TAKING AIM AT THE PRESIDENT : THE REMARKABLE STORY OF THE WOMAN WHO SHOT AT GERALD FORD
by Geri Spieler

The only woman to ever shoot a gun at a U.S. president, Sarah Jane Moore was not pictured to be an assassin. She was middle-aged, had a young son and was gracious and charming, but on her own terms. In actuality, Sarah Jane was a woman of many contradictions.
Moore grew up in a small, rural town in West Virginia with extremely strict parents. They had high expectations and were not warm and loving. While in high school, she got involved with the theater, which offered her an escape and with this background, eventually, she was able to mislead people by shifting identities.
She was married five times, abandoned her children (they ended up living with her parents), spied for the FBI and infiltrated radical underground movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
Geri Spieler has written a fascinating tale of an unknown woman, who almost killed a president. For twenty-seven years, the author met with Moore and corresponded with her, plus did her own research.
A good read.
Recommended.

PEACHES & DADDY : A STORY OF THE ROARING TWENTIES, THE BIRTH OF TABLOID MEDIA, AND THE COURTSHIP THAT CAPTURED THE HEART AND IMAGINATION OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC
by Michael M. Greenburg

The Roaring Twenties was a decade of the Charleston, Prohibition, jazz, the Model T, flappers, women's suffrage, and dance marathons. Nice girls smoked cigarettes and hemlines rose. Victorian views were always being challenged. Against this backdrop was the sensational story of Peaches and Daddy.
Edward Browning was a fifty-one-year-old Manhattan millionaire, who fell in love, in 1926, with Frances Heenan, a fifteen-year-old high school student, who worked as a clerk and was never in school. They met at a sorority dance. It was a whirlwind courtship and thirty-seven days later, they were married. Within ten months, they would be in court filing for divorce.
Peaches & Daddy is a rollicking, good tale of a dysfunctional couple, who both loved being in the limelight and entertaining the masses with their eccentricities. The newspapers gobbled it up and tabloid journalism was born.
Michael Greenburg is a terrific writer and captures the "era of wonderful nonsense" effortlessly.
Black and white photographs are interspersed throughout the chapters, plus composographs from the tabloids. There's some great tidbits of fascinating trivia, also. Ed Sullivan is mentioned and how he got his start in the entertainment industry is unbelievable.
A totally enjoyable book.
Highly recommended.

LOOT : THE BATTLE OVER THE STOLEN TREASURES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
by Sharon Waxman

Should the museums of the West own some of the greatest antiquities known to mankind or should they be returned to their countries of origin? The debate has been raging for decades. Of course, the way these artifacts have been acquired is not exactly kosher. For the past two hundred years, they have been illegally excavated, smuggled and sold to dealers and collectors, who sell the items to the museums. The unsuspecting public is then lied to by the written description (legend) next to the object, the origin never fully explained. Their motto is: "don't ask, don't tell."
Sharon Waxman visits the Met, the Louvre, the British Museum, the Getty and the countries from which the treasures were stolen from. She interviews curators, scholars, smugglers, prosecutors and journalists.
Loot is a tremendous read. Waxman has done a tremendous amount of research and effortlessly weaves history and reporting together.
There are black and white photographs interspersed throughout the chapters and eight pages of color photographs.
A book not to be missed.
Highly recommended.

THE ROAD TO RESCUE : THE UNTOLD STORY OF SCHINDLER'S LIST
by Mietek Pemper

Oskar Schindler was a Sudeten German businessman who ran a factory during World War II and saved 1200 Jewish prisoners, from death, by manipulating Nazi leaders. His name became popular due to Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List, which was seen by millions of people. The movie, though, was based on historical inaccuracies and falsities of events that never could have happened.
Mietek Pemper, a Polish Jew, was an inmate at the Plaszow concentration camp, who was forced to work for the sadistic camp commandant, Amon Goth, as his personal stenographer. Because Pemper was also fluent in the German language, he was able to understand the inner workings of the Nazi bureaucracy. In this capacity, Pemper gained access to classified documents and passed them on to Schindler.
The Road to Rescue is a phenomenal expose of one man's exceptional courage, bravery, defiance and eventual victory against a monstrous and murderous regime.
The record is now set right.
Recommended.

RACE TO THE POLAR SEA : THE HEROIC ADVENTURES OF ELISHA KENT KANE
by Ken McGoogan

Not willing to stay at home, hang up a shingle and practice medicine, Elisha Kent Kane was more interested in adventuring around the world. Even though he had heart problems, he had already been involved in death-defying experiences: being dropped in a volcano in the Philippines and almost getting stabbed in a fight in the Sierra Madre. But, when he went on an expedition, serving as the assistant surgeon on a ship, searching for the lost British explorer Sir John Franklin, in the Arctic, he knew he had found his calling.
In 1853, Kane sailed with his own men to look for the Open Polar Sea and Franklin. Eventually, they would be trapped in the ice, but Kane's enduring friendship with the Inuits taught him how to survive in the extreme cold.
Kane and his team would abandon the ship and escape by sledge, dogsled and then open boats, traveling 1,300 miles in eighty-three days.
Who would have thought that a young, thirty-three year old man, from a prominent Philadelphian family, would return home not only as a hero, but as America's greatest explorer.
In Race to the Polar Sea Ken McGoogan has written a fantastic thriller. From the Prologue to the last page, you are caught up in the story. What is really amazing is that Kane's manuscripts were lost for 150 years. A friend of the author, who owns an antiquarian bookstore, acquired Kane's collection from the descendants of his brother.
There are photographs and drawings (Kane did all of his own illustrations).
A book not to be missed.
Highly recommended.

FABERGE'S EGGS : THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE MASTERPIECES THAT OUTLIVED AN EMPIREby Toby Faber

When you see or hear the name Faberge, what comes to mind, today, is toiletries. But, the family, originally, were jewelers and their pieces were designed with the utmost quality and exquisite craftsmanship.
Carl Faberge was known as the "egg guy." Hs firm created fifty eggs, from 1885 to 1917, for Russia's czars to give as Easter presents for their czarinas. What made them so special were the surprises hidden inside each one, such as the 1911 Bay Tree Egg, which has a singing bird emerging from the top of a tree when a jewel is pressed. Others have miniature portraits, a clock, a model train, etc.
Unfortunately, the extravagance of the Romanovs led to their demise and after the Russian Revolution, the eggs disappeared.
In Faberge's Eggs Tony Faber has written a marvelous tale about art, Russian history and wealth of a bygone era.
To round out the book, besides the family trees of both the Faberges and the Romanovs, there is a complete list of all the imperial eggs, a glossary, notes, an extensive bibliography with websites, and an index.
A terrific read.
Highly recommended.

EMILY POST : DAUGHTER OF THE GILDED AGE, MISTRESS OF AMERICAN MANNERS
by Laura Claridge

In 1922, Etiquette : in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home debuted, written by a middle-aged woman, whose name would be recognized as one of the most important Americans in the 20th century.
Emily Post was born a few years after the Civil War ended, the only child of renowned Baltimore architect, Bruce Price and his rich wife, Josephine Lee (her money came from anthracite), whose ancestors sailed on the Mayflower.
After attending numerous balls as a young lady, Emily would meet and then marry Edwin Post, hoping she would have the kind of marriage her parents had. Instead, it ended in divorce with published details in the newspapers.
She now had to support herself and so began the process of writing.
Laura Claridge's Emily Post is a fascinating biography of an authority on good manners, who lived from the Gilded Age through the 1960s and whose book reflected, through numerous revisions, what was expected of people in society.
So, if you want to brush up on etiquette, check out this book. You might learn something.