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He loved art, but not puzzles

The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Eugene Yelchin

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I had not realized how recently published The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Eugene Yelchin was. I figured this was a 1990s books or even earlier due the 1980s style of cover. But then again, since the author was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s it is probably appropriate to have that feeling to the cover. We learn about the author/illustrator in a way only they can tell us. The troubles, the love, the misunderstandings, the political and […]

Hiding in plain sight.

Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis by Susan Hood and Greg Dawson

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Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis is a romanticized look at how two Jewish girls lived when millions did not. Told in alternating voices, the Narrator, and “Anna” herself or, Zhanna Arshanskaya we learn how Zhanna and her sister Frina, were hiding in plain sight. They performed for the Nazi command, allies of the Nazi and eventually, for themselves. But no matter how much they feared being found out, betrayed by supposed friends, or their hatred of the Nazis, they always felt […]

A Different Focus for WWII

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings

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This book is on the Army Chief of Staff Reading List so I read it when it became available. I’ve read a lot of WWII both in my life and in over the last few years. As this is professional reading, I suppose the kind way to phrase it is that I am over-saturated with WWII at the moment. I was a history major in college, I’m in the military, and my father was described by John Mulaney this week on SNL – he is […]

Fascination into passion

Chernobyl 01:23:40 by Andrew Leatherbarrow

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If you’ve been watching HBO’s Chernobyl than you’ve probably jumped down the nuclear disaster rabbit hole, and you may be looking for something to explain the finer details of the disaster. If, like me, you’re a laymen and can understand the basics of the technology but not the specifics, than a lot of the books out there may be daunting. Maybe you want a more personal account, but you don’t want to pick up one of the 500-800 page tomes out there documenting survivor stories, […]

I kept expecting a wizard, but all I got was Richard Nixon.

Camelot's Court by Robert Dallek

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The aura that surrounds John F. Kennedy is, by itself, worthy of enough attention to warrant a book all by itself. From his familial history to his infamous relationship with women to his storied political career and untimely, traumatizing assassination, few Americans are both so well known and mysterious. I’ve stated before my intention to read a biography on every president. This goal grew out of a plan to rank every president (plus Jefferson Davis) by various criteria. I generally have that done already, but […]

War Is Never Over

The Reawakening by Primo Levi

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Primo Levi’s memoir The Reawakening begins where his Survival in Auschwitz ended. It’s the last days of the WWII, and Levi is trying to stay alive in what passes for a hospital or sick bay in concentration camp. Levi, who committed suicide in 1987, was an Italian Jewish writer and a chemist. He was arrested in as a part of the Italian resistance in 1943, and to escape being shot as a partisan, he confessed to being Jewish, and after a short interment in Italy, […]



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