French Azerbaijani writer Banine’s memoir of her childhood, Days of the Caucasus, is an entertaining early twentieth-century account. Banine was born in 1905 to parents of new wealth. Her mother died from complications following her... Read More

"Where Madness Lies" is an utterly compelling historical novel about the Nazi genocide, told from the perspective of psychiatric patients who reveal the generational impact of mental illness. The two-part story begins in 1934 in Germany,... Read More

Jeffrey H. Jackson’s "Paper Bullets" is a captivating tale of queer love and resistance during World War II. From Paris’s Jazz Age through the war and beyond, Jackson tracks two childhood friends who became lovers and artists and... Read More

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s "Between Two Millstones, Book 2" is a captivating record of his life of exile in the United States. In 1976, Solzhenitsyn, his wife, Alya, and their three sons settled in Cavendish, Vermont, after being exiled... Read More

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’s riveting historical study, "The Nazi Spy Ring in America", concerns Germany’s efforts to infiltrate America in the 1930s through espionage. In the prewar period, espionage agents led by Admiral Canaris, the... Read More

Set in post-WWII England, Janet Todd’s grim mother-daughter novel, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, is about boundaries, love, manipulation, and patriotism. Joan’s life was forever changed by the war and by the birth of her... Read More

Vertiginous and gritty, Andrzej Tichý’s novel "Wretchedness" depicts the seamier side of Europe’s society. Cody is a cellist for an avant-garde ensemble, and Tichý’s narrative weaves in and out of his drug-infused past. While... Read More

In Karen Quevillon’s novel "The Parasol Flower", a doctoral candidate, Nancy, becomes so entranced by an illustration of a painting that she stumbles upon during her research that it changes the course of her life. The painting is the... Read More