The Ghost Runner" would always appear (cheered on by his supporters) and win.
This is an incredible story. The author first heard about John Tarrant in 1985 when he was doing a documentary about the Manchester running club (Tarrant was a member) and read his memoir. From that time forward, he would not stop thinking about Tarrant and became intrigued to know more about him.
Tarrant was not a likeable person. He was self-centered, stubborn, lazy, and basically did what he wanted without caring what others thought. His poor wife, Edie, suffered greatly during their marriage yet she supported him through everything.
Bill Jones has written a great book about an unknown man who ran for revenge and justice.
Highly recommended.

ONE WOMAN IN A HUNDRED : EDNA PHILLIPS AND THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
by Mary Sue Welsh

Her first instrument was the piano; she started at an early age. But when she changed teachers, she became disillusioned. Afraid that she would abandon music altogether, her mother bought her a harp for her eighteenth birthday. Now she needed advanced instruction but it was hard to find an independent teacher. She auditioned, twice, at the Curtis Institute of Music for the harp and the piano. Since her skills on the harp were considered too elementary for the brilliant harpist Carlos Salzedo to take her on as his student, she spent six months working with his assistant to bring her up to par.
Less than two years later, in 1929, Leopold Stokowski needed a harpist for his orchestra and she was recommended.
On October 3, 1930, Edna Phillips joined the Philadelphia Orchestra. She was the first female to have a principal position in a major orchestra. Twenty-three years old, scared to death, surrounded by one hundred men who resented her, Phillips held her head high and plowed right through with steely determination.
One Woman in a Hundred is one fabulous book. All of the stuff that went on during rehearsals with Stokowski (how he intertwined all of the musicians together by his theories of how the music should be played), being led by other conductors such as Arturo Toscanini (he screamed), interactions with the other performers, recording for Walt Disney's Fantasia (wires all over the place), the behind-the-scenes intricacies are revealed here.
Mary Sue Welsh writes as if Phillips herself was the author and she did a masterly job.
There are great black-and-white photos of the orchestra, Phillips with her harp (natch), Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy, Toscanini, et al.
If you're a classical music aficionado, you must get this book. It's funny, fascinating, and an absolute joy to read.
Highly recommended.

THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC CITY : THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE WOMEN WHO HELPED WIN WORLD WAR II
by Denise Kiernan

Have you ever heard of Oak Ridge, Tennessee? Most people have not. It's in the Appalachian hills; a secluded area. In 1942, people who owned land here received letters from the War Department telling them that they had to leave because the government wanted their farms. Of course, they would be paid for their properties. The families really didn't have much choice in the matter. After all, by doing this they would be supporting the war. By the end of the year, construction would begin on creating a  secret city made from scratch. Over 78,000 people (many of them young women) were recruited from all over the United States.They were promised good pay and solid work. Nobody ever really had a clue as to what was going on and what their jobs meant.They were all kept in the dark and told never to question anything. At the end of the war, the truth was revealed to them.
What a great story. Denise Kiernan interviewed many of the residents who are still living there today (in their 90s). The way the author writes is riveting and she captures all of the nuances of how history played out back then. Everybody wanted the war to end but the people that worked at Oak Ridge were more than happy to contribute and were proud to help out.
A tremendous amount of research went into this book (seven years) but it definitely deserved to be written.
Highly recommended.

AFTER VISITING FRIENDS : A SON'S STORY
by Michael Hainey

When Michael Hainey was six, his father, Bob, died. He was found on a street far from home, alone, in Chicago. Heart attack was the determining cause. Only thirty-five years old, Bob was the night slot man (newspaper term) for the Sun-Times and was responsible for getting three editions of the paper out between the hours of 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. Obviously, the job was stressful and to relieve it, Bob was on Valium. Everybody smoked up a storm and drank tons of alcohol. (After working long hours, the guys would all hit the bars.)
As Michael grew up, he started to question about what had happened to his father. His death was such a mystery. Everything was a big secret. He couldn't get anything out of his mother; she was emotionless. She needed strength just to look forward in raising her boys as a widow.
By the time Michael is an adult, his obsession with seeking out the truth to connect the dots no matter what it might do to his family is a constant. He is a reporter and knows the skills that are needed. From endless questioning of his relatives to seeking out colleagues of his father, Michael finally receives what he is looking for.
Michael Hainey is one heck of a writer. The story is powerful and gripping. It's one of these books that is impossible to put down. He writes with such honesty and beauty. You read about family (their past), the old newspaper world (they have a coda of sticking together), how he went about his investigation, and what he found.
Hainey is the deputy editor of GQ. This is his first book and I hope it's not his last. Truly tremendous writing.
Very highly recommended.

USEFUL ENEMIES : JOHN DEMJANJUK AND AMERICA'S OPEN-DOOR POLICY FOR NAZI WAR CRIMINALS
by Richard Rashke

Since John "Iwan" Demjanjuk was involved with war crimes trials for thirty-four years ending in 2011, there have been no more major Nazis called to testify for their atrocities committed during World War II. Most of them are probably dead anyway or too ill and senile.
Demjanjuk was the government's scapegoat. He was really a minor cog in the wheel and his ordeal became long, exhausting, and frustrating: two denaturalization trials, two deportation hearings, two extradition hearings, and two criminal trials. The question was, though, was he a collaborator or just trying to survive? He was subpoenaed by the U.S. Justice Department in 1977 that he had lied on his visa application in 1951 and had illegally entered America the following year.
At the same time that Demjanjuk was being tried in many courtrooms, the good old U.S. of A. was employing and protecting Nazis and Nazi collaborators. Why? Because it was during the Cold War and the U.S. military wanted to recruit "useful" Nazi war criminals to work for the United States as spies, to inform their new bosses who was a Communist and to try and impede it. INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) created loopholes in their policy of who could enter and who could not. (This would be the same policy that prevented thousands of Jewish refugees to come to America.)
Besides the Departments of War and State who trained the Nazis, the White House, the FBI, and the CIA were all involved and worked their butts off to hide, protect and shelter these criminals from those who were investigating them.
Talk about hypocrisy and deceit.
The war criminals that came from the Eastern Bloc countries were despicable. Richard Rashke writes in harrowing detail the horrors that these people committed on the Jews. It's extremely disturbing that these monsters were welcomed in America and they lived as free men when they should have been prosecuted and done away with.
For a 500-plus page tome, the book is extremely readable. Quite an impressive amount of startling research (50 pages of Sources and Notes). In case you can't remember all of the details (and there's plenty), a Timeline is offered.
Useful Enemies is an eye-opener. Anybody who is interested in the Holocaust (there's been plenty written about this subject but not to this extent) should not hesitate.
This book is a standout.
Very highly recommended.