The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free
• July 14, 2021

THIS OTHERWISE INFORMATIVE HISTORY IS HAMSTRUNG BY ITS FIXATION ON SYLVIA PLATH’S NOTORIOUS SUICIDE Back in the day (circa 1930 – 1960), small-town girls with big-city dreams headed for New […]

‘Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause’
• June 21, 2021

WITH SEARING HONESTY, A RETIRED SOLDIER/PROFESSOR COMES TO TERMS WITH HIS LIFELONG WORSHIP OF A TRAITOR Early in the Civil War, the Union Army seized “Arlington” — Robert E. Lee’s […]

‘The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915’
• May 17, 2021

A DENSELY WRITTEN, FACT-PACKED ACCOUNT OF A PIVOTAL PERIOD IN U.S. HISTORY “The Age of Acrimony” is an apt title for the combustible years from 1865 to 1915, when, according […]

Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘1957: The Year That Launched the American Future’
• April 15, 2021

Former NBC and Fox News correspondent Eric Burns divides his 15th book into five parts, the most important being on race, the cutting issue of our times then and now.

‘Widowish: A Memoir’
• March 10, 2021

In this very personal narrative of joy, grief and recovery, author Melissa Gould struggles with the loss of her husband and the category it suddenly puts her in.

Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘Pride of Family’
• February 11, 2021

A decades-old memoir by Carol Ione and the brand-new Frances “Frank” Rollin Fellowship for African American Biography celebrate Black women and Black writers.

Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘Henry Adams in Washington’
• January 14, 2021

Though fact-filled, this biography by George Washington University professor of English Ormond Seavey does strangely little to reveal the private man behind the public persona.

‘The Lost Diary of M: A Novel’
• September 18, 2020

THIS FICTIONALIZED ACCOUNT OF ONE OF JFK’S REAL-LIFE LOVERS WILL DELIGHT CAMELOT BUFFS AND GOSSIP HOUNDS ALIKE Many intriguing stories spring from the “what if ” crevices of a writer’s […]

‘Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball’s Home Run Revolution’
• August 13, 2020

THE OLD-SCHOOL STYLE OF BATTING HAS BEEN TURNED ON ITS HEAD From the title, “Swing Kings,” readers might think Jared Diamond is writing about Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. But […]

‘Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography’
• July 15, 2020

UNSUNG OR UNWELL? REEVALUATING THE FIRST LADY THROUGH A FEMINIST LENS “Mary Todd Lincoln remains America’s most provocative First Lady,” writes Jean H. Baker in the first sentence of her […]