Lindbergh. Charles was the mirror to Anne's own ambition and her way out of a conventional straitlaced home. As hungry for life and adventurous as he, she harnessed his fame and his courage to become a groundbreaking aviator and writer. The tragic kidnapping and murder of their infant son became the price Anne paid for her marriage to a hero, and the catalyst for her passionate commitment to her family and to her work. Illuminated by nearly five years of interviews with Anne Morrow Lindbergh, this book offers valuable insights into her thoughts on her life and writing. And it is the work that may finally unravel the mystery of Charles Lindbergh's entanglements in the German Reich, which threatened to destroy Charles and Anne's faltering marriage. Anne Morrow Lindbergh is not only the story of a brilliant writer who probed the heart of womanhood, it is the anatomy of a marriage-the journey of a young bride who overcame the pressures of fame, personal tragedy, and social constraint to find answers that continue to illuminate the lives of women today. Susan Hertog managed to obtain 10 separate interviews with her very private subject (though not access to Anne Morrow Lindbergh's unpublished papers), and her personal involvement shows in every line of this impassioned biography. Hertog's searching account of the Lindbergh marriage explores the complex union of two people who loved each other deeply yet were emotionally ill-suited. Charles "saw the rebel heart inside the timid girl" and liberated a confined daughter of privilege into a world of adventure, but "[the] price she paid for her Prince" was high, including painful loneliness during his frequent absences and, most agonizingly, the 1932 death of their baby son. Though he was killed by kidnappers, in the Lindberghs' view he was equally a victim of the relentless publicity surrounding them. As the couple withdrew to protect their other children, Anne experienced a sense of isolation, but she was also liberated to explore her inner life and to delineate it in her writing-which was always supported by Charles. Hertog, who read Gift from the Sea (1955) as a new mother without knowing anything about its author, enthusiastically assesses that bestseller and other books in which Anne asserted that "a woman must come of age by herself," reminding readers that Anne Morrow Lindbergh is not the wife of a famous aviator, but a source of inspiration in her own right. -Wendy Smith.

The fictions Colette created about herself were part of a lifelong attempt to make sense, not just of her own experience, but of the "secrets of the flesh" (André Gide's phrase in an admiring letter), the bonds that link women to men, parents to children, in an eternal search for love that is also a struggle for dominance. Chronicling Colette's scandalous life-male and female lovers, a stint in vaudeville, an affair with her stepson, a final happy marriage to a younger man-Thurman makes it clear that the writer's adored yet dominating mother and exploitative first husband made it difficult for her to conceive of amorous equality. Yet she nonetheless created a satisfying, creative existence, firmly rooted in the senses and filled with artistic achievement, from the bestselling Claudine novels to the mature insights of The Vagabond and Chéri. Thurman assesses with equal acuity the bleakness of Colette's world-view and a zest for life that it never seemed to dampen. -Wendy Smith.

Bryan Robson is currently manager of West Bromwich Albion, where he masterminded the 'great escape' for the club on 15 May 2005, spectacularly avoiding relegation.

Now, in Into the Rising Sun, O'Donnell presents scores of veterans' personal accounts, based on over a thousand interviews spanning the past ten years, to tell the story of the brutal Pacific war. "They were making a lot of noise, talking, yelling to one another, and I heard someone getting beat up on the left. I can still hear the screams. He was begging for mercy. They [the Japanese] were berating him. Later on I found that it was one of my friends, Ken Ritter. " - Robert Youngdeer, Guadalcanal These veterans were often the first in and the last out of every conflict, from Guadalcanal and Burma to the Philippines and the black sands of Iwo Jima. They faced a cruel enemy willing to try anything, including kamikaze flights and human-guided torpedoes. As O'Donnell explains in the Introduction, most of the men in this book were at first reticent to talk. Over the course of the war, they had spearheaded D-Day-sized beach assaults, encountered cannibalism, suffered friendly-fire incidents, and endured torture as pris-oners of war. Heroes among heroes, they include many recipients of the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, and other medals of battlefield valor, but none bragged about it. As one soldier put it, "When somebody gets decorated, it's because a lot of other men died. " By at last telling their stories, these men present an unvarnished look at the war on the ground, a final gift from aging warriors who have already given so much. Only with these accounts can the true horror of the war in the Pacific be fully known. O'Donnell has carefully verified each account by comparing it with official records and interviews, and he intersperses each story with brief commentary. Together with detailed maps of each battle, the veterans' stories in Into the Rising Sun offer nothing less than a complete picture of the war in the Pacific, a ground-level view of some of history's most brutal combat. The author of Beyond Valor offers a new collection of oral histories from veterans of the Second World War, this time from the Pacific theater. In an introduction, Patrick K. O'Donnell warns, "oral histories are perhaps the best means available to reveal the horrors and pathos of the foxhole. " Indeed, several of the accounts he compiles on these pages are grisly, such as the story of Tom Lyons, stabbed in the neck by a Japanese soldier on Guadalcanal. Lyons survived, but only after being heaped on top of a pile of dead bodies. Rumors of his death reached home: "My mother got a check from my insurance company saying I was dead the same day she got a letter from me written by a nurse at a hospital in New Zealand. " Combat stories abound, including a firsthand account of Gunnery Sergeant William G. Walsh jumping on a grenade to protect his squad on Iwo Jima, a feat for which he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. O'Donnell organizes his material chronologically and introduces each chapter to help readers understand the context of the soldiers' individual narratives. For those who enjoy real-life war stories told from the perspective of the men who were there, Into the Rising Sun is hard to beat. -John Miller.

a. “Kick”), Rosemary’s lobotomy. But it was also the time in which John F. Kennedy rose above the strictures of the clan and became his own man. In the late 1930s, the Kennedys settled in London, where Joseph Kennedy, Sr. , was serving as ambassador. A virulent anti-Semite and isolationist, Kennedy relentlessly and ruthlessly fought to keep America out of the war in Europe. His behavior as patriarch in many ways mirrored his public style. Though he was devoted to the family, he was also manipulative and autocratic. In re-creating the intense and tension-filled interactions among the family, Renehan offers riveting, often revisionist views of Joseph Sr. ; heir apparent Joe Jr. ; Kick, the beautiful socialite; and Jack, the complex charmer. He demonstrates that Joe Jr. , although much like his father in opinion and character, was driven to volunteer for a deadly mission in large part because of his fury at Jack’s seemingly easy successes. Renehan also delves into why Kick, a good Catholic girl, chose to abandon her religion for the chance to enter the fairytale world of the British aristocracy, only to suffer a horrendous tragedy. It is Renehan’s reassessment of Jack, however, that is particularly striking. In subtly breaking away from his domineering father over the issue of World War II, Renehan argues, Jack began to forge the character that would eventually take him to the Oval Office. Going behind the familiar (and accurate) image of JFK as a reckless playboy, Renehan shows us a young man of great intelligence, moral courage, and truly astonishing physical bravery. Somebody once asked John F. Kennedy how he became a war hero. "It was easy," he replied. "They sank my boat. " JFK's adventure aboard PT-109 in the Second World War is fairly well-known. Kennedy's boat did indeed sink in the Pacific, but it was his able leadership that helped his men survive in dangerous waters and then on a deserted island. This episode comprises only a sliver of Edward J. Renehan Jr. 's story of the Kennedy family at war. Father Joe Kennedy, who was FDR's isolationist ambassador to Great Britain, looms over much of the book, especially the first half. JFK's older brother, Joe Jr. , was also involved in the war; when he died on a bombing raid, the family's political aspirations shifted onto Jack. (Sisters Kathleen and Rosemary also receive due attention. ) Renehan provides a fascinating glimpse at how the central event of the 20th century shaped one of America's great dynasties. He disputes a few previous interpretations-he says JFK's book Why England Slept became a bestseller because of its merits rather than his father's eagerness to buy multiple copies. What emerges is a clear picture of the future president as a young man and a story of how a war changed him: He "looked at life and the world in a new and unique way, operating from a perspective he could not have previously imagined. " The Kennedys at War is a welcome addition to a crowded field of Kennedy books and highly recommended for anybody interested in this fascinating family. -John Miller.