Refugees and our nation’s soul

After the Last Border by Jessica Goudeau should be required reading for people who fear or loathe strangers coming to the United States to avoid persecution, war and chaos in their home countries.  The author tells of two such women, weaving between their alternating stories the history of immigration and refugee resettlement in this country. …

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An accomplished journalist’s candid memoir

Lost and Found: Coming of Age in the Washington Press Corps by Ellen Hume captures the idealism of a young reporter, from her early days as a cub in California, moving to the L.A. Times and its Washington Bureau, and her intuitive skills in ferreting out the truth behind the headlines and press releases.  As …

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A biography of politics, power and sex

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell, author of A Woman of No Importance, is another display of the author’s mastery of biography. In this scrupulously researched and documented chronicle, her subject is Pamela Churchill Harriman, a too-often-dismissed woman of consequence. A woman of power and influence, she was, in the 20th century, an even more influential courtesan …

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Memorial Day remembrances of fathers at war

The War Diaries of Simon Robert Gordon by Constance Gordon Kean is a daughter’s loving tribute to her father’s and mother’s 1940’s romance against the backdrop of a world war. Her father, a sergeant stationed for three years in the Middle East, kept a daily journal, sharing life behind the front lines supporting combat troops …

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A message to Pete Hegseth about women in combat

A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell is a wonderful biography about an extraordinary woman who played a key role in the defeat of the Nazis in the 1940’s, a woman of courage and powerful leadership skills, a woman of whom most people have never heard, a woman whose life should be instructive to …

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