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The Icon and the Idealist

The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
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The cult of Hollywood

Santa’s gift bag is heavy with books celebrating enduring filmmakers, the making of a Golden Age screen classic, two beloved cult films and a toast to Hollywood’s drinking circuit.
CookbooksAnimals

Celebrating the joys of a dog’s life

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Warning: These books will make you want to adopt a dog. Or another. Maybe even several. The pooches featured in the five books here do everything from joy riding to going for a swim (or at least a dog paddle).

OUT FOR A SWIM
So, you’ve memorized the images in Seth Casteel’s Underwater Dogs (2012) and long for more? Never fear, Underwater Puppies is here! It’s worth the wait: These delightfully damp puppies are even sweeter than those that came before, not least because most of the pups are so very tiny (or: automatically cute). Casteel is a master at capturing the looks on their faces, and the effect is irresistible, whether the subject is Sugar (a boxer who serenely floats among the bubbles) or Bentley (a French bulldog whose expression says, what is going ON here?). The dogs pictured hail from shelters and rescue groups and serve as a reminder that, as Casteel writes, “adoption is a fantastic option when considering bringing a puppy into your life.” And how.

JUST BREATHE
Do you know someone who needs a chill pill? Here’s one in book form: Lessons in Balance: A Dog’s Reflections on Life by 9-year-old Scout, the pit bull star of the Tumblr blog “Stuff on Scout’s Head.” And that’s exactly what you get in this book—photo after photo of Scout calmly balancing all sorts of items on his head, with sayings like “Acknowledge your feelings” and “Look beyond appearances.” Turning the pages is a surprisingly hypnotic experience. After a while, the objects fade, and the consistency of Scout’s mellow gaze prompts a feeling of tranquility. The images can be a hoot, for sure: The bunch of asparagus on Scout’s head is funny, the soap-bubble is impressive and the hourglass is poignant. But the humorous images don’t belie the message. As object-placer and owner Jennifer Gillen writes, “From [Scout] I’ve learned to be present and mindful, focus on the task at hand, and complete it.”

DINING A DEUX
If you live alone, it can seem easier to favor quick-and-easy meals. But there’s another way! Judith Jones offers time-tested strategies for feeding yourself and your canine companion in Love Me, Feed Me: Sharing with Your Dog the -Everyday Good Food You Cook and Enjoy. An esteemed editor at Knopf for 50-plus years who edited the likes of Julia Child and Jacques Pépin, Jones has also written cookbooks herself. She now raises grass-fed cattle on her farm in Vermont, with her dog, Mabon, by her side. He’s her kitchen compatriot, as well, which is eminently sensible of him, since Jones is a longtime champion of cooking for pets. She began in 1933 at age 9, when cans of wet food and bags of kibble were not available. “I liked sharing some of what we were eating with a creature I treasured. It was my way of caring for her,” she writes. In Love Me, Feed Me, she offers 50-plus recipes for meats, pasta and more, along with plenty of photos and stories. Clever tips abound, like this one: Why struggle to scrape a pot clean when you’ve got an eager dog who’s happy to help with the task?

HIT THE ROAD, FIDO
Ah, hitting the road—the time-honored tradition that celebrates freedom, possibility and the delights of windblown hair. In Dogs in Cars, photographer Lara Jo Regan, best known as the guardian of the beloved Mr. Winkle, captures “the pure joy of a dog in its most heightened state” via a gorgeously photographed collection of dogs with eyes alight, tongues flapping, fur ruffled by the breeze. The pooches look thrilled (and beautiful—Regan knows her lighting), and will inspire an urge to hug any nearby pets. All of the images were taken in California and showcase the state’s natural beauty: palm trees, mountains, beaches, glorious skies. Cars range from a 1979 Cadillac Eldorado to a 2014 Toyota Prius (there’s a golf cart, too), and indexes at the back identify the various cars and dog breeds. Dogs in Cars is a fun gift for dog lovers, road-trippers, car aficionados and anyone who wants to gaze upon joy, page after page.

FURRY FRIENDS
Brittni Vega’s Harlow & Sage (and Indiana): A True Story About Best Friends is a sweet and funny story told from Harlow the Weimaraner’s perspective. (Thankfully, Harlow doesn’t use the mangled English favored by some Internet sensations—she would never spell cheese with a “z”!) The book began as an Instagram account in 2013, with wonderful photos of the adventures of Harlow and her older sister Sage. Alas, Sage died a few months later. In an effort to assuage everyone’s sadness, Vega and her husband brought home Indiana, a Dac-hshund puppy. Following along as the dogs and their humans move from fresh grief to fond memories, from begrudging acceptance to true sisterhood, is a lovely experience. There’s lots of dog-centric hilarity, too, which makes Harlow & Sage a great choice for reading to or with kids.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Warning: These books will make you want to adopt a dog. Or another. Maybe even several. The pooches featured in the five books here do everything from joy riding to going for a swim (or at least a dog paddle).

Books to be cherished by curious, creative minds

When I was in third grade, my parents gave me a bright red book that still sits on my bookshelf today: Great Stories for Young Readers. Here are some of our favorite new gift books geared toward all sorts of young readers. With luck, your present to a special someone will become a cherished favorite for decades to come.
Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Design your best home

Feature by Joanna Brichetto

These five new books on home décor could hardly be more different, yet are unified by a common goal: to help us craft our homes into more comfortable, beautiful and uniquely personalized spaces.

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW
It’s only natural that most of us focus on fixing up the inside of our home before we even think about the outside. Aside from the mandatory effort to establish minimum curb appeal, the yard doesn’t get much of a plan at all. Cultivating Garden Style can change this. The big book of inspired ideas from popular columnist and blogger Rochelle Greayer guides readers through the process of transforming outdoor spaces—vast or tiny—into practical yet gorgeous reflections of your own style. Wondering if you even have a garden style? You do, and all will be revealed as you respond to chapters that highlight specific styles via beautiful photographs and a framework of recurring elements—how to personalize with outdoor furniture and accessories, how to select plants—which help you discover and articulate what you like and why. Greayer also includes plenty of simple DIY projects to ensure your space has as much room for personal touches as possible.

EUROPEAN GRAND DESIGN
Veranda magazine is all about luxury and the very best in interior design. This means the magazine’s newest coffee table tome, Veranda: A Passion for Living, is not so much a practical guide as it is a showcase of some of the most beautiful homes in Europe, each with its own style, sense of place and personality. This is total eye candy for us average do-it-yourselfers, but it’s sure to inspire, teach and elevate our sense of the possible. If we see big, then we can dream big and perhaps adapt big. This is the perfect treat for both the design enthusiast and the armchair traveler.    

DECORATE WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM FRIENDS
Desha Peacock has lots of friends. From the bushel of folks she’s gathered together to tell us their stories in her new home décor book, Create The Style You Crave On A Budget You Can Afford, it looks like she could get anyone to talk about anything. No wonder she’s an award-winning TV host and producer. Desha enlists her budget-savvy friends into her conspiratorial cohort, so that we readers come to feel that we’re part of the teamas well, making the most out of our own homes with whatever we’ve got. For instance, there’s Corri in Arkansas, who takes us through her house room by room (with Instagram-inspired photos), proudly showing us how she turned her Little Rock, Arkansas, budget (she operates her own restaurant downtown) into a shining example of design magic. In the second half of the book, Desha lays out every last decorating option we might consider, taking us through “Decision Making 101” for our own idiosyncratic case. Tips on mood boards, color, budget and a resource list round out this well-balanced guide.

YOUR STYLE GURU
On the same subject, but on a different tack, HGTV star and Good Housekeeping Home Design Director Sarah Richardson shows so much confidence in her decorative good sense, she even names her approach (and her book) after herself: Sarah Style has much less regard for budgetary constraints, placing all its emphatic wisdom instead on cleanliness, good taste and artful arrangement. If you have the resources and the ambition, then Sarah is the style guru for you. Richardson goes room by room and offers a virtuosic range of visions: formal, informal, bachelor, Parisian, Victorian, Retro, Pop, minimal and many more, all absolutely gorgeous.

YOU CAN RESTORE IT
The art of furniture restoration is an oft-overlooked subject in the DIY design world, but it finally gets the grand treatment it deserves in Christophe Pourny’s sophisticated and engaging guide, The Furniture Bible: Everything You Need to Identify, Restore & Care for Furniture. As one of the official furniture restorers for the City of New York, Pourny knows his stuff. He challenges readers with a formidable syllabus, including the abilities to identify any piece of furniture by its historical period, materials, construction and finish along with a full run-down of repair techniques and methods of refurbishment. Hundreds of detailed photographs and step-by-step montages make this book a complete education.

These five new books on home décor could hardly be more different, yet are unified by a common goal: to help us craft our homes into more comfortable, beautiful and uniquely personalized spaces.
NonfictionBusiness & Finance

A makeover for your daily grind

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

With the new year comes glorious possibility, which makes this a perfect time to think about improving your outlook and productivity at the office. This trio of books offers ideas, support and strategies in equal measure, no matter your goal: Want to get more done? Banish distractions? Feel connected to your work? These titles are here to help—and inspire.

When it comes to work, what gets you revved up? Analysis or action, efficiency or innovation? Do repetitive tasks drive you bonkers, or are they soothing? While most of us can easily answer those questions, in Work Simply: Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style, Carson Tate points out that most of us don’t actually take the answers into account when we plan our workdays. Calendars and to-do lists are great for some people, but for others, they’re highly detrimental.

“The truth is that the problem is not you. It’s how you are trying to overcome your busyness that is the problem,” Tate says. The workplace productivity expert and career coach explains that, based on research into brain activity and work styles—plus her own experiences and those of her clients—there’s no single, right way to achieve productivity. Instead, there are four predominant “productivity styles”: Prioritizer, Planner, Arranger and Visualizer. A 28-question quiz, the Productivity Style Assessment, will guide readers toward identifying their own style, as well as the styles of their bosses and co-workers. Tate’s on-point assessments of what works for those styles (and what’s never going to, so don’t try to force it!) are supremely useful.

Four detailed case studies are interesting and inspiring, and subject-specific chapters like “Lead a Meeting Revolution” and “Tame Your Inbox” offer hope for the harried. Work Simply is an insightful, supportive book for those who want to do more and better (and have some fun along the way) but haven’t quite figured out how.

FINDING FOCUS
Ah, our techno-centric era—the immediacy of texting, the wonders of wireless, the ability to take photos of anything at any time and send them to anyone. Amazing, sure, but also a recipe for feeling scattered, stressed and always behind. Edward M. Hallowell understands: He’s an M.D. specializing in attention deficit disorder (ADD) and the author of 14 books on the topic, including the best-selling Driven to Distraction.

In Driven to Distraction at Work: How to Focus and Be More Productive, he sets his sights on the six most prevalent time-wasters, from compulsive email-checking to ineffective multitasking to being unable to say no. These distractions are all part of what he calls Attention Deficit Trait (ADT), or “a severe case of modern life.”

While conditions such as ADD and ADHD are genetic, ADT is situational—people may suffer from it at work, but are just fine at home. Wherever it happens, it doesn’t feel good; restlessness, frustration and an inability to focus are the unfortunate result. But there’s hope in these pages.

Based on his treatment of thousands of patients, Hallowell offers ways for readers to identify the distractions in their lives and learn how to deal with them. For example, those who are “toxic worriers” should “Get the facts. Toxic worry is rooted in lack of information, wrong information, or both.”

If achieving “flexible focus” (which he defines as a balance of logical and creative thinking) is proving a challenge, “Draw a picture. Visuals clarify thinking. Draw a diagram, construct a table, cover a page with zigzags. . . . You may soon see the bigger picture you’d been looking for coming into focus.”

Hallowell’s voice is knowledgeable, accessible and, above all, encouraging. We can do it!

GETTING YOUR GROOVE BACK
Christine Carter gets things done: She’s a sociologist at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center; is the best-selling author of Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents; has been cited in The New York Times; interviewed on TV by the likes of Oprah and Dr. Oz; and is raising two daughters. But, as she explains in The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work, not long ago, even she found herself completely overwhelmed and exhausted. Something had to change.

“I needed to get my groove back, to live in my sweet spot . . . that point of optimum impact that athletes strike on a bat or racquet or club, that place where an athlete has both the greatest power and the greatest ease,” she writes. And couldn’t we all benefit from a life that’s easier—less harried, less stressful and more balanced? Carter acknowledges that it might be difficult to achieve a state of flow when there’s so much going on, but her “Sweet Spot Equation” promises to help readers achieve a happier, more relaxed life via tips, strategies and examples in five major areas: Take Recess, Switch Autopilot On, Unshackle Yourself, Cultivate Relationships and Tolerate Some Discomfort. Her data is fascinating, her strategies empowering and, while avid readers of balance-your-life books will have encountered these concepts before, Carter’s take offers fresh approaches; the “Work on your eulogy, not your resume” and “Distinguishing mastery from perfectionism” sections are excellent examples. It’s heady stuff, but if it means getting closer to that sweet spot, it’s definitely worth the effort.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

With the new year comes glorious possibility, which makes this a perfect time to think about improving your outlook and productivity at the office. This trio of books offers ideas, support and strategies in equal measure, no matter your goal: Want to get more done? Banish distractions? Feel connected to your work? These titles are here to help—and inspire.

There’s a book for that: Turning over a new leaf in 2015

So you want to work on some aspect of yourself this year? BookPage is here to help! We've got reading selections from head to toe. Make a resolution to improve your life with small, consistent changes that can make a big difference in the way you think and feel.

NonfictionTrue CrimeBlack HistoryAmerican History

Obstacles on the path to equality

Feature by John T. Slania

The African-American struggle continues in every corner of the nation, from small towns like Ferguson, Missouri, to the boroughs of New York. Thus, Black History Month arrives at a critical time in America. The question is: Can we learn from history? These selections shed new light on the black experience and offer perspectives on the often painful evolution of race relations in America.

Journalist Jill Leovy’s Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America chillingly reflects the violence and racial tension that exists in many urban areas. It’s principally the story of Bryant Tennelle, a Los Angeles teenager who was shot and killed in 2007. At first blush, this might simply be viewed as another black-on-black murder, and something the Los Angeles Police Department would typically ignore. But Tennelle’s father was a police officer. An unlikely hero, police detective John Skaggs, emerges to doggedly work the case and solve the crime.

But Ghettoside is more than just the story of one murdered teen. Leovy broadens her focus to examine the cycle of violence among black men in America—a country in which nearly 40 percent of all murder victims are black. She also offers insight into how the killings can be stopped.

“[W]here the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death,” she writes, “homicide becomes endemic.” Leovy bolsters her argument with extensive research, which included embedding herself within an LAPD detective squad.

SPYING EYES
Sometimes the conflict between law enforcement and African Americans doesn’t play out through violence. F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature reveals the covert side of oppression. Scholar William J. Maxwell conducted an exhaustive records search to uncover files showing that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover spied on African-American writers and silenced some of their work. Maxwell gained access to 51 files demonstrating that over five decades, Hoover was obsessed with black authors, fearing their work might inspire political unrest and violence. He assigned a team of FBI agents to carry out a series of assignments, some as benign as reading advance copies of books, others as serious as persuading publishers to halt the release of books. Targets included Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, as well as the work of Richard Wright, whose poem “The FB Eye Blues” inspired the book’s title.

Among the most stunning examples of the Bureau’s activity was a hate letter written to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964. In it, a white FBI agent posing as a black man tells King he is a “complete fraud and a great liability to all us Negroes.” F.B. Eyes is a startling look at how racism has influenced the highest levels of authority.

THE FUGITIVE TRAIL
In Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, noted historian Eric Foner gives a detailed and often stirring account of the antebellum network that transported escaped slaves from the South to Northern free states and Canada. Foner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written many fine books on the Civil War, slavery and Reconstruction, uncovers new evidence of just how extensive the secret path to freedom was for fugitive slaves.

His account centers on the Underground Railroad’s network in New York City, which had the North’s largest community of free blacks, as well as many ardent white abolitionists. Pre-eminent among them was newspaperman Sydney Howard Gay, who documented the activities of the Underground Railroad in a meticulous “Record of Fugitives,” which logged the arrival of fugitives in the city in 1855 and 1856 and related some of their horrifying personal stories. (In the book’s acknowledgements, Foner credits a former Columbia University student who found the document in the university archives.) Gay’s record details the step-by-step movements of escaped slaves through the city and the deeds of abolitionists who aided their flight. Among those recorded by Gay was Harriet Tubman, who reached New York in November 1856 with a group of runaway slaves from Maryland.

Gateway to Freedom is an important addition to the historical view of the Underground Railroad and a salute to the slaves who “faced daunting odds and demonstrated remarkable courage” in their journeys to freedom.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The African-American struggle continues in every corner of the nation, from small towns like Ferguson, Missouri, to the boroughs of New York. Thus, Black History Month arrives at a critical time in America. The question is: Can we learn from history? These selections shed new light on the black experience and offer perspectives on the often painful evolution of race relations in America.

Two fascinating explorations into Herman Melville’s world

So many books these days are like Chinese cooking—they're a great meal, but they don't stay with you very long. Books that endure tell us about lives we can only dream of. Austen, Dickens, and Twain all lived what they wrote about, and what they lived was radically different from what we know today.
NonfictionMemoir

Reckoning with the power of love

Feature by bookpagedev

Ah, love—everyone wants it, but many feel unsure how to get it or keep it. These titles offer valuable, often entertaining insight on many facets of love. Personal stories, wit and wisdom abound. Go forth and be romantic!

FINDING A LATER SPARK
The New York Times “Modern Love” column has launched many memoirs, and Eve Pell’s popular 2013 essay has grown into Love, Again: The Wisdom of Unexpected Romance. “How do old people meet new loves?” Pell writes. “Here’s how it happened for me: I schemed.” She, 67 and twice-divorced, asked a mutual friend to invite Sam, a 77-year-old widower, to a party. Next came a movie date . . . and three years later, they married. Pell shares their stories, plus those of 14 more couples who found later-life love. Times are changing, Pell notes: “Old people who follow their own hearts are not considered exceptional or outlandish—less Auntie Mame and more Judi Dench.” She adds that, since there will likely be a caretaker (and grieving spouse) in every older couple, “old love” can feel risky, but some find the best way to face the truth of mortality is to seek happiness and enjoy each moment. Pell’s greatest lesson learned: “Trust yourself. Whatever your age, you have the right to live as fully as you can, as fully as you want to.” This lovely, poignant read will bring out the romantic in readers of any age. 

DEVOTION’S DARK SIDE
Lisa A. Phillips tackles a timely, deeply personal topic in Unrequited: Women and Romantic Obsession. Phillips admits that, 20 years ago at age 29, she became obsessed with “B.” The two dated despite his long-distance girlfriend, but as Phillips (fresh off a breakup) fell in love, he pulled away. “For years after I stopped pursuing B.,” she writes, “I could not acknowledge that I’d gone too far.” Friends comforted her, but if she’d been a man, “They would have accused me of stalking.” Phillips acknowledges that, and uses it as a powerful jumping-off point for her far-ranging exploration of women’s obsessive love and its consequences. Unrequited features women’s personal stories and examines obsessive behavior through the lenses of psychology, literature and popular culture. Phillips herself eventually decided that unrequited love was not to be her fate. Meeting her now-husband and years of self-assessment got her there; for others, cognitive behavioral therapy helped with “disrupting the unsatisfying cycle.” Phillips also explores obsession’s impact on its objects, and cautions readers against the “gender pass” (downplaying women’s stalking behavior as somehow less dangerous than men’s). This is a compellingly written, eye-opening guide.

FUN AND MARRIAGE
Tim Dowling professes to be surprised at his evolution from Manhattan bachelor to London husband of 20 years and father of three boys. Of course, as the humor columnist for The Guardian reveals in How to Be a Husband, he’s not really surprised—but he does find it amazing he had the gumption. His relationship started with a meet-cheat: He decided he must be with his now-wife so he cheated on and dumped his long-term girlfriend to do so. It wasn’t characteristic of him, but with new love came more changes, like visits to her London home, immigration-related stress and finally, “We simply agreed —we’ll get married—with the resigned determination of two people plotting to bury a body in the woods.” Dowling admits this is far from a self-help book, as his “successful marriage is built of mistakes.” But he shares lessons despite himself, like the Twelve Labors of Marriage (“Housework,” “Finding Things,” “Nameless Dread”) along with the 40 Precepts of Gross Marital Happiness: “It’s okay to steal small amounts of money from each other” and “Go to bed angry if you want to.” With these clever lists and remembrances of joy, grief and hilarity, Dowling has crafted a heartfelt tale of his married life so far. He pokes fun at stereotypes and advises the hapless: “I’ve always felt that being a good husband and father is a simple matter of occasionally reminding one’s wife and children that they could do a whole lot worse.”

LONG-LIVED LOVE
When you want to learn something, you look to the experts. It worked for Karl Pillemer’s 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans, and he knew it would work for 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage. The seeds of Pillemer’s second book originated from the Marriage Advice Project: He and his team interviewed 700 older Americans in committed relationships lasting from 30 to 70 years, including cohabitants and widows/widowers. Pillemer writes, “For them, it’s no longer a mystery as to how everything will turn out —it’s already happened.”

According to stories the elders share, what we all hear about long-term love (don’t hold grudges; share the chores!) aren’t just empty phrases, but rather words to live by. Readers can start with one of the book’s five sections (“Lessons for Finding a Mate”; “Communication and Conflict”) or delve into 30 lessons on topics like manners, in-laws, work and children. Pillemer, married 36 years, shares his own perspective-shift: “I came to a revelation. They are talking about marriage as a discipline . . . a developmental path where you get better at something by mindfully attending to it and continual practice.” Also, seeing is believing: “Nothing convinces you of the value of making a lifelong commitment like being in the presence of couples who have done just that.” Long live love!

 

This article was originally published in the February 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Ah, love—everyone wants it, but many feel unsure how to get it or keep it. These titles offer valuable, often entertaining insight on many facets of love. Personal stories, wit and wisdom abound. Go forth and be romantic!

Making up your mind: Brain and body working together

“I’m of two minds,” we say. Or, “I changed my mind.” These phrases roll casually off the tongue, but we don’t mean them literally. Maybe we should, according to two new books that explore the fascinating history and tantalizing future of neuroscience.
Nonfiction

Spotlight: The royals at war

Feature by Deborah Hopkinson

The abdication of Britain’s King Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, to marry an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson seems to have all the trappings of a romantic legend. After all, he famously announced in December 1936 that he found it impossible to continue on the throne “without the help and support of the woman I love.”

But as two new books make clear, this particular story wouldn’t have a fairy tale ending. Authors Deborah Cadbury and Andrew Morton provide readers with a rich appreciation for the historical context of World War II and reveal how the royal couple became embroiled in international intrigue and Nazi plots. As one British politician reflected before the abdication, “What a problem this king has been.”

Cadbury sets the stage by placing the story of Edward and Wallis within the broader context of the royal family in WWII and chronicling the lives of all four surviving sons of George V. Princes at War: The Bitter Battle Inside Britain’s Royal Family in the Darkest Days of WWII opens some years earlier, with the death of the Edward VII, in May 1910. His oldest son, Prince Edward, was already confident and assured at 16, having been groomed from birth for the royal role he would assume in life. Certainly he overshadowed the second son, shy and stammering Prince Albert, known as Bertie, whose struggles were illuminated in The King’s Speech and who assumed the throne as George VI after Edward’s abdication.

The Duke of Windsor may have been fickle and feckless, but one pleasure in reading Cadbury’s account is learning more about the conscientious George VI and his efforts to be a good leader to his people. After bombing raids, he and his wife visited battered neighborhoods, and the family remained in London even when the palace sustained damage from a bomb. 

Cadbury also traces George VI’s deepening appreciation for Winston Churchill’s leadership as prime minister as the situation with Germany worsens. But the new king can never seem to get clear of the shadow cast by his older brother; he remained frustrated with Edward’s demands for money and recognition, and more disturbingly, his dangerous flirtation with Nazi Germany.

In 17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis, and the Biggest Cover-Up in History, Morton, best known as the biographer of Princess Diana, brings his considerable narrative skills to telling the story of how the Duke of Windsor went from being an eligible bachelor and playboy to becoming a Nazi sympathizer and embarrassment to the British royal family.

He also explores Simpson’s relationship with Nazi official Joachim von Ribbentrop, who arrived in London to serve as German ambassador to Great Britain in 1936. (The title of Morton’s book derives from the flowers that Ribbentrop apparently sent daily to Mrs. Simpson during this time, along with the speculation that the two had an affair and that 17 referred to the number of times they had slept together.)

In 1940, as Edward and Wallis flitted through Spain and Portugal, their Nazi sympathies posed a danger to their country. While their main objective seemed to be to ensure the continuation of their luxurious lifestyle, Edward spoke out openly against Churchill and the war. Eventually Britain banished him to Bermuda to become governor, hoping to squelch the German plot to make him a puppet king. Even there, the couple continued to court Nazi sympathizers.

But was Edward more than just a problem? Was there written evidence of his treachery and treason? Morton argues that there was indeed, and that British authorities kept the evidence under wraps as part of “the Biggest Cover-Up in History.” He cites archival materials to back his claim that Edward was complicit in the German plot to restore Edward to the throne.

While the story of Edward and Wallis may begin as a romance, by the end it has all the hallmarks of a spy novel.

The abdication of Britain’s King Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, to marry an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson seems to have all the trappings of a romantic legend. After all, he famously announced in December 1936 that he found it impossible to continue on the throne “without the help and support of the woman I love.”

The brains behind America’s pastime

Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half physical, Yogi Berra once said. That precise calculation is debatable, but, however you cut it, the game has always been the thinking person’s sport. So it’s appropriate that each of these books on the national pastime highlights some aspect of baseball’s brain.

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