Menachem Kaiser never knew the grandfather for whom he’s named, a Polish Holocaust survivor. His curiosity about his ancestor led him on the fascinating but often frustrating journey he describes in Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure.

In 2010, Kaiser embarked on an effort he admits was “sentimental and unpragmatic”—to reclaim an apartment building owned by his family before World War II in the Polish city of Sosnowiec. Represented by a lawyer in her 80s nicknamed “the Killer,” he first needed to accomplish what should have been a simple task: proving that his grandfather and other relatives with ties to the building, all of whom either died in the Holocaust or were born well over 100 years ago, are dead.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Menachem Kaiser shares his experience of transforming memory and truth, joy and pain, into his astonishing memoir, Plunder.

But as Kaiser enters the maze of the Polish legal system, his story takes an unexpected turn. He discovers that his grandfather’s cousin, fellow Holocaust survivor Abraham Kajzer, was the author of a well-known memoir of his experiences in the Gross-Rosen network of concentration camps in Poland’s Silesia region. Those camps provided the forced labor for the Nazis’ Project Riese, a complex of underground sites that purportedly housed the legendary gold train, repository of a trove of looted gold and other treasure.

As Kaiser uses Kajzer’s book to explore the story of his newly found relative, he journeys deep into the shadowy realm of Nazi treasure hunters. Some of these enthusiasts are simple loot seekers, while others resemble Civil War reenactors. In this netherworld, conspiracy theories about German antigravity technology and flying saucers are common fare, a “particularly noxious form of revisionism” that trivializes the slaughter of 6 million Jews to serve a more compelling narrative, “usually one with a technological or occult arc.” 

Kaiser is a sober, responsible narrator, concerned with the moral implications of his quest and the persistent challenges of separating fact from fiction. Though it only illuminates a small portion of the enormity that was the Nazi genocide, Plunder is an account that’s undeniably worthy of its subject.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Discover more great memoirs this Memoir March.

From a young age, writer Jennifer Berney knew she wanted a baby. Her longing is palpable and moving in The Other Mothers: Two Women’s Journey to Find the Family That Was Always Theirs as she expresses her desire to care for another little creature, to nurture a life and see it thrive. But her partner, Kellie, is less sure, and Berney shares their story, relating how she and Kellie stayed present with each other as they felt their way through the decision to start a family. It’s a decision that cannot be rushed and requires both women to be patient and steadfast. Once they agree, the book moves on to explore the unique concerns of two women pursuing pregnancy and making a family. 

Questions of where to acquire sperm, how to aid conception and how to know if you are receiving adequate medical care unfold through a series of well-drawn scenes. As a queer woman living in Seattle, Berney expects that medical spaces will be designed with her in mind. The truth proves far more complicated—and infuriating. From impersonal and patriarchal sperm banks to maddening appointments with dense doctors, the journey often feels like a roller coaster. To contextualize her experiences, Berney investigates the history of queer family-making in the Seattle area and finds that informal community networks often facilitated the donation and fertilization processes. Such networks declined during the AIDS epidemic, but in Berney’s present-day story, as the months lengthen, she and her partner begin to pursue similar avenues within their community. Unlike the impersonal and expensive medical experts, these people truly understand the couple—and want to help them. 

In all, this is a beautiful book about love, family, identity and queer community by a gentle and observant writer. Berney is attuned to her body as it goes through the process of fertilization and loss, pregnancy and birth, and as it responds to the people she loves, whether her mother (who can make her heart race) or her partner (who makes her breathe deep) or her friends. As someone who had a child in the last year, I found myself nodding and tearing up as Berney describes what it feels like to want, conceive, carry and bear a child. And as the book reached its closing pages, I found myself wanting to cheer as Berney and her partner become the parents they always wanted to be.

One of the delights of life in a big city is the chance encounter. For Martha Teichner, one such interaction changed her life, and When Harry Met Minnie: A True Story of Love and Friendship is her heartfelt tribute to that singular experience.

Like many dog owners in Manhattan, Teichner—an Emmy-winning correspondent for “CBS Sunday Morning” since 1993—likes to take her bull terrier, Minnie, to the Union Square farmers market. Also like many dog owners, she recognizes others’ canines but not always the humans holding the leash. And so, when a golden retriever named Teddy and a man named Stephen say hello, it takes her a moment to place the man and a moment more to process what he’s saying: His friend Carol is dying of cancer and needs to find a home for Harry the bull terrier. Would Martha be interested?

It’s a surprising, sad request but one the author relates to; she’s loved and lost several wonderful dogs and understands the anguish Carol must be feeling at not only her own declining health but also the possibility of Harry’s death if a new owner isn’t found. Teichner’s dog Goose has also recently died, and she’s been looking for another male bull terrier to keep Minnie company.

Although it feels fated that Harry will become hers, Teichner is worried: about Carol’s feelings, about her ability to properly care for Harry, about how mercurial Minnie will react. She agrees to see how they all feel about each other, with Stephen as chauffeur and aide. What follows is a sweet and poignant getting-to-know-you process. Day visits turn into trial sleepovers for the dogs as Teichner and Carol text each other about their humorous canine-­dating dance. As the women become dear friends, ever aware of the time limit on their togetherness, they assiduously analyze Harry’s many quirks and medical needs and watch with a mix of delight and sorrow as the dogs become pals as well.

When Harry Met Minnie is often a heart-rending read—humans and animals suffer, die and grieve. It’s also studded with wry wit, meaningful musings on friendship and fascinating insights into the author’s and Carol’s lives and work. Teichner already has fans from her decades at CBS, but she’s sure to gain even more with this lovely, moving ode to the beauty and pain of loving our fellow creatures, whether human, canine or otherwise.

Twenty-two-year-old Princeton grad Suleika Jaouad was working as a paralegal in Paris when symptoms of acute myeloid leukemia sent her home to Saratoga Springs, New York, to live with her Swiss-born mother, an artist, and her Tunisian-born father, a French professor at Skidmore College. Raised to roam the globe, Jaouad found that her world had suddenly shrunk to a hospital room at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she underwent a stem cell transplant and other grueling treatments, which she began chronicling in a New York Times column called “Life Interrupted.” Her engrossing memoir, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of Life Interrupted, paints a more complete portrait of her experiences during and after treatment.

Jaouad was supported by her parents and a new boyfriend, who put his life on hold for several years to care for her. The ups and downs of their relationship eventually became fraught. She was also buoyed by other cancer patients her own age, including two gifted, beloved friends, an artist and a poet. As she relates these stories, her honest and reflective voice spares no one, not even herself.

Later Jaouad was stunned to discover that “the hardest part of my cancer treatment was once it was over.” She no longer had her support system, and she felt paralyzed by fear. In an effort to reenter the world after treatment, she set out on a 100-day, 33-state solo pilgrimage to connect with an intriguing array of people who had reached out to her during her illness, including a California mother who had lost her adult son to suicide, a bighearted cook on a Montana ranch and a Louisiana death row inmate named Lil’ GQ. She learned valuable, unexpected lessons from all.

Jaouad’s cancer treatment narrative and travelogue are equally compelling as she deftly mixes moments of grief, anger and despair with joy, gratitude and hefty doses of self-deprecating humor. For instance, as a brand-new driver, the first thing she did when setting out on her journey was drive the wrong way down a New York City street. Not long afterward, she had to look up a YouTube video to help her set up her tent.

Between Two Kingdoms is a thoughtful book from a talented young writer who never sugarcoats or falls prey to false hope. As Jaouad writes, “After you’ve had the ceiling cave in on you—whether through illness or some other catastrophe—you don’t assume structural stability. You must learn to live on the fault lines.” Her message will ring helpful and true to many, regardless of the challenges they face.

In folklore, magpies are said to bring bad luck, but that certainly wasn’t the case for Charlie Gilmour. An abandoned baby bird helped this young British author finally exorcise the long shadow cast by his biological father, who abandoned him as an infant. Gilmour's remarkable memoir, Featherhood: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie, explains in lively, compelling detail how caring for this bird prepared him to become a father himself.

With razor-sharp wit and storytelling, Gilmour interweaves the story of this bird, whom he and his partner named Benzene, with that of his past. His biological father, Heathcote Williams, was a poet, actor and activist very much in the public eye. After Heathcote left, Gilmour's mother eventually married Pink Floyd musician David Gilmour, who adopted Charlie. Despite the fact that Gilmour ended up having what he calls “a dream childhood,” thoughts of the elusive Heathcote haunted him. “Heathcote has lived and breathed in my head all my life,” he writes, “a sort of animated scarecrow constructed from secondhand stories and snatched encounters.” Heathcote, who was an amateur magician, would occasionally appear in his son’s life, only to vanish once again. When Gilmour was an adult, he spent a little time with Heathcote, who was by that point approaching death, and Gilmour paints a searingly honest portrait of this culmination of their fraught relationship.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our interview with Charlie Gilmour, author of Featherhood.

Gilmour freely admits that he was an unlikely candidate to become a wildlife rescuer, writing, “Even healthy animals haven’t had the best of luck in my hands.” Nonetheless, the tiny, ailing Benzene grew up and thrived—while proceeding to take over the household. Undeterred by Benzene’s free rein—not to mention her droppings—Gilmour became completely smitten by, if not obsessed with, the magpie, even holding birthday parties for her with invited guests. Benzene's life "seems more akin to that of a medieval prince than to that of a bird," Gilmour writes, "filled as it is with music, flowers, shiny baubles, and meat.”

Benzene became so tame that Gilmour feared releasing her into the wild, and at the end of the book he cautions readers not to follow his example but to consult wildlife rescue organizations instead. Nonetheless, he reveled in the experience, concluding, “Caring for this creature this past year has brought me out of myself, made me see it’s not just catastrophe that lurks in the unknown; there’s beauty to be found there too.”

Worthy comparisons can be made between Featherhood and Helen Macdonald's H Is for Hawk, and Gilmour was also influenced by Philip Roth’s memoir Patrimony. Gilmour’s upbringing could hardly be more different from Tara Westover’s, but like Educated, Featherhood represents the debut of a talented young writer reckoning with an unusual past.